The “international community” backed ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has predictably failed. UNIFIL has ignored its mandate to disarm Hezbollah, Iran has funded the militant terrorist organizations rebuilding and Syria has attempted to reassert its control over neighboring Lebanon. Threatswatch reports:

As the senior UN envoy to Lebanon, Terje Roed-Larsen, informs the Security Council that members the Lebanese government have recently ?stated publicly and also in conversations with us that there has been arms coming across the border into Lebanon,? the United States is voicing familiar concern that Syria and Iran are trying to destabilize Lebanon. US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton said after a closed-door Security Council briefing that Lebanese members of government were providing some information, ?But the government was afraid to be specific about these arms coming across the Syrian-Lebanese border because of fear of retaliation.?

The threat perceived by members of the Lebanese government is real and present. Following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a UN commission that has since stalled and faltered has only investigated Syria. In the time that lapsed after the Hariri murder, there were numerous assassinations and assassination attempts against anti-Syrian Lebanese figures in government and media. Lebanese citizens openly accused Syria of attempts to silence Lebanese opposition to Syrian control.

. . .Following the ceasefire, Iran was at the forefront offering massive amounts of reconstruction money. The likely principal purpose of that money was not to rebuild the Lebanese civilian infrastructure but, as the Bint Jbail resident indicates, to rebuild Hizballah?s damaged and destroyed positions in and under southern Lebanon.

. . .After the ceasefire agreement, the Lebanese government agreed to allow Hizballah to keep their arms so long as they did not carry or display them publicly. The influx of additional UNIFIL forces that came into southern Lebanon to stand as a buffer between Hizballah and the IDF saw its leadership demonstrate no will to disarm Hizballah as called for by the UN Security Council resolution that served as the mandate that brought them to the region.

Even after all that’s happened, the world still isn’t serious about this threat.

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