The Killing of an Irish Soldier in Lebanon Demonstrates the Weakness of the UN

Dec. 22 2022

Founded in 1978 to keep the peace after a brief Israeli campaign to drive the Palestine Liberation Organization out of Lebanon, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was granted the more difficult task of keeping military activity out of the southern part of that country following the 2006 war between Israel and Hizballah. Last week, a UNIFIL convoy passing through a Hizballah stronghold came under fire, resulting in the death of an Irish peacekeeper. Sarit Zehavi comments:

UN Security Council Resolution 2650, renewing the peacekeeping force’s mandate last August, clearly stated that UNIFIL’s freedom of movement, and its ability to move without being accompanied by the Lebanese army, must be maintained. In response to the decision, Hizballah issued explicit threats, saying [that the resolution] would turn UNIFIL forces “into occupation forces whose role would be to protect the Israeli enemy by pursuing the people and the resistance”—in other words, calling for an open season on UNIFIL.

For years, UNIFIL soldiers have been described as agents of the “Zionist entity” working for the “enemy peacekeeping forces” Additionally, Hizballah incited against UNIFIL on social media before and after the [recent attack].

This event demonstrates, on the one hand, the international system’s failure to treat Hizballah as a terrorist organization that primarily threatens the security of Lebanon itself. On the other hand, it present an opportunity to turn the equation around. . . . World powers must take advantage of this opportunity to gain leverage over the Lebanese government. Demands to investigate the killing of the Irish soldier and bring those responsible to justice could be a powerful message that the international system will no longer tolerate the strengthening of Hizballah within the Lebanese system, and that its power must be limited.

Read more at i24News

More about: Hizballah, Lebanon, United Nations

American Middle East Policy Should Focus Less on Stability and More on Weakening Enemies

Feb. 10 2025

To Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s plan to remove the entire population of Gaza while the Strip is rebuilt is “unworkable,” at least “as a concrete proposal.” But it is welcome insofar as “its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.” The U.S., writes Abrams, must not only move beyond the failed approach to Gaza, but also must reject other assumptions that have failed time and again. One is the commitment to an illusory stability:

For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hizballah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

Such an approach must be applied above all to the greatest threat in today’s Middle East, that of a nuclear Iran:

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging [Iranian supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of [his regional proxies], mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear-weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear-weapons program grows in the shadows.

Read more at Foreign Affairs

More about: Iran, Middle East, U.S. Foreign policy