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A state of near meltdown?

August 08, 2006 7:22 PM

Senior national security correspondent Jonathan Karl blogs about the efforts to craft a UN Security Council resolution to end the war in Israel and Lebanon:

UPDATED AUG 9TH @ 8:50p ET: Jonathan blogs about Wednesday's developments after the jump.

"I think we've got a lot of problems," a U.S. official involved in the negotiations told me after emerging from tense a Security Council meeting. In the face of stiff Arab opposition, a joint U.S./French effort to craft a proposal to end the violence is in disarray. Further complicating matters, the U.S. and France are no longer in agreement about how to proceed. U.S. officials had hoped the Security Council would pass the resolution -- with or without Arab support -- on Thursday. Don't count on it. (At left, French Ambassador to the United Nations Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, right, talks to an unidentified aide before the start of the U.N. Security Council meeting today.)

Today the only Arab representative on the Security Council -- Qatar -- warned that resolution would actually make the crisis worse, resulting in "grave ramifications" for the entire region.

The Arab objections to the resolution drafted by the U.S. and France are many, but the biggest issue, by far, is the question of when Israeli troops withdraw -- Lebanon wants the Israelis out now; under the draft resolution, the Israelis would leave AFTER an international peace force moves in. (At right, Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman, right, while Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa listens.)

U.S. and French officials have been frantically trying to find away to address the Arab objections -- one idea is to establish a timetable for an Israeli withdrawal -- but now U.S. seem resigned to the fact there probably won't be any effective compromise.

"There may be table pounding in public," one senior U.S. official told me. "But everybody knows how this has to be done."

Apparently not.

There simply is no practical way, in the U.S. view, for the Israelis to leave before there is another force on the ground in southern Lebanon to prevent Hezbollah from re-arming and launching more attacks on Israel. And getting an effective peacekeeping force in place in Lebanon is something that could take a long, long time. (At left, British Ambassador to the United Nations Emyr Jones Pary, left, speaks with U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton today.)

U.S. officials welcomed Lebanon's offer yesterday to send 15,000 Lebanese troops to southern Lebanon, but it's certainly not enough to break this impasse. The problem: the Lebanese Army hasn't been present in southern Lebanon since 1978.

"If the Lebanese Army had been an institution that could control all of Lebanese territory," said a senior U.S. official, "this would not have happened in the first place."

UPDATED AUG 9TH @ 8:50p ET: Jonathan blogs about Wednesday's developments after the jump.

Talks on a U.N. resolution to stop the violence in Lebanon & Israel remain deadlocked.

A top Rice aide says, "She's been working this all day." Not shuttle diplomacy, but telephone diplomacy. At the U.N., Ambassador Bolton spent much of the day in bilateral meetings with the French and then with Lebanon, Qatar and the Arab League delegation. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch met with Sinoira in Beirut. And still nothing.

"It is possible we don't get anything," the aide said. But, he said, it is also possible (if less likely) that there will be a breakthrough and a vote on a resolution by the end of the week. Another senior State Department official said the threat of a wider Israeli offensive in the coming days is "sobering" and may force a diplomatic breakthrough.

U.S. officials publicly say they are patiently trying to get agreement. Privately, they blame France.

"We had a deal with the French and they walked back from it," said a senior State Department official. "Now there is a real possibility that the Israelis hit the gas pedal here. ... The prospect of a wider, deeper, more intense ground push by the Israelis should be quite sobering."

Officials insist the U.S. is simply not going to compromise on the central issue: the timing of the Israeli departure from south Lebanon. The U.S. says a "robust" international force must be in place before the Israelis are asked to leave. Says a senior official: "If you replace something with nothing, you just pass the keys back to Hezbollah and we are not going to do that."

August 8, 2006 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (2)

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Posted by: sniflheim | Aug 9, 2006 1:50:23 PM

Posted by: John Tieso | Aug 9, 2006 6:14:05 PM

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