I've taken exception to David Ignatius of the Washington Post acting as an unofficial back channel for Hezbollah during the war in Lebanon. More than once, too. Today's column is still singing the praises of diplomacy and negotiation, despite those tactics absolute total lack of results for all these years. At best a negotiated settlement has held for a few years then collapsed whenever terror organizations have been the prime players. (Nations like Egypt and Jordan have been able to abide by their word.) But Ignatius says one thing here that may come back to haunt him:
The wild card in the deal is Hezbollah. As the war dragged on, most pundits judged the group's leader, Hasan Nasrallah, the big winner. But that will be true, paradoxically, only if he abides by the deal Siniora made and withdraws his armed fighters from southern Lebanon. If he tries to resume the war or continues to operate as Iran's proxy, he will lose his new halo. U.S. officials believe that Nasrallah may have resisted Iranian pressure to continue the fight when he agreed to Siniora's package. Meanwhile, the Syrians, Nasrallah's other patron, played no role at all in the diplomatic outcome, deepening their isolation.
I've interviewed Nasrallah twice in the past three years, and in both sessions, the key issue we discussed was how Hezbollah's armed might could be successfully absorbed into the fabric of the Lebanese state. Each time, he insisted that Hezbollah would never threaten Lebanon. But of course, that's precisely what Nasrallah did when his forces recklessly seized two Israeli soldiers July 12, triggering the Israeli attacks. If Nasrallah doesn't behave more responsibly and abide by the new U.N. framework, both he and Lebanon are doomed.
Given the previous post detailing Hezbollah's refusal to disarm or even leave Southern Lebanon, will Ignatius actually come to the realization that negotiations with terrorists are always, every time, without exception, useless?
It will be interesting to watch the convolutions.
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