We treat Hezbollah—you know, our Islamic fascist enemy—as a legitimate nation

Andrew McCarthy writes at The Corner:

Hezbollah wins this big just by being legitimized. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, not a country. The resolution we are signing on to, however, addresses it as if it were a country. The resolution doesn’t purport to direct any UN member nation to make Hezbollah cease firing—least of all Lebanon, the purported sovereign of this territory. Instead, it appeals to Hezbollah directly—in the same paragraph in which it addresses Israel, as if there were no difference in status between the two—and “calls on” it to stand down.

How do we sign onto that? Didn’t we just say about 24 hours ago that we are dealing with “Islamo-fascists” who cannot be reasoned with? Yet, recognizing that no one is willing to fight them, we are joining the “international community” in calling on Hezbollah terrorists to stand down? [Italics added.]

The italicized point was also made at Powerline . They said the lack of Israeli resolve to defeat Hezbollah left the U.S. feeling it needed to yield to international opinion and stop the fighting.

However, Ed Morrissey, “Captain Ed,” sees the agreement as a win-win for Israel:

If [Nasrallah] accepts the terms and allows Siniora to dislodge them from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is finished regardless of their public claims. Their raison d’etre is the defense of the southern border against Israel—and if the Lebanese Army takes that responsibility, then their militia serves no purpose in the middle of Lebanon. If Nasrallah balks, then Israel will have a green light and a wide window to finish the job, and they will have lost very little in the hours it will take for the gambit to play to its conclusion.

Derek C. writes:

Morrissey clearly hasn’t been reading up much on Lebanon if he thinks Hezbollah’s only function is to threaten Israel. They’re a powerful ethno-religious militia in a country riven by ethnic and religious division. Their main reason is to promote the cause of their people, the Shi’ites. Even if they were to yield border duty to the Lebanese Army (which would be a paper concession, at most), they still gain because now they can accumulate a store of longer range missiles from Iran via Syria while being protected by a screen of Lebanese and U.N. troops. The power they could then wield would make them the de facto dominant power in Lebanon, and eventually they could force a new, and more favorable census, that would give them far more de jure power. If this is what develops, then Israel will have a far, far harder time launching another attack. Not only because of the resistance it would create abroad, but also due to the divisions this setback will have in Israelis society.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 11, 2006 09:58 PM | Send