By James Cooper

(note: article was published in the Aug. 16 edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune; photos on this page were taken by Professor Cooper during his trip to Lebanon in 1984)

Late on Friday, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1701, setting the terms for a cease-fire between the terrorist group Hezbollah and the State of Israel.  While few have much hope for a lasting truce, let alone a peaceful settlement to this conflict, once again international peacekeepers are being given a difficult mission to accomplish in Lebanon with little muscle to undertake it.

Under the resolution, a cease-fire is established and additional U.N. peacekeepers are to be sent to the region.  United Nations observers have been there since 1949 when, under Resolution 50, the Security Council created the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (“UNTSO”) to supervise the Armistice Agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors.  In 1978, two years after the Lebanese Civil War broke out and Israeli troops entered the south of Lebanon to respond to deadly cross-border raids by Palestinian terrorists, the Security Council again sent more troops as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (“UNIFIL”).  Resolution 425 was intended to restore international peace and security, monitor an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and help the Lebanese Government exercise its effective authority in the south of its country.  A myriad of subsequent Security Council resolutions have been passed and still Southern Lebanon remains devoid of governmental authority.  The country is now occupied by Hezbollah fighters, funded, supplied and beholden to Iran and Syria and intent on creating an Islamic theocracy. 

In the Spring of 1984, I spent some time with UNTSO observers and UNIFIL peacekeepers and learned just how difficult a job keeping peace in Lebanon could be.  It was a few months after Hezbollah killed 241 U.S. military personnel with a truck bomb in Beirut.  As part of a multinational force, the U.S. servicemen had been deployed to ensure an orderly withdraw of PLO fighters from Beirut to Tunisia and to keep the fragile peace between warring Lebanese factions.  The Christian Phalange militiamen, Druse warlords, Palestinian gunmen, and Shia triggermen of Amal - the precursor of Hezbollah - had been killing each other for years.  The international monitors and peacekeepers could only fire in self-defense and could do little to prevent the re-arming of the various factions around Lebanon. 

 It was clear back in 1984, as it is today, that only with a strong and sovereign Lebanese Government, multi-ethnic to reflect the make-up of the country, and free of foreign influences and security agents, can peace be established. Friday’s Security Council resolution does little to achieve this.  Nothing much has changed since Resolution 1559 from six years ago, requiring the disarmament of Hezbollah and the re-taking of Southern Lebanon by the Lebanese Army.  

Crafted as a simple peacekeeping operation, Resolution 1701 should have been taken under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter.  Instead, UNIFIL’s mission was merely extended, providing Southern Lebanon with more soldiers for an already weak and irrelevant peacekeeping force.  The resolution authorizes UNIFIL “to take all necessary action in areas of deployment of its forces and as it deems within its capabilities.” Routing out Hezbollah is clearly not in the cards.

Only a robust international force, like troops from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, can effectively disarm Hezbollah and ensure that the anemic Lebanese Army provide security as the Israelis withdraw.  Resolution 1701 makes no mention of Iran or Syria, the very state sponsors of Hezbollah, and those most responsible for the recent crisis in the region.  There is language in the resolution prohibiting arms sales to entities or individuals in Lebanon but given Syria’s hold on Eastern Lebanon and a very porous border, it is unlikely to be a very effective embargo. 

The resolution, does, however, throw in the red herring of Shebaa Farms, now occupied by Israel, but in fact Syrian territory.  That Hezbollah’s leader has called for it to be part of Lebanon speaks to a growing problem – not a Syrian occupation of Lebanon as existed over several decades – but a bigger Hezbollah fiefdom that would include Northern Israel and other parts of Lebanon.   It is important to recognize that Hezbollah’s mission is to destroy Israel.  Resolution 1701 elevates the terrorist group to an important international actor.  This can only spell doom for the future of Lebanon.  That is unless you believe Lebanon should be turned into an Iranian-styled Islamic enclave, rather than a liberal democracy for which the people of Lebanon fought so hard since former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated by a Syrian-Hezbollah truck bomb on February 14, 2005.  

As I traveled the Middle East as a 19-year-old, spending time with international forces around the region, I learned that Lebanon was a beautiful, mysterious and, inevitably, sad country.  International forces were stretched thinly, were targeted by warring factions, and with no international will, did little to bring stability to the area in lieu of a real political settlement.  Resolution 1701 does not do much to change that situation.

Cooper is a professor at California Western School of Law, where he teaches the Law of Armed Conflict and Peacekeeping.