AMERICAN FUTURE

At least there’s something we agree on. The New York Times has finally gotten around to criticizing the French:

It would be tempting to laugh about France’s paltry commitment of 200 additional peacekeepers for Lebanon, if it weren’t so dangerous. After insisting for years that they be treated like a superpower, the French are behaving as if they have no responsibility for helping dig out of the Lebanon mess.

When the Security Council agreed earlier this month on a cease-fire resolution, scripted by the French and the Americans, it was with the clear understanding that Paris would head the 15,000-member international force and contribute a large number of troops. Now President Jacques Chirac’s generals have cold feet. Such a condition is highly contagious. And there are serious concerns about whether the United Nations can field enough well-trained troops without the French to ensure that Israeli troops withdraw completely and Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel do not start again.

An article in the Jerusalem Post hints at the possibility of a new Lebanese civil war. Earlier today, Lebanese Defense Minister Murr said any group breaking the cease-fire in southern Lebanon would be “decisively dealt with” and would be considered a traitor. His comments apparently were to air concerns that factions other than Hezbullah may attempt to draw retaliation by firing on Israel. At a news conference, he said: “We consider that when the resistance (Hizbullah) is committed not to fire rockets, then any rocket that is fired from the Lebanese territory would be considered collaboration with Israel to provide a pretext (to Israel) to strike.”

The Lebanese military has begun deploying along the border with Syria in northern and eastern Lebanon, in addition to its deployment over the last three days in villages along the southern border with Israel. But the frontier with Syria remains far from secured, officials acknowledged, and Israel is unlikely to relax its vigilance against Hezbollah arms deliveries.

Arab League foreign ministers are meeting to discuss how to fund reconstruction in Lebanon and defuse Mideast tensions amid rising discord between moderate Arab governments and Syria. Referring to the Iranian-funded relief effort in Lebanon, a senior Arab League official said: “This is a war over the hearts and mind of the Lebanese, which Arabs should not lose to the Iranians this time.”

France has called for a EU meeting to coordinate what member countries plan to do about the UN force for Lebanon. Yesterday, President Chirac spoke to leaders from several countries, including Italy’s Prodi and Finnish Prime Minister Vanhanen, to stress the need for a clearer UNIFIL mandate. France wants clarifications from the UN “on the mission of UNIFIL, on the chain of command, how it will be organized, how this force should report on its actions and to whom.” German Chancellor Merkel said “It must be clear what happens if soldiers are drawn into fighting. These rules still need to be worked out.”

In an editorial published yesterday, The Daily Star (Lebanon’s leading English-language daily) contrasted the efficiency of Hezbollah’s relief efforts with the inefficiency of the Government’s. This contrast, avers the editors, “between hyper-organization and utter disorganization . . . lies at the very heart of the ailment of the Lebanese state.”

The state is crippled because it is saddled with an inefficient and corrupt political class. In the absence of any laws or mechanisms to govern the role of the executive branch and hold it accountable to the citizens, the state serves as little more than a gathering point for a privileged class of politicians.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt has challenged and invited Nasrallah to join the Taif state [Taif was the 1989 agreement that set the terms for the end of the Lebanese civil war—Ed.]. While the principle is compelling, the practice of Taif statehood is not. Taif is full of loopholes and contradicting articles that entangle the government, rendering it structurally incapacitated. The state’s operating system – Taif and its archaic governing laws – is also superimposed upon a framework – the Constitution – that adds additional layers of confusion and contradiction.

Jumblatt has warned that we may face the same fate as the Palestinians if Israel pursues the destruction of our political system. But there is a more imminent danger that may lead us to the same fate: ourselves and our leaders. If our leaders do not act decisively to completely revamp the state and its role, making it a strong, efficient and functional institution, the ensuing damages and the destruction of Lebanon will be completely self-inflicted.

From Security Council Resolution 1701:

“Calls for . . . the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations . . . Calls upon the Government of Lebanon to secure its borders and other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent of arms or related materiel . . . Decides further that all states shall take the necessary measures to prevent . . . the sale or supply to any entity or individual in Lebanon of arms and related materiel of all types . . .”

