In 2006, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1701 as part of a diplomatic effort to end the month-long Israel-Hezbollah War.
It was a war of clear aggression on Hezbollah’s part. Israel exited southern Lebanon in May 2000, and the United Nations certified Israel’s withdrawal as complete. Israel’s exit from Lebanese territory removed any pretext for Hezbollah to say it was fighting Israeli occupation. (The Syrian occupation of Lebanon was another matter, but not one that Hezbollah or its sponsors sought to question.) Hezbollah continued its fight in order to justify its continued armament, privileges, and position within Lebanese society. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) at best looked away and at worst knowingly abetted Hezbollah attacks, some of which involved terrorists wearing its uniforms or driving its vehicles.
On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah began shelling several Israeli border towns and villages as a diversion while Hezbollah terrorists crossed the border to kidnap and kill Israeli soldiers inside Israeli territory. The group succeeded in capturing two soldiers, whom they then killed inside Lebanon. The war that followed demonstrated that terrorism ignored does not fade away; it metastasizes. As civilian casualties mounted—Hezbollah employed the same tactics Hamas does now by using civilians as human shields and co-opting civilian infrastructure for military purposes—diplomatic pressure grew on Israel to cease its campaign.
The Israelis did not want to return to the status quo ante and so the United States, in concert with its European partners, agreed to an augmented UNIFIL. Neither Jerusalem nor Washington nor Brussels wanted Hezbollah to rearm and each acknowledged that Hezbollah’s existing arsenal of tens of thousands of missiles and rockets exposed the weakness of UNIFIL as it then existed.
To address the core problem—a non-state entity wielding arms—the major powers agreed to Resolution 1701. First, all parties would accept a ceasefire. Hezbollah would cease its attacks. The Resolution continued to demand “full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon,” including Hezbollah. In short, once the guns fell silent, the Lebanese Armed Forces were to take possession of the arms of all non-state actors, though in practice, this meant Hezbollah.
Hezbollah refused its mandatory disarmament. Despite their promises, the United Nations, United States and European partners acquiesced to non-enforcement. A generation of diplomats likely understood that a rearmed Hezbollah would pose a threat to regional peace but hoped that the explosion would not come during their term. The U.S. Congress continued to pour money into the Lebanese Armed Forces, meanwhile, as the tool to counter Hezbollah. Never mind that many Lebanese Armed Forces by day acted on Hezbollah’s behalf by night.
Nor was there political will. In Lebanon, the president is always Christian. So too is the commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces. Because that general often aspires to the presidency, he is unwilling in practice to take on Hezbollah militarily for fear of losing their votes and those of their allies.
After “Operation Below the Belt” or “The Grim Beeper,” as the Hudson Institute’s Michael Doran put it, however, Hezbollah is reeling. They still have one of the deadliest arsenals in the Middle East, but operationally, they are at their weakest in decades. No state that truly seeks peace in the Middle East should accept any more UN handwringing about enforcing Resolution 1701 and the Lebanese Armed Forces’ fear about doing its job. If the UN and Lebanon will not dismantle Hezbollah’s network of arms, then Israel will have no choice but to do the job. Firefighters do not put out 80 percent of a wildfire and then go home.
