US to face off with France over peacekeeper mission to Lebanon

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - Washington is increasing its efforts at the United Nations to change the mandate of the organization’s peacekeeping force in Lebanon ahead of this year’s renewal at the end of August.

The push is already risking a clash with France that supports the current mandate and has pushed back at previous American attempts to alter the deployment.

The US is seeking to decrease the number of troops as the 42-year old United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) peacekeeping force has been prevented from having access to areas under its mandate in southern Lebanon.

Washington also wants to introduce a timeframe for Lebanese authorities to ensure access for Unifil to make areas that need to be inspected.

Additionally, the US hopes to include language that increases UN reports on the force’s ability to check the implementation UN resolutions that call for no armed forces other than the Lebanese Army and peacekeepers south of the Litani River.

Mohamed Khaled Khiari, the UN Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, is leading a UN delegation meeting officials in Beirut this week, including President Michel Aoun, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister Hassan Diab and Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti.

According to a senior diplomat familiar with the trip, Mr Khiari will also visit Unifil troops in the south to prepare for a June report on the force that was requested when the mandate was renewed last August.

The senior diplomat told The National that the upcoming report “will be critical for Washington, which wants to use this to decrease the number of Unifil troops.”

During Tuesday’s meeting with Mr Hitti, also attended by Unifil head Maj Gen Stefano Del Col, the Lebanese side the told Mr Khiari that they hope the mandate would be renewed with no change to the number of troops, role of the force or its budget, a senior Foreign Ministry source said. The source said that it was a “smooth and very positive” meeting, but that some sides “try every year to change the mandate and they don’t succeed.”

The 15 members at the UN Security Council meeting last year called for the secretary-general “to provide an assessment, no later than 1 June 2020, of the continued relevance of Unifil’s resources and options for improving the efficiency and effectiveness between the mission and the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon (Unscol).”

On Wednesday Mr Diab met with the UN delegation, that also included UN representative in Lebanon Jan Kubis. Discussions revolved around the role of Unifil in south Lebanon and ways to support its work and improve its capabilities, “in addition to mechanisms for maintaining stability along the Blue Line,” said a statement from Mr Diab’s office.

A statement from Unifil after this meeting confirmed that the UN delegation is currently visiting Lebanon to assess Unifil’s resources and options for improving the efficiency and effectiveness between the peacekeepers and UN diplomats, “taking into consideration the troop ceiling and the civilian component of Unifil” based on the request made last year.

But at the time, the US was vocal in its frustration with the inability of Unifil from “fully implementing its mandate” said Jonathan Cohen, former US ambassador to the UN.

Mr Cohen added that the “status quo” could not continue to be accepted.

He also cited Unifil troops not being able to access all the areas it needed to and therefore it was time “to re-examine troop strength and begin … a trajectory toward right-sizing.”

This was one year after Nikki Haley, then-ambassador to the UN, scolded the then Unifil force commander Maj Gen Michael Beary saying he was turning a blind eye to Hezbollah’s weapons and that he showed an embarrassing lack of understanding of the situation around him.

Both Israel and Washington will continue their push to expand Unifil’s powers in what they see would be effective in disarming the militia group and Iranian-proxy Hezbollah.

To maintain the peacekeeping force’s mandate as-is, The National has learned that France will step in and send a technical delegation to Lebanon next month to prepare for the June assessment.

As of last August, Unifil had 10,300 military service members and another 800 civilian members.

Its main role of maintaining calm and stability along the Lebanese-Israeli border has proven effective since its mandate was enhanced after the July 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended the 34-day war boosted the troop numbers from around 2,000 to a maximum of 15,000 troops.

Although there have been a number of incidents, the situation has remained calm for the last 14 years – the longest period of peace in the area since the formation of Israel.

In previous years, France spearheaded efforts to counter arguments that the force was ineffective and should be downsized. France and Washington have not seen eye-to-eye in recent years regarding several conflicts across the Middle East, including the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

And while the US continues its maximum-pressure campaign on Iran and its proxies around the world, in Lebanon, Unifil troops have repeatedly been pelted with stones by alleged Hezbollah supporters while on patrol.

Unifil has also not been granted access to sites where alleged-Hezbollah attack tunnels were found by Israeli forces at the end of 2018. Unifil confirmed the existence of at least three of the tunnels from the Israeli side but was not allowed to access all the sites from Lebanon as they were told some were located on private property.

As a result, Unifil called on the Lebanese authorities to investigate – something that was never done.

Despite the daily Israeli violations of Lebanese air, land and sea, the Lebanese state’s failure to fully exercise its authority in the area could see the US force through the mandate change for Unifil this time around.