Israeli commandos dropped deep into Lebanon on Saturday . . . “There was an attempt to bring in weaponry from Syria to Lebanon,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said. “The resolution calls for there to be Lebanese soldiers and international force there on the border crossings to prevent this from happening. Unfortunately, they’re not there at the moment. In the interim period, we can’t have a situation where Hezbollah is smuggling weapons and is rearming and regrouping.”

“The Secretary-General is deeply concerned about a violation by the Israeli side of the cessation of hostilities as laid out in Security Council resolution 1701”

A violation, not a possible violation. So Annan has decided that Israel undertook an offensive military action. By the terms of Resolution 1701, this means that Annan knows that the Lebanese government has secured its border with Syria and that the Syrian government has taken “the necessary measures” to prevent weapons from being moved into Lebanon.

How can you be so certain, Mr. Secretary-General?

In one of the more sarcastic editorials I can ever recall reading, The Times lambasts the French for their refusal to “walk-the-walk” in Lebanon:

There are few more regular — or entertaining — sights than French statesmen indulging in grandiose statements of political and philosophical intent, and then proceeding to do absolutely nothing. Whether it is French domestic reform, the future of the European Union, Nato or foreign policy, the French are past masters at saying one thing and doing quite another. And they are all the more reliable for that.

Diplomacy relies on the ability to predict the behaviour of another nation. So the predictable unpredictability of the French is a godsend. Heaven help us if the French were to be consistent with their words: nobody would have a clue what was happening.

This departure from “typical British understatement” is richly deserved. Kudos to the editors.

The French government’s wariness is . . . understandable. French officials have called the mandate agreed for the UN force by the Security Council “a recipe for disaster”. That description is likely to prove accurate. UN troops will not have the power to use force except in self-defence. They will not be allowed to intervene to disarm Hezbollah. They will be reduced to being spectators on the activities of the 15,000-strong Lebanese army: an army that is 80 per cent Shia, and which is known not to want to confront, let alone to disarm, Hezbollah.

All of which is true. But who was it that argued in favor of weakening the original text of the Security Council resolution? It was the French—after representatives of the Arab League objected to the resolution’s initial wording. And who among the Europeans most actively curries the favor of Arabs? The French. What we have here is a double game: the French weaken the resolution and then argue that it’s too weak.

Maybe I’m not giving the French enough credit, as they may even be playing a triple game. Perhaps there will now be negotiated a revised version of the current version having terms of engagement somewhere between those of the original and current versions. After it’s adopted, Paris ups its troop commitment and, in its own eyes, comes out of the ordeal looking golden, once again congratulating itself on the greater “sophistication” of its diplomacy. Before dismissing this as yours truly’s fantasy, keep in mind that the French have never backed down from their commitment to lead the peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

Excerpts:

The army was planning on 15 days of air war before any ground forces were considered, he said. “We didn’t want to do any ground assault and thought we could create the conditions for a cease-fire without a major ground assault.”

The United Nations was “too soft and too late” in negotiating a cease-fire, and Israel then felt it had to act to stop the short-range Katyusha rockets that the army and the government knew, he insisted, could not be stopped with air power alone. “We tried to postpone it until we had no other choice,” the officer said.

The army asked the government for a five-day ground operation to reach the Litani River and was ready on Monday, Aug. 7, the commander said. “The government asked us to wait because of the negotiations, and we waited Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and most of Friday,” he said. Only then, when the negotiations at the United Nations were going against Israel, did Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz order the expanded ground operation, which had only been approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday, Aug. 9. In the end, the army had two days of fighting, not five, before the cease-fire took effect last Monday at 8 a.m.

