Lebanon – A Quagmire?

Many, many critics of the American presence in Iraq invoke the word quagmire in an effort to link the current situation to the Vietnam War, with its perceived failures, alleged widespread atrocities, and loss of American prestige.  Despite the multitude of reasons why the comparison is false, we have learned, in watching recent events in Lebanon, that perception is the equal of reality.  The new, post Cold War format of war, which does not allow the winner to utterly destroy the loser, allows for perceived political gains to supplant military losses as the most effective metric of armed conflict. 

As other pundits have noted, failure to decisively defeat an enemy on the field of battle permits the imposition of political solutions that address the symptoms without curing the underlying disease.  The use of UN mandated cease-fires can thus be regarded as a prescription drug, taken for a short period of time, after which the patient is free to begin again the behavior that triggered the problem initially.  Like antibiotics, the cease-fire prescription loses its effectiveness if used too widely for too long.  The disease adapts to the presence of the medicine and invents new ways to attack the patient.

It is entirely fitting, then, that the worst over-subscriber of the cease-fire prescription, France, is now being forced to take its own medicine.  Having used its position at the UN to impose a cease-fire considerably different from the plan designed by the US, and desperate to maintain the perception of French influence in the Middle East, Lebanon in particular, France finds itself in a position not to its liking.  Its troops, if and when they arrive in Lebanon, will be pinned between Israel, a former ally cast aside like a like a bastard child, and Hezballah, the favorite son of the Shi’a mullahs in Iran.  The UN, at France’s insistence, has not called for the peace-keepers to disarm Hezballah, has not issued clear rules of engagement for the moment when bullets start flying again, and has not, in general, given the peace-keepers any incentive to perform their perceived role.

Give the French credit, though, for recognizing the impossibility of the task.  Once they understood the inherent problems and the inevitably that the cease-fire will not hold, the back-pedaling began, and the size of their troop commitment was reduced to a mere 200 soldiers.  At this point, Bush and Rice, recognizing an opportunity to turn the tables on the perfidious Chirac, asked the Italians to lead the force, given the Italian pledge of 2,000 troops.  Shamed, called out, facing humiliation, the French had no choice but to honor their initial commitment.  One also suspects that Kofi Annan would prefer French leadership of the peace-keeping force instead of the Italians, who tend to be less devious and two-faced in these situations.

Having forced a political solution to a military problem, France finds itself acting to preserve its Honor instead of acting to solve the problem.  It cannot leave the scene without losing its Honor, and it cannot act solve the problem without alienating its desired "friends" in the region.  France has been forced into a no-win situation.  If faces a loss of prestige, a loss of influence, and the possible loss of valuable troops, all in the name of a political solution that is not worth the potential cost to France. 

That, my friends, is a quagmire.

For more insight, please read  this article in the Times (UK).

H/T Wretchard at The Belmont Club