Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

This is the mission statement: "UNIFIL was created in 1978 to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, restore the international peace and security, and help the Lebanese Government restore its effective authority in the area." We're talking about the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. Costing $233 million a year, UNIFIL has brought neither peace nor security to the area. Now Kofi Annan is calling for a larger UN force to be sent to the region. Is he unwell?

Talking of poor form, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is saying that Israel is "opening the gates of hell and madness" on his country. The man must be suffering from schizophrenia, just like his country is. Lebanon is a land with two personalities. One act like a normal state; declares itself to be free, welcomes tourists and property developers and purports to act in moderation. The other persona consorts with an organization that uses terror against civilians, bathes in racist rhetoric and demands the liquidation of Israel. Siniora needs to be reminded that because his governing partner staged a cross-border attack on its neighbour from Lebanese territory (watched over by UNFIL) that resulted in killing and kidnapping, his country is now paying for its duplicity.

But maybe Fouad Siniora is more deluded than we know and maybe his country isn't a country at all. As Austin Bay so lucidly points out: "Israel is being fired upon from a Lebanon that 'is not quite Lebanon' in a truly sovereign sense. The rockets, of course, come from 'somewhere,' but Hezbollah's 'somewhere' is a political limbo in terms of maps with definitive geo-political boundaries. Lebanon is a 'failed state' — a peculiar failed state (it's not Somalia), but nevertheless failed. It will continue to fail so long as the Lebanese government cannot control Hezbollah — and control means disarm." Indeed. It's not going to be easy to make peace with a country that can't make up its mind about what it is. That last thing it needs is thousands more "peacekeepers" for a mission that is doomed to be unfulfilled. Send them to Darfur instead. No illusions or delusions there, at least.