Guardian Editorial: Lebanon war - Indulging folly

[muriel_volestrangler]

It seems astonishing that the world is still watching rather than acting two weeks after the Lebanon war began. After the international embarrassments of the 1990s, in which Europe watched as Sarajevo's civilian population was assaulted from its surrounding hills and the UN failed to intervene to halt genocide in Rwanda, audiences in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, seeing nightly on television the carnage and despoilation of the Lebanon, rightly expect their governments to respond. And yet nothing happens.

The conference in Rome yesterday, attended by more than a dozen countries as well the UN, the European Union and the World Bank, offered an opportunity for the diplomats to put together a belated peace package. Predictably, it ended in failure. Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, backed by Britain alone, spent 90 minutes deflecting and then blocking demands by all the other participants for a joint statement calling for an immediate ceasefire. Instead, the conference ended in fudge, calling for an urgent and sustainable ceasefire, not an immediate one. This painful delay shows no sign of ending. The war has been referred by the conference back to the UN security council, which may not meet until later this week or even next week. Ms Rice, meanwhile, flies to Malaysia for a regional meeting of Asian states unrelated to the war.

The US alliance with Israel has been a fact of international life for decades, but seldom has Washington acted so blatantly in support of the country and with such disregard for the rest of the international community. By blocking diplomatic action, the US has alienated the Arab world even further. And Britain, shamefully, has been a party to this. Washington and London argue that there is no point in calling for an immediate ceasefire because it would only be a temporary solution and what is needed is a sustainable ceasefire. This is an unusual approach to conflict. It is normal to press for a ceasefire and then try to work out peace terms. To demand a workable peace plan for the Israel-Lebanon first is the stuff of dreams. Israel and Lebanon have now been in conflict since 1982: there is no easy solution on offer.

What Ms Rice needs to do is cancel her trip to Malaysia and return to the Middle East sharpish, and not just to Israel. The US has to end its policy of blocking diplomacy in order to allow Israel time to deal with Hizbullah militarily - an option that Israel may be finding less attractive anyway in the face of stiff Hizbullah resistance. Ms Rice needs to push for an immediate ceasefire and that can only be achieved by persuading not just Israel but Hizbullah and its two backers in the region, Iran and Syria. Such is the poverty of US diplomacy in the region, made worse under the Bush administration, that Washington has no diplomatic links with Iran and only limited ones with Syria. There is nothing to stop her flying to Damascus to open negotiations with Syria's president, Bashar Assad, no matter how distasteful that might be to her.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1830873,00.html