06 07 24 - To Save a Revolution

By David Ignatius
You could sense the hurt and anger as Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora pleaded this week to the U.S. ambassador and other diplomats in Beirut for a halt to Israeli attacks on Lebanese targets. "The country has been torn to shreds," he said. "I hope you will not let us down."
The challenge for the Bush administration as the Lebanon war explodes into its second week is just that -- to keep faith with Siniora and his Cedar Revolution, even as it stands by its close ally Israel. This isn't simply a question of appearances and public diplomacy. Unless Siniora's government can be strengthened, there is little hope for achieving the U.S. and Israeli goal of bringing Hezbollah's guerrillas under lasting control. "America's role is to energize a political outcome that helps to satisfy Israeli military objectives by other means," says one administration official. The problem is that the American diplomatic timetable is so slow that by the time a cease-fire is reached -- more than a week off, by U.S. estimates -- Lebanon may be too broken to be put back together anytime soon.
Administration officials rightly insist that returning to the status quo in Lebanon would be a mistake. After last year's triumph of forcing a withdrawal of Syrian troops, Siniora's government was struggling (and largely failing) to establish a viable nation. This nation-building effort was hamstrung by Hezbollah's insistence that it maintain what amounted to a state within a state.
The administration's strategy is to let Israel do the dirty work of breaking Hezbollah and then move in a foreign "stabilization force" to bolster the Lebanese army. Once Israel has pushed the guerrillas north, this international force would help the Lebanese army deploy to the southern border with Israel and the eastern border with Syria. The plan is for a beefed-up successor to the existing United Nations force in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL.
The administration's informal deadline for getting a U.N. mandate for this new international force is July 31, when UNIFIL's current mandate expires. The French now command that force, and the United States hopes they can remain in that role, with new troops coming from such robust military powers as Italy, Turkey and Canada.
Siniora has privately warned the Bush administration that by bombing so many targets in Lebanon, Israel is undermining its own strategic goals. Lebanese are angry with Hezbollah for starting the war by kidnapping Israeli soldiers, and most want to see the militia under government control. But Siniora has asked why the Israelis are hitting Lebanese airports, ports, roads, villages and other targets that primarily affect civilians. And he has criticized attacks on the Lebanese army, which even the Israelis say is the key to long-run stability and security.
Some Bush administration officials share Siniora's concern about the scope of Israeli attacks. These officials are said not to understand Israeli targeting decisions. The administration is understood to have communicated this concern to Jerusalem.
The Lebanon crisis has put the administration in a double bind. U.S. officials know they need to move soon toward a cease-fire to preserve any chance for the Siniora government to regain control of the country. But they don't want to move so quickly that they prevent Israel from completing its primary military mission of destroying Hezbollah's arsenal of missiles and pushing the Shiite guerrillas back from the border. The administration's two-track approach is perhaps summed up in Augustus Caesar's famous admonition: "Make haste slowly."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will head for the Middle East this weekend to try to animate this diplomacy. She has no plans to stop in Syria, and that's a sensible decision. It's up to the Syrians to demonstrate that they can play a positive role -- not least to their Sunni Arab neighbors, who are angry about President Bashar al-Assad's alliance with Shiite Iran and its proxies. A recent claim by Syrian intelligence officials that they have no control over Hamas leader Khaled Meshal is said to have infuriated Egypt's intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, who responded indignantly: "Don't give us that! We are not Mauritania! We are Egypt!"
Supporting Israel and Lebanon at the same time is a tricky task -- especially at a moment when the bombs are flying between one nation and the other. Unless the administration moves quickly to demonstrate that it supports the Siniora government, and not just Israel, its larger strategy for defusing the conflict may begin to unravel. Administration officials recognize that a stable Lebanon cannot be achieved by military action alone. But for now, all the world sees is Hezbollah rockets and Israeli bombs.
davidignatius@washpost.com

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