Nailing a story in a headline is always hardest when a situation is in flux — and nothing better describes what has been happening in south Lebanon these past few days than “flux.”
Israel is withdrawing, but not entirely. The Lebanese army is taking control of the region, but not with any real enforcement capability. The international community is stepping up to the plate, bolstering the present U.N. peacekeeping mission, but not quite yet or enough. Hezbollah is observing the truce, but is also melting away into the civilian population, presumably to fight another day.
In short, no one really knows quite what is going on or what will happen. The Lebanese army has started moving troops south of the Litani River for the first time in decades, meeting with Israeli officers to take over their positions. And Hezbollah leaders are suspiciously welcoming of the new situation, with one fighter telling the New York Times Thursday, “It’s really good, let them come. We’re all Lebanese, it’s not a problem.”
But all these facts don’t add up to an optimistic and sure-footed headline like the one in the Times Wednesday: “As Israel Begins to Pull Troops Out, Lebanon and the U.N. Prepare to Replace Them.”
Since the truce began on Monday — first described as “fragile” and then, by yesterday, as “holding” — both reporters on the ground and editors putting together those headlines have struggled to provide some kind of larger analysis. The central question, of course, is whether this is a real truce or just a moment of calm before an even bigger storm.
To answer this, newspapers have focused on two elements: first, whether a real, international force is forthcoming, and second, whether Hezbollah will actually comply with the Lebanese government’s demand that they lay down their arms.
On both of these fronts, there are no clear answers.
Some papers are reporting that the real news out of south Lebanon is Hezbollah’s complete takeover of the rebuilding effort. The Los Angeles Times in a piece Thursday reports, “Hezbollah has emerged as the lead player in the cleanup of towns and villages in southern Lebanon. It has the volunteers, owns the equipment and has spent years burnishing its image as the champion of ordinary people, from poor tobacco farmers to doctors and lawyers, who see Hezbollah as much more than a militia.” It also notes that, “Men fighting Israeli troops a few days ago are working alongside the Lebanese Red Cross to pull bodies from the rubble,” and that “Nowhere across this blasted, pitted landscape is there any sign of the Lebanese government, or its authority.”
As the Wall Street Journal adds in a good article Thursday, the Iranians have provided more resources and help to Hezbollah than America has to the Lebanese government. The result is a weakening of the Lebanese government’s position at the time when it is absolutely critical to challenge Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s strategy seems to be, as one leader put it, “Just like in the past. Hezbollah had no visible military presence and there will not be any presence now.”
This does not bode well for the prospect of the Lebanese government taking control of the region — that is, until you read more stories, such as the AP’s dispatch yesterday, heralding the arrival of the Lebanese army, ready to grab hold of the situation.
Though most of these stories about the Lebanese army carry a caveat — like the New York Times, which qualifies the deployment as “more about symbolism than security” — there is little sense that Hezbollah’s determination to remain armed might make a joke of this show of Lebanese force.
As to the question of the 15,000 multinational troops that could actually upend the status quo in the region, there are also mixed assessments of how fast such a force could deploy and whether anyone would actually care to join it.
A Wednesday New York Times article quoted Hedi Annabi, the assistant secretary general for peacekeeping at the United Nations, who said he hoped for an initial deployment of up to 3,500 troops within 10 to 15 days.
But the same article also had a prediction from UNIFIL’s current commander, Major General Alain Pellegrini, that it could be a year before the force reached its maximum strength of 15,000, up from the current 2,000.
The French, the most likely leaders of such a force, have also been quoted in the past few days saying both that they were committed to sending large numbers of troops and that they wanted to wait to see how the situation unfolds.
There are no easy answers in a situation such as the one in south Lebanon. News organizations have done a credible (if occasionally confusing) job of reporting the facts. But as far as drawing conclusions about the cease-fire and whether it will lead to a lasting peace (or, at the very least, extended quiet), for that we can counsel only one thing, and it’s a word editors and reporters don’t like to hear: Patience.
Gal Beckerman is a former staff writer at CJR and a writer and editor for the New York Times Book Review.