If inter-Lebanese tensions can be moderated, despite appearances, Hizbullah has the upper hand over Israel and the US, writes Hassan Nafaa* UN Security Council Resolution 425, calling upon Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon and for the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south, remained unimplemented for 22 years. When, in 2000, Israeli forces were forced to evacuate, Israel claimed that it had done what was required of it under the provisions of the resolution and it called upon the Lebanese government to do the same. But the fact is that Israel did not meet its obligations: it held on to Shebaa Farms. If it had withdrawn from that piece of territory and, also, handed back Lebanese prisoners of war it would have pulled the rug from under Hizbullah and its excuses for sustaining the resistance, holding on to its arms and rejecting the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south. True to form, Israel preferred to keep those issues pending in the hope of being able to use them as a pretext for disarming Hizbullah coercively without having to furnish guarantees against invading Lebanon again. Israel had other alternatives bar a military offensive for responding to Hizbullah's 12 July operation. It chose, however, to put into effect plans it had drawn up with the US aimed at imposing a new set of game rules on the region. It is sufficient, in this regard, to refer readers to the report by Seymour Hersh that appeared in The New Yorker of 14 August, and to that of Wayne Madsen, portions of which appeared in translation in the Lebanese As- Safir newspaper. These articles chronicle numerous meetings held between Israeli and American officials in the US this spring. Madsen, in particular, discusses a meeting held on the sidelines of a forum sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute 17-18 June in Beaver Creek, Colorado. Attended by Vice-President Dick Cheney, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert, former Israeli prime ministers Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, and member of Knesset Naatan Sharansky, this meeting allegedly put the final touches to plans for an Israeli military offensive aimed at destroying Hizbullah, leaving open only the question of a suitable excuse and the right timing. In other words, there is no doubt that the decision to invade Lebanon was been taken jointly by the US and Israel well in advance of the Hizbullah raid and that the ultimate purpose, as Condoleezza Rice put it, was to create a "new Middle East" despite any Lebanese "birth pangs". Although the substance of these meetings has not yet been disclosed, the participants must have agreed on some sort of division of labour, whereby Israel would undertake the war effort, and therefore choose the time and excuse for launching the offensive, and the US would wage the diplomatic battle in a manner that would give Israel the time it needed to accomplish its objectives. Israel's declared objectives were to disarm Hizbullah, destroy its military infrastructure and drive its forces north of the Litani River and to secure the unconditional release of the two Israeli soldiers that Hizbullah forces captured 12 July. The undeclared objectives were much more ambitious. If Israel hoped it could capitalise on its military achievements by altering the political situation on the ground -- so as to ultimately lead to a Lebanese-Israeli peace treaty -- the Americans had their sights set further afield. To hawks in Washington, the Israeli offensive in Lebanon was a "test run" for possible military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. The elimination of Hizbullah was to ascertain the neutrality of the Lebanese front in the event of war with Iran, during which Israel would be expected to furnish, at the very least, logistical support. White House officials also believed that the removal of Hizbullah from the Lebanese political map would weaken Syria, Damascus would be forced to relinquish its alliance with Iran and, perhaps, the Palestinian resistance as well, and accept "reasonable" conditions for a peace agreement with Israel. If Iran's nuclear programme could be destroyed, the Middle East would be on the threshold of that rebirth that Washington has been so ardently anticipating. Everything was set on the diplomatic stage and, particularly after the Hizbullah raid of 12 July, there would be no obstructions of the sort that preceded the invasion of Iraq. The EU was ready to cooperate with the US to the fullest extent, especially with a new government in power in Germany, warmer Franco-American relations following the passage of UN Resolution 1559, and with key Arab states ready to back the diplomatic cover by casting the blame for an Israeli offensive on Hizbullah. Because all the US had to do was to keep the Lebanese crisis out of the Security Council for as long as possible, the US fully expected a smooth drive through international diplomatic circuits. So things transpired at first. Washington had no difficulty in persuading its fellow G8 members, meeting in St Petersburg 16 July, to hold "Hizbullah and its allies in Iran and Syria" fully responsible for the war and to regard them as "a source of instability in the Middle East". At the same time, Washington blithely turned a blind eye to all appeals to end the hostilities and call for an immediate ceasefire. Instead, the US secretary of state said, "there should be a ceasefire only when it is determined that the circumstances are such that there will be no return to the unstable situation that existed beforehand." The success, however, of the American diplomatic drive was contingent upon the realisation of two conditions: the destruction of Hizbullah's military infrastructure within a reasonable period of time and the