Against an 'international force'. posted by Richard Seymour

This temporary halt in bombing has Blair and Rice clucking about how a UN resolution to secure peace is at hand. A few things worth noting before going on to what sort of resolution they want to pass:

1) The caesura is officially provided so that Israel's military can 'investigate' its own crimes in Qana (and nowhere else).

2) Israel has stipulated that if their 'investigation' concludes before then, the bombing will resume.

3) Israel has stated that will continue to bomb targets where it believes attacks are 'imminent'. Lebanese authorities say bomb attacks occurred early this morning.

4) The temporary cessation of aerial attacks does not mean a truce is in place: the IDF will continue on-the-ground operations. Hezbollah, for its part, promises that Qana "will not go unanswered".

Undoubtedly, this pause is not one that Israel really wanted. The pressure from its UK-US sponsors will have been to give Blair and Rice something to work with - they are confident that they can persuade the 'international community' in its outrage to support a resolution imposing an 'international force' on Lebanon. Condoleeza Rice outlined her ideal peace agreement: the disarmament of Hezbollah, the blockading of all weapons to Lebanon except to the Lebanese government, an international force in the south to oversee the neutering of the only serious defensive force in Lebanon. No arms embargo on Israel. No 'stabilisation force' for them. No disarmament for the IDF, which deserves it more than any other army in the Middle East.

Fouad Siniora, for his part, has stated that Israel's proposal is inadequate and that there must be a total ceasefire, and has praised Nasrallah and Hezbollah's fighters for their stance in defending the country. As well he might - he knows that no international force is going to be accepted in Lebanon, despite the fact that he and his cabinet have publicly supported such a proposal in the last few days. He knows that Hezbollah cannot be disarmed, and that practically the whole country supports what they have been doing. Hezbollah may well be drawn into a reconstituted Lebanese national army, but this is not what is being proposed by those driving the UN process. Siniora knows that his government has hardly an army to speak of (although what there is of it has been fighting), and would have been buried under a mound of rubble with an Israeli flag on top if Hezbollah had not fought. And, moreover, he knows that Lebanese politics have permanently changed. The Hariri gang are politically dead. Walid Jumblatt, who is by way of being a weather vane in Lebanese politics, has destroyed his credibility by initially aligning himself with Israel and especially by taking the opportunity of the Qana massacre to decry 'Syrian intervention'. He does support an 'international force' in the south of Lebanon since he hopes it will destroy his political rivals, whom he is worried about because, he says "they have defeated the Israelis. It's not a question of gaining one more village or losing one more village. They have defeated the Israelis ... But the question now is to whom Nasrallah will offer this victory." Not only does the Lebanese public support the resistance overwhelmingly, it also backs the original kidnapping of the two IDF soldiers, an indication of the substantial shift toward Hezbollah and the resistance.

The Angry Arab has an excellent dissection of this process:

There was a coup d'etat in Lebanon yesterday. Beirut has changed, and not to US/Israeli liking. In two days, a seismic change in Lebanese political attitudes can be noticed. And I am not only talking about public opinion. I am talking about the opinion of members of the Hariri coalition. In the last two days alone, all those Sunni Hariri deputies have clearly distanced themselves from remarks made by Walid Jumblat (although they have not named him): Muhammad Qabbani, Bahiyyah Al-Hariri, `Ammar Huri, Ahmad Fatfat, Samir Al-Jisr, among others). Bahiyya Hariri yesterday criticized the US "green light" on AlJazeera TV. Many of these politicians called AlJazeera live to express their condemnation of Israel and US. Many of them sounded as if they were pleading for their lives. The demonstrators yesterday, who stormed in the UN building in downtown Beirut where my sister works, chanted angry slogans not only against Arab regimes, Israel, and US, but also against Hariri. One chant went like this: "Beirut shall always be free, free; Hariri get the hell out." The demonstrators were planning to head to the US embassy, but Hizbullah and Amal members of parliament present prevented them. They clearly were afraid of things getting out of hand.

The 'international community' may in the short run succeed in putting troops in southern Lebanon, and Israel has announced that it would favour such an option. But who will supply the troops, and under what kind of mandate? The idea that some Lebanese politicians have that Israel will allow UN forces on any substantial area of its side of the border is delusional. And how long before they too are engaging in atrocities themselves, or complaining about Israeli atrocities that they can't control? Further, since when was it actually necessary? If a ceasefire is what is required, every regional actor apart from Israel and its allies is backing that. Israel merely has to stop its crimes. Washington simply has to call off its dogs. How many times have we seen this before? The American government lets one of its client-states off the leash and not only the atrocities themselves, but the very fact of resistance, is used as an excuse to send in the cavalry. When we protest this Saturday, we should protest against the imposition of an 'international force' on Lebanon. The governments that have been cheering Israel on and supplying it with the means of its butchery have no solution to this crisis.

Update: Statement against US-Israeli War on Lebanon.