The Israeli Army scored two important achievements, he confirmed. First, good intelligence allowed it to knock out up to 80 percent of Hezbollah’s medium- and long-range missile launchers in the first two days of the air war, making it impossible for Sheik Nasrallah to fire a longer-range Iranian Zelzal missile on Tel Aviv. More important, Israel was able to destroy launchers within 45 seconds to a minute after they were used, which no other army in the world can do with regularity, he said. Employing drones, radar, precision weapons and artillery, Israel could track a launch and bomb it. But it could not do that with the thousands of short-range Katyusha rockets.

Hezbollah is handing out $12,000 in cash (in U.S. currency, no less) to every family in south Beirut (and possibly elsewhere) whose residence has been destroyed. Iran is funding it—to the tune of $600-$700 million.

So while France retreats and the UN fiddles, Hezbollah is undermining the authority of the Lebanese government and capturing the allegiance of those whose homes were ruined by a war that it instigated.

UPDATE

Confirmation from Reuters:

Hizbollah handed out bundles of cash on Friday to people whose homes were wrecked by Israeli bombing, consolidating the Iranian-backed group’s support among Lebanon’s Shi’ites and embarrassing the Beirut government.

“People already had faith in Hizbollah, this will strengthen their faith,” said Ayman Jaber, 27, with a wad of $12,000 in banknotes Hizbollah had given him.

Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, “A Moment to Be Seized in Lebanon”

. . . everything remains in place awaiting the order to restart the war when the time is right. That arrangement is essentially a return to the status quo ante—precisely what the United States had said it would not permit because that would represent a strategic disaster for the forces of democracy and moderation in the region . . . We are headed for a complete repudiation of the bottom-line American position . . . What is most at stake, from the American perspective, is Lebanon. Lebanon was the most encouraging achievement of the democratization project launched with great risk with the invasion of Iraq . . . Hezbollah is not just returning to being a “state within a state.” It is becoming the state, with the Siniora government reduced to acting as its front . . . This is no time for the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to be saying, when asked about the creation of an international force, that “this really is a responsibility of the Secretariat.” Maybe officially, but if we are not working frantically behind the scenes to make sure that this preposterously inappropriate body gets real troops in quickly, armed with the right equipment and the right mandate, the moment will be lost. And with it Lebanon.

Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times, “Lebanon’s Renewal Is Dashed in Weeks”

The [Lebanese] government review shows that Israel has largely avoided some types of targets: major power plants, water treatment facilities, telephone systems, central government buildings and most factories . . . most of the damage in Beirut has been limited to a single square mile of the southern suburbs . . .

David Makovsky, New York Daily News, “Iran’s Militia Mayhem”

. . . by funneling its oil money to Hezbollah, arming a fierce band of fanatical fighters, Iran has honed a strategy that, if seen to succeed, could replicate itself all across the Arab world . . . A perceived victory for Hezbollah today will spawn clones tomorrow. That’s why it is time for the international community to make it crystal-clear that democratization cannot be built on the false legitimacy of a militia.

Farah Stockman, Boston Globe, “View of common fears drives US-Israel policy”

For the first time in Israel’s history, key figures in the US government believe that the same forces that threaten Israel—Islamic terrorists and a nuclear-armed Iran—also present the greatest strategic threat to the United States.

The Economist, “Only Lebanese Pressure Will Disarm Hizballah”

If Hizballah is ever to give up its weapons and become just another political party, it will be through the pressure of the other Lebanese, not as a direct result of Israel’s war. The trouble for Israel is that in peacemaking, as well as in war, the enemy gets a vote. What the well-meaning protesters who have been marching in Europe in praise of Hizballah refuse to acknowledge is that today, as in the 1940s, Israel still has some neighbors who continue to deny its very right to exist as a Jewish state . . . Hizballah and Iran seriously propose to destroy Israel is hard to tell, but it is what they keep saying – and they have imitators. The Palestinians’ ruling Hamas movement has not yet dared to say out loud that it accepts even the principle of sharing Palestine with a Jewish state. Hamas, after the Lebanon war, is in danger of subscribing anew to the old illusion that Palestine can be liberated by force . . . Hizballah has now killed stone dead the idea of Israel giving up territory again without cast-iron security assurances. So there will be no leaving any of the West Bank until there is a deal.

