Diplomacy want work with Hezballah firing rockets

Vancouver Sun:

International leaders meeting in Rome on Wednesday couldn't agree on a plan to end the two-week-old conflict between Israel and Hezbollah's terrorist army entrenched in southern Lebanon.

This is a more positive outcome than the alternative. No plan is better than a bad plan. An immediate cease-fire would hand victory to Hezbollah and its puppet-master, Iran. That's why Iran is demanding one.

While the 15 world leaders talked about a cessation of hostilities and deployment of an international peacekeeping force, none committed troops to such a force or proposed any means of enforcing a ceasefire.

Failure in Rome could lead to at least limited success in Lebanon.

Israel cannot tolerate a situation where a terrorist organization dedicated to its destruction, armed and financed by Iran, sits on its northern border with more than 10,000 rockets targeting its major population centres.

The Lebanese government has proven unable or unwilling to disarm Hezbollah and extend its sovereignty over southern Lebanon as required under United Nations resolution 1559, passed in 2004. Since then, instead of implementing the UN resolution, Lebanon invited Hezbollah to participate in the government and even gave it two cabinet positions. Hezbollah's determination to destroy Israel resonated with many Lebanese voters who elected 23 Hezbollah candidates to the Lebanese parliament. Meanwhile, Hezbollah continued to threaten Israel's northern communities, although incidents were rarely reported by the international media. Last December, for instance, Hezbollah fired Katyusha rockets into the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona, wounding three people.

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It is becoming more evident that Lebanon's government is complicit in Hezballah's actions and attacks and that it does not deserve the initial sympathy it received. Unless it shows some spine with dealing with Hezballah as something other than an ally it should be considered a hostile power in the war on terror. It is apparently still under the Syrian thumb.