Support is building quickly for an international military force to be placed in southern Lebanon, but there remains a small problem: where will the troops come from?
“All the politicians are saying, ‘Great, great’ to the idea of a force, but no one is saying whose soldiers will be on the ground,” said one senior European official. “Everyone will volunteer to be in charge of the logistics in Cyprus.”
There has been strong verbal support for such a force in public, but also private concerns that soldiers would be seen as allied to Israel and would have to fight Hezbollah guerrillas who do not want foreigners, let alone the Lebanese Army, coming between themselves and the Israelis.
There is also the burden of history. France — which has called the idea of a force premature — and the United States are haunted by their last participation in a multinational force in Lebanon after the Israeli invasion in 1982, when they became belligerents in the Lebanese civil war and tangled fatally with Hezbollah.
| Sounds like another job for the African Union... |