Oliver Kamm, The Guardian, “Diplomacy has a limit”

British political debate about Israel’s intervention in Lebanon has, with rare exceptions, run the gamut of opinion from A to C, but with a unifying theme that Israel’s actions have been disproportionate to the provocation. In reality, the principal ethical question concerning Israel’s military campaign is whether it has been curtailed too soon . . . Israel’s acceptance of security council resolution 1701 is comparable in aim to its acceptance of the Oslo accords 13 years ago. It knows that lasting peace requires diplomacy . . . diplomacy, it turned out at Oslo, has a limit as well as a role. That limit will be tested and reached if the enemies of peace draw comfort from the curtailment of Israel’s actions against Hizbullah. On that point, the auguries are not encouraging . . . Israel’s critics will claim that military action has strengthened Islamist militancy in Lebanon and the region. But this is question-begging. Hizbullah and its state supporters also claimed vindication from Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon under the dovish government of Ehud Barak.

Barry Rubin, Jerusalem Post, “Cease-fire on verge of collapse”

The Monty Python Prize for Arab politics must go to Emile Lahoud, the well-known Syrian puppet who also happens to be Lebanon’s president. Hizbullah, he explains, “is part of the Lebanese army.” Rather than disarm Hizbullah, he is saying, Lebanon’s army should fight alongside of it. Israel, by his account, should turn over southern Lebanon to the joint Lebanese army-Hizbullah forces . . . If the war restarts, Hizbullah is going to face far greater pressures, especially since the Israeli government’s leaders have already been harshly criticized for going too slowly in the ground offensive . . . Hizbullah may face a two-front war. Lebanese Christians, Druze and Sunnis, the majority of the population, are largely angry at how Hizbullah dragged their country into a war and is increasingly subjugated it to Iran and Syria . . . The Saudis are eager to fund anti-Hizbullah forces in Lebanon . . . And what about the international community? It is not going to be happy about Hizbullah, with the help of its Iranian and Syrian backers, wrecking the UN peace effort. It is going to be hard to criticize Israel for taking military action under such conditions.

Nahum Barnea, Ynetnews, “No Victory”

The truth must be told: We did not win this war. This can be proven by the following hypothetical question I heard yesterday from one former Israeli leader: If Nasrallah would have been asked a month ago if he would have started this war knowing it would end with his organization in the state it currently is, he would likely have answered “yes.” And what if Israeli government ministers had been asked a month ago if they would have approved this operation, knowing the war would have led to the current state of affairs? They would have hemmed and hawed and looked to move on to the next question.

In an editorial follow-up to yesterday’s article, the Washington Post says

Throughout this summer’s crisis in relations between Israel and Lebanon, France has been liberal with its advice and admonitions, as befits the major power it claims to be. Now that the time has arrived to assume the responsibility of a major power, however, France appears suddenly bashful. The consequence for the peace deal it helped broker could be calamitous.

[ . . . ] Asked on the day the resolution was adopted about the deployment of the U.N. force, France’s U.N. ambassador said, “I think it can be very swift.”

Well, not so swift, it turns out, and possibly not so robust. Now that Israel is withdrawing and Hezbollah fighters are emerging with a swagger, French President Jacques Chirac says he is ready to send only an engineering company of 200 soldiers to join 200 serving in the current, and impotent, U.N. force in Lebanon. The French general who had been commanding that force will remain until his tour expires in February; this is apparently as much as the French had in mind when they talked about “leading” the force.

Other nations will be less likely to contribute if France remains on the sidelines, and without a substantial force the peace settlement—fragile to begin with—is far less likely to endure. That, in turn, would seem to offer precisely the wrong lesson for a European nation eager to provide international leadership and to prove that diplomacy and peacekeeping can accomplish more than war.

This must have made the mullahs steaming mad. From USA Today:

The United States blocked an Iranian cargo plane’s flight to Syria last month after intelligence analysts concluded, using satellite photos, that it was carrying sophisticated missiles and launchers to resupply Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, two U.S. intelligence officials say.