political isolation of Hizbullah inside Lebanon for having courted the Israeli offensive. Neither of these conditions came to fruition, the first because of the steadfastness and efficacy of the defences of the resistance, the second because of the brutality of the Israeli bombardment. As a result, the American-Israeli plan went awry. The Lebanese rallied behind the resistance with a resolve that helped isolate those forces or bodies of opinion that might have otherwise supported American plans and the Sunni versus Shia card failed in the face of the massive public outcry in the Arab and Islamic world against Israeli aggression, compelling Arab and other governments to change tack and begin to urgently press for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Then came the Rome conference, which the Americans had expected to be a forum for international support for the deployment of Lebanese forces in the south and the dismantling of Hizbullah, which Washington had branded a terrorist organisation bent on forcefully preventing the Lebanese central government from exercising its sovereignty over the whole of Lebanese territory. Instead, the US suddenly found itself presented with Fouad Al-Siniora's seven point truce plan, forcing Washington to scramble for an excuse to buy Israel more time in the hope that Israel would still be able to resolve the situation militarily and impose its own conditions for a ceasefire. However, the Americans could only procrastinate for so long. In the end it could not continue to obstruct and resist pressure for the passage of Security Council Resolution 1701. When considering this controversial resolution, it is important to distinguish between a technical reading and a political one. Technically, Resolution 1701 comes down heavily on Israel's side, granting it the prerogatives it had failed to achieve militarily on the ground. Politically, however, the balances of power on the ground oppose the implementation of the American and Israeli interpretation of 1701. Thus, all is now contingent on future developments. The resolution may have brought an end to a round of military showdown between Israel and Hizbullah, but the war isn't over yet. Indeed, as Robert Fisk points out in The Independent of 17 August, the real war may have only just begun. Any reading of the situation on the ground has to take into account the fact that Hizbullah was not defeated, regardless of what one might infer from the wording of 1701. In fact, one could actually argue that Hizbullah scored a victory. After all, it still holds the two Israeli soldiers; it still retains its militia (in spite of the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south and the arrival of large numbers of international forces); Shebaa Farms is officially being regarded as occupied, or at least disputed, territory; and the international community now officially recognises the sensitivity and urgency of the Lebanese prisoner of war question. So long as Israel does not decide to attack again -- and it is highly doubtful that it could with the presence of so many international forces on the ground -- any prospective political settlement must provide for a prisoner exchange and the return of Shebaa Farms to Lebanese sovereignty. It is now almost impossible to conceive the disarmament of Hizbullah outside the framework of a Lebanese national accord, with Hizbullah voluntarily disarming in exchange for a commitment to build a strong national army, an international guarantee against future Israeli aggression and, perhaps, a solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Clearly, such an accord would be a long time in coming and, undoubtedly, entail the participation of other regional and international powers, which, in turn, will seek some linkage to the other facets of the complex Arab-Israeli struggle. At the same time, however, we must not forget that 1701 is based on the premise that Hizbullah is a terrorist organisation in the face of which the international community is duty bound to come to the rescue of the Lebanese government. The logic -- determined, of course, by an international balance of power skewed heavily in favour of the world's sole superpower -- flies in the face of the important reality that Hizbullah is a legitimate Lebanese political party with a bloc in parliament and members in government. In other words, Hizbullah is part of the government that the international community is supposed to be supporting. Ultimately, therefore, the implementation of 1701 depends on the actions and attitudes of the Lebanese government, which cannot be forced to do anything against its will regardless of how the US and Israel interpret the resolution. As long as this remains the case, one can envision the situation reaching a danger point only under one condition, which is that the Lebanese government takes the view that Hizbullah is an organisation operating outside of the law and whose militia needs to be disarmed by force. As 1701 gives the Lebanese government broad powers to determine the nature of the duties incumbent upon UNIFIL (the UN Interim Forces in Lebanon), theoretically it can ask these forces to assist it in stripping Hizbullah of its arms. This, naturally, is a recipe for civil war, which one would think that all parties would do their utmost to avert. Therefore, one can not help but to feel troubled by some of the statements issued by various Lebanese officials and Hassan Nasrallah's angry responses. Surely, Lebanon's past experience should be sufficient to alert the Lebanese to the need to keep cool and rational heads so that 1701 does not turn into a tool for tearing Lebanon apart politically, especially after all the destruction Israel wrought militarily. * The writer is a professor of political science at Cairo University.
