In a recent
diary, I bemoaned the ambiguity regarding France's refusal to supply adequate troops in Lebanon to enforce the buffer zone and the peace treaty. I spun a theory about how France had focused all along on making whatever implication was necessary in order to coax the various parties to get on board the UN resolution so that there would be a cease fire. Now that we are in the implementation phase, with an ongoing cease fire of sorts, it is no longer necessary to continue the pretense.
Well in an article in Slate, Fred Kaplan presents a pictures wherein all of the negotiators, not just France, were doing the same thing in various ways. He analyses two key parts of the UN Resolution 1701 and demonstrates how shades of meaning--what he calls the "fine print"--were chosen to get people to sign, but in a way that almost guarantees the collapse of the cease fire.
For example, in one passage, Hezbollah is forbidden to make any
attacks, while Israel if forbidden from
offensive operations. Since the article nowhere defines what this means, Israel is able to interpret almost any operation against Hezbollah as
defensive, including the recent fullscale attack, complete with air support, against a Hezbollah asset 60 miles north of the border. There are similar ambiguities that apply to Hezbollah, to Lebanon, and to the UN forces.
The most interesting thing about this is that the only way to get the cease fire was to create a document with those ambiguities in it. Otherwise, the full-bore combat would have continued. So, was it unwise or dishonest for the negotiators to have created such a resolution? Once again, it all depends on what your goals are. If you wanted the hostilities to end ASAP, then no, because it worked, we got a cease fire. If your goal was a permanent cessation of hostilities, then yes, it was dishonest, but I think perhaps that goal is, given the history of the region, equally dishonest, at least the people who have it are probably not being honest with themselves.
Time will tell about whether the cease fire will hold. As Kaplan points out, it could still work. The cease fire could hold, there could be a buffer zone. However, this has been an interesting lesson for me in how goals and language intereact in diplomacy. Machiavelli would have been proud.
Greg Shenaut