Just breaking: Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert apparently doesn’t like the latest peace deal Condi Rice and John Bolton were working on, so he's announced--again--an expansion of Israeli operations in Lebanon.
The sticking point seems to be over whether the proposed UN peacekeeping force will have an ROE that will allow it to conduct offensive operations. Olmert insists they must have that authority and the other guys aren't buying that condition.
Here's the problem: if a peacekeeping force conducts offensive operations, it isn't a peacekeeping force, it's a peace enforcement force, which is another way of saying it's a proxy for one side or the other of the conflict.
The Hezbollah members of Lebanon's parliament aren't going to go along with a set up like that, and there is not, nor was there ever, any reason to expect them to.
This still looks like a set up for the "See, we tried diplomacy and it didn't work" punch line.
Lurch,
ReplyDeleteJust got up, am catching up with the situation. Looks like the fighting's still going on. The Knesset doesn't vote until tomorrow?
Well, we wouldn't want to interrupt Shabbas to vote for peace, would we?
ReplyDelete"It probably also means Israel expects to be at the Litani by then, which was one of their major goals."
ReplyDeleteB-I-N-G-O