“Death Knell for the UN?”
Here is more evidence that we are not going to see Hezbollah comply with Security Council Resolution 1701. The Tehran Times edition for tomorrow, 14 August 2006, carries an editorial by Hassan Hanizadeh—“Resolution 1701, Death Knell for UN?” (You can check out his website here.) In Hanizadeh’s view, Resolution 1701 was the work of the “United States, Britain, and the Zionist lobby.” The “Security Council, which has become a puppet in the hands of the major powers, has proven that it has lost the legitimacy required to resolve major international crises and that its resolutions are not worthy of being implemented.”
And then come the threats, or warnings if you prefer (bolding is mine).
The UN’s actions will cause the current wave of terrorism to swell. Every terrorist group will feel emboldened to take unilateral measures in the absence of the instruments necessary to confront aggressors.
Although it is not yet clear if the detention of a number of suspects on charges of plotting to bomb British planes is a plot hatched by Scotland Yard, it still serves as a serious warning for the West.
And no power will be able to quell the danger, because when Muslims feel that international organizations are under the influence of the major powers, they become frustrated, and this frustration will lead to the formation of underground movements bent on taking revenge on the West.
Therefore, if the United Nations fails to take immediate measures to redeem itself and restore its lost credibility, the world will undoubtedly experience grievous incidents in the future that will affect global peace and security more than anytime in history.
The Tehran Times editorial and the IRNA story I referenced in my previous post do not suggest that Hezbollah is going to comply with Resolution 1701.
I actually agree, to a degree and for different reasons, with Hanizadeh. I do think that the Lebanon crisis might spell disaster for the UN. I fear the world body will not enforce the resolution with regard to the establishment of a Lebanese state monopoly on armed force. I likewise agree with the editorialist that there probably will be a growing movement against the West within the Islamic world. Unfortunately, as every school child learns (at least in the West), every action has an equal and opposite reaction. And while it is true that what happens in Lebanon will influence the actions of the world’s Muslims, those reactions in turn (e.g., blowing up civilian trans-Atlantic airliners) will prompt reactions of their own. I also wonder if Hanizadeh and other enemies of Israel have asked themselves: who will restrain Israel in the first post-UN crisis? And if the UK Muslim terrorists had succeeded in their plot, how likely would it have been for the UN to have gone as far as it has to restrain Israel? People who think that the death of 1,000 Lebanese is not only tragic (which it is) but genocidal (see my earlier post) are playing with fire because they do not realize the difference between western weakness and self-restraint. The leaders of Japan and Germany thought that the West was weak and decadent.
