Why and How Resolution 1701 Will Fail

By: Joseph Hitti

August 16/06

By expressing reservations to UN resolution 1701, Hassan Nasrallah has effectively laid the ground for his outright rejection of the resolution, a rejection he could not publicly make under the pressures mounting during the final hours of the negotiations, but that he will certainly more expressly make in the coming days and weeks.  Hezbollah’s allies on the ground, such as the Free Patriotic Movement of General Michel Aoun, have begun a campaign calling the resolution “ambiguous” and “no more than a truce”, reflecting a deep unwillingness by Hezbollah to live up to the requirements of the resolution.  Elsewhere, in Damascus, Bashar Assad of Syria mocked the US and called the outcome of the war a victory for Hezbollah, again presaging a radicalization by Hezbollah rather than a willingness to comply and put Lebanon back on the track of pacification.

Hezbollah says it will not withdraw north of the Litani, nor will it disarm, so long as there is still one Israeli soldier north of the Lebanese-Israeli border.  This is remake of the Shebaa Farms lie and a perpetuation of the rejectionist, vexing, frustrating, “no deal” approach of Hezbollah and its sponsors. Since the Shebaa Farms are to remain for some time under Israeli control (because resolution 1701 relegates its settlement to a vague future arrangement), then Hezbollah is, as it says, under no obligation to immediately evacuate from south Lebanon, nor will it disarm north of the Litani any time soon.

As a result of this emerging position by Hezbollah vis-à-vis the resolution, France is increasingly on the hot plate. During the negotiations leading to resolution 1701, France acted as a proxy for the Lebanese government, and indirectly for Hezbollah. It went out of its way to dilute the power and strength of the first French-American draft in order to meet the Lebanese-government demands which were nothing more than a capitulation to Hezbollah. By reneging on its original agreement with the Americans over a strong resolution, the French government is now trapped between having negotiated minimal demands on Hezbollah on one hand, which perpetuates France’s image among radical Arabs as a soft Western flank, and on the other hand, the underlying truth that Hezbollah will reject anything that requires it to disarm. In a sign of France’s frustration at having fallen in the radical Arab-Islamic trap, French Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy announced yesterday that his country will not send its troops as the leading contingent of a revamped UNIFIL if Hezbollah refuses to withdraw and disarm. Thus begins the unraveling of resolution 1701.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to pull its troops south of the Blue Line, thus projecting an image of total compliance with the provisions of the resolution. The Lebanese government has (as of today Tuesday August 15) for a second time postponed its meeting to discuss the next step, namely how to disarm Hezbollah, all the while proclaiming that 15,000 Lebanese army troops will deploy by week’s end to the south.

So the emerging picture to date is as follows:

1-     Israel will continue withdrawing its troops down to the minimum presence it judges necessary – and will then hold on to that presence – until, if ever, the new UNIFIL-Lebanese Army force begins moving in.

2-     Hezbollah will continue to tergiversate about its exact reading of 1701 in order to maximize the publicity stunt of the debacle it calls a victory, and to maximize the chances of an incident occurring or to find a pretext to bring up new demands that it will then use to “substantiate” its rejection of resolution 1701, therefore neither withdrawing nor disarming.

3-     The Lebanese government will continue to try to “peacefully, internally, and without outside pressures” convince Hezbollah to agree to evacuating the south and disarming, but to no avail. Under mounting international pressure, and confronted with an angry France, the Siniora government will begin dispatching the Lebanese Army to the south in small symbolic increments just to meet the expectation, but without the necessary mandate in the absence of the international UNIFIL component.

4-     France – since it is the de facto leader of the future multinational force – has clearly said it will not send its troops (hence, neither will Turkey, Belgium, Indonesia, Italy, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Malaysia…) without “serious guarantees” on the disarming of Hezbollah. After Nasrallah said Monday night that “disarming cannot be done in a hasty manner and under pressure”, France’s Foreign Minister retorted by reminding Lebanon of “its obligations” under resolution 1701. For the French, the resolution requires a withdrawal of Hezbollah forces north of the Litani river and their disarming (under resolution 1559) before the deployment of the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL to the south. Which means that until Hezbollah withdraws and disarms, Israel will not evacuate the south of Lebanon. Hezbollah would thus have secured the pretext to claim Lebanon as still “occupied”, and therefore it will not disarm and withdraw. Moreover, the French believe – under resolution 1701 – that it is up to the Lebanese to define the modalities and implement the disarming, and not to UNIFIL. Which means that as long as Hezbollah holds the Siniora government by the throat, there will be no movement forward on implementing 1701.

This stalemate, whose denouement is clearly in the hands of Hezbollah, may last long enough for the status quo to become a “fact on the ground” and resolution 1701 would have been dead in the womb. Any party that unilaterally tries to break through the logjam is likely to trigger a series of events that will make any future implementation of 1701 even more moot and obsolete, again because of the creation of new facts on the ground. Time is not on the resolution’s side, but it is on Hezbollah’s side, and Nasrallah knows it. This is precisely his strategy to scuttle whatever strength the resolution may have at this time. Hezbollah has done it in the past and every indication, this early in the post-hostilities phase, is that it is following the same strategy now.

The only action that could realistically be taken unilaterally is for the Lebanese government to begin sending its troops anyway to the south, absent a UNIFIL dispatch or a Hezbollah withdrawal, thus raising the risks of a confrontation with Hezbollah. Nasrallah said on Monday that the Lebanese Army is “incapable” of defending the south, and he sure would love to put this theory to the test. Cornered as he is between international pressure and a weak Lebanese government still trying to provide him with a fig leaf, Nasrallah might engineer the “incident” needed to create new facts on the ground. Surrounded by a loyal Shiite base and an otherwise subservient Lebanese population, Nasrallah’s “victory” might certainly give him the idea that he should be running Lebanon, rather than the Sunni, Druze and Christian weaklings in the Lebanese government and political establishment. That could serve as the platform for his evasion from the international will to disarm him, and he could trigger a confrontation between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army. Better yet from Nasrallah’s perspective, a confrontation between the Lebanese army and Israeli forces would vindicate Nasrallah’s qualification of the Lebanese Army as “incapable” and would also ensure the death of resolution 1701.

Dr. Joseph Hitti
*Joseph Hitti, President of New England Americans for Lebanon
*Political Commentator
*Active Lebanese Lobbyist in the USA
E.mail joehittimass@yahoo.com

Boston, Massachusetts-USA