Eight days after Hezbollah’s war with Israel began, U.S. diplomats persuaded Turkey and Iraq to deny the plane permission to cross their territory to Damascus.

The episode was detailed by one U.S. intelligence official who saw a report on the incident. It was confirmed by a U.S. official from a second intelligence agency and by a diplomat with a foreign government.

After a meeting nearly 50 countries in New York, the UN’s deputy secretary general, Mark Malloch-Brown, expressed what The Guardian describes as “cautious optimism,” telling reporters that some countries, fearing a scenario in which their soldiers are killed trying to enforce peace, said they needed to know more about the UN force’s terms of engagement before they decided whether to risk troops. His expression of “cautious optimism” took place after France announced that it would provide UNIFIL with only 200 additional troops, not the 3,000 to 4,000 the UN had counted upon.

German Chancellor Merkel, says the International Herald Tribune, “made clear” that Germany would send no combat troops. She did confirm that it might help with naval efforts to secure the Lebanese coast.

The IHT makes note of remarks by the French defense minister that UNIFIL lacks sufficient intelligence, equipment and troops. Talking about self-fulfilling prophesies! Of course UNIFIL will suffer from these shortcomings if France, which still sees itself as the leader of the pack, sends only 200 troops.

If further evidence were needed, as Robert Kagan put it, that Europeans “are from Venus” and are “turning away from power, or to put it a little differently, it is moving beyond power into a self-contained world of laws and rules and transnational negotiation and cooperation,” this is it. The UN, of course, epitomizes this unreal world. Risk lives in an effort, however misguided, to achieve peace? Forget about it. Talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk.

America is sending strong signals that, to use Kagan’s phraseology, it’s no longer “from Mars” and has slipped into the European orbit. Secretary of Rice seems to be trying to out-dissemble the UN’s Malloch-Brown:

“I don’t think there is an expectation that this [UN] force is going to physically disarm Hezbollah. I think it’s a little bit of a misreading about how you disarm a militia. You have to have a plan, first of all, for the disarmament of the militia, and then the hope is that some people lay down their arms voluntarily.”


If Hezbollah resists international demands to disarm, Rice said, “one would have to assume that there will be others who are willing to call Hezbollah what we are willing to call it, which is a terrorist organization.”

Hope? Assume? Resolution 1701 is a farce. The U.S. is pretending it isn’t. The Bush Administration has lost its nerve. Senator Kerry must be a happy man.

RELATED: In The Times, Gerard Baker skewers Bush over the Israel-Hezbollah war, Iran, and Iraq. He’s a worried man—with good reason.

The Washington Post reports that France has rebuffed U.N. pleas to make a major contribution to a peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon. President Jacques Chirac instead intends to send a only a military engineering company of 200 soldiers. He also said that a force of 1,700 French troops and crew stationed in ships off the coast of Lebanon could be sent in to help the U.N. force during a crisis. [What constitutes, and who defines, a “crisis?”] In other words, France isn’t willing to commit any combat-capable ground forces. France wants to lead without taking any chances. I guess the French have a different definition of leadership. Chirac wants a multipolar world without its risks and burdens.

UN Secretary General Annan called Chirac today to see if he would change his mind. Following the meeting, Chirac’s office released a statement indicating he had not yielded. He said that France would only double its contribution to the force, which is headed by a French general, and hoped to continue commanding the mission.

France’s Defense Minister Alliot-Marie was scheduled on Wednesday in a televised address to announce France’s decision to commit to a modest contribution to U.N. force and to begin talks with other European officials about the possibility of setting up a European rapid reaction force. UN officials pleaded with France to hold back on the announcement, fearing it would dissuade other countries from agreeing to join the mission.

