Lebanon’s Authority at Stake

The Israeli army has begun dismantling its outposts in southern Lebanon as it prepares to meet Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s July 7 deadline for a full withdrawal from the occupied territory. Meanwhile, the Beirut government has had second thoughts about its panicky condemnation of Israel’s unilateral plan to end its 22-year stay in Lebanon.

Prime Minister Salim Hoss now says Lebanon will count on U.N. forces already in the country to maintain a quiet border with Israel. But that’s asking for more than UNIFIL, the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, has ever been able to deliver, although it may have some useful part to play once Israel’s army goes home.

UNIFIL can’t substitute for the Beirut government’s own assertion of sovereignty. That requires sending in the Lebanese army, with the specific task of making sure that Hezbollah, the radical Iran-backed Islamic group whose attacks were decisive in forcing Israel out of Lebanon, curbs its militancy.

The delicately balanced Lebanese government dreads facing that responsibility because it could provoke a confrontation with the most militant of the country’s many sectarian factions and trigger a resumption of Lebanon’s civil war. Yet effective peacekeeping isn’t UNIFIL’s forte. The 4,500-member contingent has been in Lebanon since 1978, but only as an observer force. It stood aside when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and has remained on the sidelines ever since. Even if its size is doubled, as Lebanon wants, UNIFIL could not take the place of a determined affirmation of national authority.

There’s one other player in this game and that’s Syria, which has had 30,000 troops in Lebanon since 1976 and which remains a dominant force in Lebanese politics. Syria has often used a willing Hezbollah to pressure Israel for its own political ends, leverage that Israel’s unilateral pullout will eliminate. Some courageous Lebanese are now publicly saying it’s also time for Syria to leave Lebanon. If that were to happen, and if Beirut could muster the will to reclaim control of the south instead of surrendering the field to Hezbollah, true tranquillity along the border might follow.