Many Motives Behind a Cease-Fire
By Gerald F. Seib
Wall Street Journal
August 5, 2006
The United Nations Security Council may well succeed next week in cobbling together a resolution to end the fighting in Lebanon. But as with most things Middle Eastern, all won't be as it seems. Each of the parties involved will be trying to use a cease-fire resolution to accomplish something other than simply ceasing the firing.
Hezbollah will want to cement the impression in the region that it successfully stood up to the mighty Israeli military machine. Israel's main goal, by contrast, will be a resolution that brings international help in disarming Hezbollah.
Lebanon itself will want the resolution to pave the way for a rapid end to the embarrassing presence of Israeli soldiers on its territory. And France, which is likely to lead whatever international peacekeeping force goes into southern Lebanon, will want an agreement that limits the duties and dangers its forces will assume.
And what about the U.S.?
Washington's real goal is likely to be far broader, stretching beyond Lebanon itself. Washington's real interest lies in finding a formula that ends the fighting without enhancing the power of Iran, Hezbollah's main patron and the country that poses the real strategic threat to American interests in the region.
The great danger to the U.S. is that the Lebanon conflict could simply further Tehran's rising influence because of its backing of Hezbollah. If Iran emerges in the eyes of the region's restive and disillusioned publics as the one country with the guts and power to stand up to Israel, its stature is enhanced. And because Iran is the biggest Shiite Muslim power center in the region, the influence of the region's Shiites grows overall. That isn't good news for the Sunni Muslim-led governments of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, America's strongest friends in the Arab world.
That means the U.S. will be trying to steer the U.N. diplomacy to accomplish two things. The first will be to establish a system that prevents Iran from rearming Hezbollah with more missiles and rockets, thereby limiting the power and potency of what has become a kind of proxy force for Iran.
That will require shining "some kind of international spotlight on the arms transfers from Iran to Syria to Beirut," says Aaron Miller of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, a longtime Mideast negotiator. It also means pushing for an international peacekeeping force that has the mandate and the power to stop rocket and missile shipments.
The second goal will be to emerge from the cease-fire diplomacy having cemented greater international resolve to put a lid on Iran's nuclear program. That, after all, is what the U.S. once thought the Security Council would be occupying itself with this month. If the U.S. manages to stay in sync with France and others on the Security Council through the next week's diplomacy, perhaps all can agree that is the next item on a very urgent to-do list.
Wall Street Journal
August 5, 2006
The United Nations Security Council may well succeed next week in cobbling together a resolution to end the fighting in Lebanon. But as with most things Middle Eastern, all won't be as it seems. Each of the parties involved will be trying to use a cease-fire resolution to accomplish something other than simply ceasing the firing.
Hezbollah will want to cement the impression in the region that it successfully stood up to the mighty Israeli military machine. Israel's main goal, by contrast, will be a resolution that brings international help in disarming Hezbollah.
Lebanon itself will want the resolution to pave the way for a rapid end to the embarrassing presence of Israeli soldiers on its territory. And France, which is likely to lead whatever international peacekeeping force goes into southern Lebanon, will want an agreement that limits the duties and dangers its forces will assume.
And what about the U.S.?
Washington's real goal is likely to be far broader, stretching beyond Lebanon itself. Washington's real interest lies in finding a formula that ends the fighting without enhancing the power of Iran, Hezbollah's main patron and the country that poses the real strategic threat to American interests in the region.
The great danger to the U.S. is that the Lebanon conflict could simply further Tehran's rising influence because of its backing of Hezbollah. If Iran emerges in the eyes of the region's restive and disillusioned publics as the one country with the guts and power to stand up to Israel, its stature is enhanced. And because Iran is the biggest Shiite Muslim power center in the region, the influence of the region's Shiites grows overall. That isn't good news for the Sunni Muslim-led governments of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, America's strongest friends in the Arab world.
That means the U.S. will be trying to steer the U.N. diplomacy to accomplish two things. The first will be to establish a system that prevents Iran from rearming Hezbollah with more missiles and rockets, thereby limiting the power and potency of what has become a kind of proxy force for Iran.
That will require shining "some kind of international spotlight on the arms transfers from Iran to Syria to Beirut," says Aaron Miller of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, a longtime Mideast negotiator. It also means pushing for an international peacekeeping force that has the mandate and the power to stop rocket and missile shipments.
The second goal will be to emerge from the cease-fire diplomacy having cemented greater international resolve to put a lid on Iran's nuclear program. That, after all, is what the U.S. once thought the Security Council would be occupying itself with this month. If the U.S. manages to stay in sync with France and others on the Security Council through the next week's diplomacy, perhaps all can agree that is the next item on a very urgent to-do list.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 9:47 AM
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