France has expressed concern that Hezbollah fighters are not prepared to disarm and may turn their guns on French troops. In 1983, Islamic militants killed 58 French paratroopers in bomb attacks in Beirut. A French military source said the decision was also prompted by the government’s anxiety over serving under U.N. command, citing the loss of some 84 French troops in the U.N. mission in the early 1990s in Bosnia and the seizure of French peacekeepers of hostages. The source also cited “fears of reprisals from Syria or Iran.”

The Post article was posted at 3:06 PM EDT. A Bloomberg article posted at 3:21 PM doesn’t mention France’s change of mind regarding the size of its troop deployment; it states only that “French President Jacques Chirac said his country will lead an expanded United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon.”

This is another follow-up to my “Fight To Win” post.

Jed Babbin concludes his post at RealClearPolitics with this:

From America’s and Israel’s actions, a clear message was sent to the state sponsors of terrorism: neither the United States nor its allies are at all serious about defeating and disarming terrorists. The scope of victories the West can achieve over terrorists is defined by the limits of what the Arab League will insist upon in the UN. All the West’s military might is powerless against a highly motivated, well-funded and well-trained adversary who refuses to stand and fight on the conventional battlefield. The only reason this is true is because we are too irresolute to match the enemy’s determination to win. We—and the Israelis—choose to not apply the force we have in a manner that will achieve the effect we say we desire.

From an op-ed in the Washington Post by Dennis Ross, director for policy planning in the State Department under President George H.W. Bush and special Middle East coordinator under President Clinton:

At a time when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is calling Hezbollah’s victory a defeat for U.S. plans in the Middle East, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is proclaiming that implementation of Resolution 1701 will constitute a strategic setback for the Syrian regime, can Syria’s behavior be altered to make this U.N. resolution’s fate different from those of its predecessors?

The issue of disarmament is not on the agenda, senior Hezbollah official Hassan Fadlallah said on Wednesday, jeopardizing the fragile cease-fire in the region. According to Fadlallah, who spoke with al-Jazeera, Hezbollah will not evacuate its operatives from southern Lebanon since they are the ones who populate the region. “Any such withdrawal means the evacuation of southern Lebanon,” he said.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Lebanese Prime Minister Saniora and Hezbullah’s Nasrallah have reportedly reached a deal allowing Hezbollah to keep its weapons but refrain from exhibiting them in public. Lebanon’s Daily Star, citing a Tuesday report in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, disagrees:

Siniora’s Cabinet unanimously approved the resolution last Saturday but scheduled another session to discuss Hizbullah ministers’ reservations about it and the operative means to implement.

However, the session scheduled for Sunday was indefinitely postponed amid reports that Hizbullah ministers would try to pass the hidden-weapons compromise despite strong opposition from some ministers of the March 14 [Cedar Revolution] Forces.

“I will oppose this compromise deal to the end,” said Tourism Minister Joe Sarkis, who is also a member of the Lebanese Forces. “We are committed to implementing the UN resolution, which clearly states the area south of the Litani River should be disarmed. The Lebanese can fool each other by hiding weapons but we won’t be able to fool the international community.”

Secretary of State Rice opines on Resolution 1701:

this resolution clearly lays out the political principles to secure a lasting peace: no foreign forces, no weapons and no authority in Lebanon other than that of the sovereign Lebanese government. These principles represent a long-standing international consensus that has been affirmed and reaffirmed for decades—but never fully implemented. Now, for the first time, the international community has put its full weight behind a practical political framework to help the Lebanese government realize these principles, including the disarmament of all militias operating on its territory.

If this is the “full weight” of the international community, the unavoidable conclusion is that the international community is a lightweight.

In reaction to a reported deal between Lebanese Prime Minister Saniora and Hezbollah’s Nasrallah allowing Hezbollah to keep its weapons but refrain from exhibiting them in public, an an official in the Prime Minister Omert’s office has warned that Israel will have to resume operations in Lebanon. As quoted in the Jerusalem Post, the official said

[Security Council resolution 1701] is clear that Hizbullah needs to be removed from the border area, embargoed and dismantled. If the resolution is not implemented, we will have to take action to prevent the rearming of Hizbullah. I don’t think backtracking will serve any useful purpose. There has to be pressure on Hizbullah to disarm or there will have to be another round.

Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni is expected to raise the issue when she meets later today in New York with Kofi Annan. Reportedly, Annan angered Israeli officials when he told Israel Channel 2 on Tuesday that “dismantling Hizbullah is not the direct mandate of the UN.”

An official in the Olmert’s Office accused Annan of having an anti-Israel agenda:

He has been one-sided. He tried to be even-handed in a situation that was clearly asymmetrical. When one side committed crimes against humanity and engaged in genocide and the other side defended itself, he cannot treat us in the same manner.

Annan rejected charges of bias, saying,

I have been very hard on Hizbullah and condemned Hizbullah for what it has done. I have condemned Israel for what I consider excessive use of force but it doesn’t mean I am taking one side.

Yeah, right.

I’m all for it. If there are any soldiers—especially any European soldiers—that won’t “disproportionately” favor Lebanon and Hezbollah at the expense of Israel, it’s German soldiers. The mere idea of Germans killing Jews, is, well . . . (words escape me).

The Times reports the details:

The decision to deploy [German] troops to join the 15,000-strong Unifil peacekeeping force was made by Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, in consultation with three Cabinet ministers.

Werner Sonne, a leading commentator, said on German state television that

We have to do this, not in spite of the Holocaust, but because of it. If German troops guard Israel’s borders, they are there to protect Jewish lives. Frankly, there has never been a better reason to bring in soldiers in German uniform.

Merkel, says The Times, seems ready to send some 3,000 troops, of whom about 1,000 will be Pioneers with heavy earth-moving equipment to help to rebuild airports and harbours. The navy, already in the eastern Mediterranean on Operation Active Endeavour, would be strengthened with frigates to patrol the coast of Lebanon. The German Air Force is being put on stand-by to fly reconnaissance missions from Cyprus and the German Border Service could be put on patrol along the Lebanese-Syrian border to stop the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah. German soldiers could find themselves drawn into a firefight in any of these theatres.

The Holocaust taboo is beginning to crumble. Germany has been encouraged to send a big contingent by Prime Minister Olmert. In an interview with the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung this month, Mr Olmert said that

There is at the moment no nation that is behaving in a more friendly way towards Israel than Germany. If Germany can contribute to the security of the Israeli people, that would be a worthwhile task for your country. I would be very happy if Germany participated.

It will be very interesting to see how the German public reacts to Merkel’s decision.

The AP reports that The UN has not received any formal offers of troops for the expanded UNIFIL, although France, Italy, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia have indicated they will make significant contributions. A dozen other countries have also expressed a willingness to help.

France is demanding a more specific mandate for the force, including when it may use firepower. It has sent military engineers to evaluate roads and what the Lebanese army needs to deploy in the troubled south, a spokesman for the French general staff said Tuesday.

Turkey has said it would send soldiers, but not how many. It wants details on where the force would be deployed and under what conditions they could open fire.

Malaysia has said it could send between 850 and 1,000 troops, and is dispatching its foreign minister to Lebanon this week with counterparts from Pakistan and Qatar for talks on implementing the U.N. resolution.

Italy could send up to 3,000 troops, Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema said Tuesday, but added that the exact number will be worked out with other countries contributing to the mission.

Spain’s government is talking to opposition parties about sending 700-800 troops and most parties sound supportive—but any decision needs approval by parliament, not expected before the end of the month.

Norway has said it could send 100 marines and four missile torpedo boats to patrol the coast. Denmark says it cannot send ground troops but could offer a navy ship. Finland reportedly could send 100-200 troops. Ireland, New Zealand and Indonesia have also said they could contribute.

The Washington Post reports on a possible deal between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government:

Hezbollah indicated it would be willing to pull back its fighters and weapons in exchange for a promise from the Lebanese army not to probe too carefully for underground bunkers and weapons caches.

The Lebanese cabinet will vote on the proposal tomorrow.