Last week the US took aim at the the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) over the issue of Hizbullah’s weapons storage in the south of the country, in the UNIFIL area of operations. The US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley criticised the UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Michael Beary saying ‘General Beary says there are no Hezbollah weapons. That’s an embarrassing lack of understanding of what’s going on around him’.
On the face of it, destroying Hizbullah’s weapons caches in south Lebanon would be in line with Western interests. But the question of Hizbullah is a national debate that requires national solutions, not international impositions. Changing UNIFIL’s mandate has the potential to trigger another regional conflict, destroying the positive gains UNIFIL has made since it was deployed after the 2006 war.
The US wants UNIFIL to aggressively seek out Hizbullah weapons in the area of operations which it insists are present. It argues that UNIFIL is ignoring Hizbullah’s weapons and that Hizbullah’s media campaigns prove they exist.
Read the full article by Vanessa Newby at The Interpreter.