UNIFIL - the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon - is a long-standing failure. The death of 324 of its soldiers between 1978 and 2022 (44 years), often as a result of attacks by inimical forces, can only be blamed on those who agree to dispatch such forces into missions they know are short-term band-aid patches to deeper and more complex problems.
In Lebanon, the main problem is a constitutive deficiency of the Lebanese entity, which is a "State" only in name, in ensuring its sovereignty over its territory. By acquiescing to both State actors (Syria, Israel) and non-State actors (the Palestine Liberation Organization 1967-1982, then Hezbollah 1982-present) controlling entire areas of the territory from which the State is excluded, the Lebanese State ceases to be a functioning entity, unless it is itself an accomplice in the assisted-suicide it is engaged in.
By giving free rein to rogue organizations like the PLO, Hezbollah and other smaller and less known groups, the Lebanese State invites other State actors (Israel, Syria, Iran, etc.) to intervene, fund, interfere, and direct the workings of the State.
Given all the above, one wonders what should be the role of the international community.
There is no reason to doubt that the UN and its backers know that Lebanon is a failed State because it cannot ensure its own defense and sovereignty. So what options are there to deal with a failed State?
Why did the UN subscribe to a deal between Israel and a Lebanon it knows is not autonomous in its decision-making and is controlled by Hezbollah, Iran and Syria?
Why did the UN engage in negotiations with Lebanese officials whom it knows are puppets or figureheads of the real actors (Syria, Hezbollah etc.)? Doesn't the UN realize a priori that these negotiators cannot guarantee the implementation of any agreement it makes with them?
If the UN agrees to the proposition that Lebanon is a failed State, as the past 70 years have amply demonstrated, why does it then engage with a non-sovereign Lebanon that cannot uphold any agreement it makes?
If the UN "wishes" or "hopes" that Lebanon become a truly sovereign entity, why does the UN not help Lebanon acquire the characteristics of a sovereign nation? Which implies the use of some coercive mechanisms against the obstacles to full sovereignty.
In essence, it has now been more than 50 years - nearly 70 years if you include the mini-civil war of 1958 - that Lebanon is treated as its own agent and decision-maker. International community members and international institutions make agreements, sign contracts, pass resolutions, fund projects etc. with it. Yet, the international community knows that Lebanon is an entity that is predictably not the master of its own destiny and that it could never uphold the terms of any such agreement, contract, or resolution. So why does the international community continue to do it?
The reason for this reflection is the perennial failure of Lebanon on one hand, while it is treated by others as if it were a political entity with rational and predictable modes of operation on the other hand.
Should the UN abandon Lebanon to its fate? Should the international community cease dealing with a failed state?
I know one thing for sure: The international community should at least tell Lebanon that it is a failed state and that it will treat it as such. The international community can give Lebanon a deadline after which ALL ASSISTANCE, ALL AGREEMENTS and ALL RECOGNITION of Lebanon as a functioning state will cease.
The Lebanese people are exhausted from several decades of instability, mismanagement, lack of internal cohesion and unified decision-making. They ricochet from one crisis to the next, with interludes of pseudo-stability that are always forced from the outside.
Lebanon is the sick man of the international community. It just doesn't work the way it is set up and is organized and managed. Over the past century (1920 - the present), Lebanon seemed to function for about 20 years only (mid-1940s to mid-1960s). Is it worth it to keep trying to resuscitate such a passing moment of normality when all signs indicate that these efforts are futile?
Perhaps the answer to all these questions is that, deep down, the international community wishes Lebanon dead and gone, or absorbed into Syria or Israel, but does not have the courage to tell it so. It's like a dying person whom the doctors know is dying but do not have the courage to tell family members and the person itself that death is inevitable and that there is nothing they can do, except perhaps a faint chance that radical surgery might have some success.
That is why I suggest that the UN and UNIFIL put an end to Lebanon's miseries by withdrawing from it. Stop propping up this fake dysfunctional political entity with doses of bigoted friendship and haphazard minimal support. Let this recalcitrant Lebanon be the way it is, regardless of the consequences that might ensue. Civil war? War between Israel and Hezbollah? A Syrian invasion leading to the annexation of former Syrian provinces back to Syria? A breakdown of Lebanon into two or more smaller entities? An Israeli invasion and annexation of parts of Lebanese territory? Perhaps as a result of such a "positive shock" something new could emerge that might work.
How much worse can things get? Can they get any worse than the endless heartache and torment for the entire life of this Lebanon that no one recognizes as a viable state anymore?
Enough brandishing Lebanon as an "experiment" in shared-living and coexistence between Christians and Muslims. The Lebanese people are not guinea pigs and their lives cannot continue to be one failed experiment after another. It is time for the old and sick guinea pig to retire in dignity. Muslims and Christians cannot, and will never, coexist in one country on an equal footing. Look at Bosnia-Herzegovina with three mutually hostile religious communities cobbled together as a "nation" by that other, now dead, idiot of State Department Richard Holbrooke. It's a gigantic failure. As long as Islam cannot separate religion from the affairs of government, there can be no coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims. In its evolution, Islam is still roughly in the 1500s in comparison with Christianity. The vast majority of Christians today can reconcile between their religious identity and their national identity, since the latter overwhelms the former. But Islam, and Judaism as well, are far from reaching this stage in their evolution. Apartheid Israel is a case in point where non-Jews are treated like animals while Jews are elevated to a super-human species. And they have the gall to call it a democracy. Yes, just like Apartheid South Africa was a democracy before the African National Congress proved it otherwise.
History has shown us over and over again that good lasting solutions more often than not come after major disasters, and not from applying temporary, ineffectual band-aid solutions.
I tell the UN: Leave us to our own demons. Stop trying to help us with half-ass solutions that benefit more your continued operations and your jobs than they solve our problems. Treating us, the patient, with Aspirin and Valium no longer works. It is time for some re-engineering and gene editing in our deteriorating DNA. Maybe some hope can finally come out of the bottomless pit in which we find ourselves. The Lebanese have an apropos saying, "If it doesn't get worse, it cannot get better" - إذا ما بتكبر، ما بتصغر.
Please let it get worse. In nature, biologists either intervene with radical means to save a species from extinction or they let evolution take its course within a protected environment. To the UN: Either intervene to rescue a fast-disappearing species in this Near East ecosystem, or create a protected area in which this species can continue to evolve in peace. Your on-off, half-ass interventions over decades have only succeeded in making things worse, just like UNIFIL has been in south Lebanon.
Something good could emerge from the depth of despair. Even if the cost is high. At least it will be more permanent.
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