One of the big ideas to solve the current crisis seems to be creating an international force, under the auspices of the UN, and inserting them into southern Lebanon to form a buffer between Israel and 'Lebanon proper'. This is a very odd idea, and I really would like to know why the people promoting it aren't being advised to quietly drop it. It's a very odd idea for a few reasons:
- There is already an international force, under the auspices of the UN, in southern Lebanon, and there has been one there since 1978. UNIFIL, the UN Interim Force In Lebanon, was created in 1978 under Security Council resolutions 425 and 426, and currently has about 2000 staff. If the suggestions were to change UNIFIL's mandate and provide them with more manpower, that might make sense, but suggesting a new force is simply pointless - but see below.
- UNIFIL have been consistently rather useless, anyway. Nominally, they are there "...for the purpose of confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces, restoring international peace and security, and assisting the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area..." and I think it's fair that none of those goals have been achieved, with the possible exception of confirming the Israeli withdrawal, which firstly needed a separate UN mission anyway, and secondly has remained a point of contention, with Syria and Lebanon refusing the accept the withdrawal. I will not say that no UN force could be useful, but...
- Any new force would have to have a pretty wide and powerful mandate, if they were going to get anything done. UNIFIL effectively have no mandate to use any sort of force, at any time, with the possible exception of defending themselves against a direct attack. They are effectively there as observers, with no real power to influence events. The new force would have to be able to use force to promote their goals - which would effectively be the same as UNIFIL's goals, I assume, but in a sense of enforcing them rather than observing an optimistic process towards them. The new force would have to have the power, for example, to fire on Hizbollah missile launchers, and probably on Israeli planes or even troops. I can't see that happening.
- The big problem with the current conflict - the thing which marks it out from all other clashes between Israel and Hizbollah - is range: long-range Hizbollah missiles, and Israeli willingness to make long-range attacks into Lebanon. Until 2000, Israel held a buffer zone in south Lebanon, similar to the current proposed UN-staffed/-enforced area, which was enough to prevent most missile attacks, since the weaponry Hizbollah was using at the time wasn't long-range enough to reach any major cities in Israel from north of the security zone. Even after the Israeli withdrawal, the accepted range of katyushas meant that while they could be a danger and an annoyance in northern Israel, they weren't a serious threat. It's an interesting, though slightly academic, question to wonder how long Hizbollah has had the long-range missiles they're using now - did they have then before the Israeli withdrawal, or did they only obtain them relatively recently? Either way, to genuinely defend northern Israel, the UN force would have to cover a pretty significant area of southern Lebanon, not just the border zone. Israel, of course, with long-range missiles, naval guns, and high-tech aircraft, can effectively hit any part of Lebanon - but I believe that if there were no threat from Hizbollah, there would be no threat from Israel - as I've said before, I honestly don't think Israel has any natural conflict with Lebanon, except for that manufactured by Hizbollah, and I think with them out of the way, that could be a peaceful border. Not a friendly one - not for a while, anyway, and not while the UN was manning it rather than Lebanese - but a peaceful one, which is all anyone really needs for now.
For what it's worth, we did see UN vehicles driving around northern Israel - they have (had?) a base of some sort near Rosh Hanikra, right in the corner where the border meets the coast, although it wasn't military vehicles - mainly large 4x4s (SUVs), painted white, with just the big black letters UN on the side. We also bumped into soldiers - mainly Irish, as I recall - on R&R in Nahariya, with blue berets tucked into their epaulettes and UN badges on their arms, and they always seemed like decent blokes. I don't particularly have anything against the UN troops who are there; they didn't do very much, but at least they didn't do very much wrong, and they didn't have the mandate, the force or the local support to do what should have been their real job: clearing out a terrorist militia which was occupying south Lebanon, and restoring control of their southern border to the sovereign Government of Lebanon.
Should there be a new force in Lebanon, or a beefed-up UNIFIL with more people, more weapons, and a much stronger mandate? I wouldn't say no, but I don't think it's going to happen, and I don't think it would do much good. I don't think there is the international will to send more troops into the Middle East with an interventionism mandate, to send soldiers in explicitly to enforce a buffer between two warring parties - Iraq is sucking up enough international effort, not to mention casualties and money, that I can't see it happening. I also can't see there being the will to give any new force a strong enough mandate for them to do what needs to be done, since it would almost have to be an invasion force. Finally, I simply can't see it happening quickly enough for it to have that much of an immediate effect - I don't think things are going to go on all that much longer as they are - I really hope they don't - if for no other reason than the Americans and other influential foreign groups (EU, UN, Arab League, etc.) will start putting serious diplomatic pressure on Israel, Syria and Iran to calm things down in a few days. I think it's pretty unlikely that any significant UN military action could happen in a timeframe shorter than a few months - it's not the most nimble body...