The Arab League to the Rescue

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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/12/opinion/12viorst.html?th&emc=th
By MILTON VIORST
Published: November 12, 2005


The question, of course, is how do we get out of Iraq? President Bush is increasingly isolated in claiming we are on our way to victory or democracy or human rights or even the restoration of Baghdad's electric grid. Even before Iraqi violence began spilling over into Jordan, American forces have clearly failed at maintaining order. It is time for a different approach, one that may lie with the Arab League.

In Lebanon 16 years ago, the Arab League ended a seemingly intractable civil war. The Lebanese - Christians, Druzes, Shiites, Sunnis, even Palestinians - had been killing one another since 1975. Interventions by Syria, Israel and the United States made matters only worse. President Ronald Reagan withdrew a contingent of marines after a suicide bombing killed 241 servicemen. Throughout the 1980's, private militias fought pitched battles and imprisoned civilian hostages, many of them Americans. The only way to end the bloodshed seemed to be to divide Lebanon along religious lines. But none of the factions, not even the Christians, wanted the country split. Exhausted as the Lebanese were by the fighting, the vision of a unified nation remained intact. That is when the Arab League stepped in.

The Arab League was always known as a weakling. But the fractious Arab states agreed at last that Lebanon's civil war and the prospect of partition threatened them all. Pulling Lebanon together was an incentive that superseded their divisions.

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Is there a lesson for President Bush? Even more than Lebanon's combatants, Iraq's factions agree on one thing: they want no more Western intrusions. Although Iraqis recently ratified a new constitution, the insurgency goes on. In contrast to the Arab League in Lebanon, the United States has a huge army in Iraq - and no moral force to stop the killing.
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