WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- U.N. Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno said this week that Israeli flights into Lebanese airspace "should not happen," but conceded international forces are "not going to do anything rash." This, analysts say, is UNIFIL policy in a nutshell: disapproving but impotent.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon "is basically an observer and documenter," said Judy Barsalou, Middle East expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
There are currently around 14,000 UNIFIL troops deployed in Lebanon, with a Chapter Six U.N. mandate, which gives them the power to prevent hostile acts, but not to disarm Hezbollah. "Our job was to monitor, never to take sides," said Micheál Mac Diarmada, a retired UNIFIL soldier.
UNIFIL has been criticized for a number of reasons. The mission has no capacity to prevent Israeli incursions into Lebanese air space; is not allowed to actively search for Hezbollah weapons in Lebanon; and is unable to prevent weapons entering Lebanon from Syria.
Some fault the U.N mandate they were given. "Their mandate and their rules of engagement are ineffective," said Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
On Oct. 17, Maj. Gen. Alain Pellegrini, UNIFIL force commander, sounded a warning to Israel: "The (U.N.) troops will have the order to shoot against all the aircraft which will violate the Lebanese air space." While the diplomatic community quickly reassured Israel this would not happen, Barsalou argued this "comment reflects the frustration of those troops on the ground," noting that UNIFIL troops "are frustrated with their lack of power."
The U.N. mandate is "clearly inefficient to the needs of the situation," she added.
But there is another problem beyond their "ineffective" mandate: Barsalou said "the force is too small" to monitor Lebanon's border with Syria, which extends some 200 miles -- too large to police with only 14,000 troops.
Asked whether weapons were slipping through the Syrian border, Jeffrey White, an expert on Lebanon at The Washington Institute, told United Press International, "for sure."
While admitting that "anything you can put in a crate you can smuggle" and that UNIFIL was impotent to do anything about the Israeli planes, White said this does not mean the mission is ineffective.
"They changed the environment to one where Hezbollah has to be cautious," White said. "Southern Lebanon is no longer an area where Hezbollah has complete freedom of action."
This does not mean their operational capacity will not change over time, he said, but for the moment the Shiite militia "cannot build a fortress structure or freely move missiles" as they did before.
"I wouldn't say their presence is ineffectual," White said.
Guehenno on Monday seemed to agree. UNIFIL is not there to solve all problems but to provide a "window" for the more important political negotiations to take place.
"The robust posture that the mission is going to have in south Lebanon is very important because you don't want to be humiliated," he said, arguing that like any peacekeeping operation, UNIFIL's success will depend on a political process "which goes way beyond what the military force can achieve."
He called on the international community, and particularly the United States, to intensify efforts to give political support to the Lebanese government and to the peace process between Israel, Lebanon and the Middle East at large. However, time is limited, he said.
