Washington – Even as diplomatic chatter builds over the prospects of a new multinational peacekeeping force to prevent further fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, a lesson can be drawn from the United Nations’ multinational observer force of about 2,000 soldiers that is already there.
The experience for the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, has not been a good one. In place since 1978 and comprising soldiers from France, Poland, India, Italy and a few other countries, UNIFIL was unable to stop the July 12 Hezbollah border raid that resulted in the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers.
It was also unable to block retaliating Israeli troops from entering Lebanon a few days later.
On Tuesday, an Israeli jet bombed one of UNIFIL’s observation posts, killing several of its members. UNIFIL has suffered 249 deaths during its deployment, according to the U.N. UNIFIL’s most effective role in the latest crisis has been helping to evacuate citizens, no small task in a war zone where civilian and military targets are closely mingled.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan are expected to discuss today – and possibly institute – a new multinational peacekeeping force that could enter the Israeli-Lebanese border region once a cease-fire there is obtained.
But successful prospects for such a force are hardly certain.
UNIFIL was deployed after a Palestinian Liberation Organization attack on an Israeli bus and a subsequent Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
But its effectiveness has been roundly questioned by Israeli officials, and its role as a peacekeeper is certainly now in doubt.
So is its future; its mandate is scheduled to expire Monday, and so far no members of the U.N. Security Council have formally asked that the UNIFIL mission be extended.
The French may do so later this week, a U.S. government official said.
The mission awaiting a new force, though, may require more authority to act, given the lack of a cease-fire.
“There’s no peace to keep,” said John Pike, director of the military analysis group Globalsecurity.org. “There would not be peace to keep until you had persuaded Hezbollah to voluntarily disarm, and they’re not going to do that.”
Pike and other military analysts suggested that talk of a peacekeeping force is premature until fighting has subsided or a diplomatic agreement, such as a cease-fire, is reached.
A U.S. government official said Rice is expected to negotiate and possibly announce the terms of a peacekeeping force during a conference on the Middle East today in Rome. She has dismissed the possibility that U.S. forces, heavily engaged in fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, would take part in a multinational security force in southern Lebanon.
