What a dirty trick Pat Lang played, sending his friends a list of four issues with the US-French peace plan, but not addressing those four issues himself.
- France and the United States are not at war with each other. They cannot agree to end the fighting.
- Hizbullah thinks it is winning both tactically and strategically.Why will it agree to anything other than a cease-fire in place?
- Such a cease-fire will be a victory for Hizbullah.
- Who will disarm Hizbullah if it accepts such a cease-fire?
I’m with Pat in doubting the feasability of the peace plan, as far as I understand it, and for some of the same reasons. I mean, Condi can’t even get Olmert (much less Peretz) to keep a straight face when she makes requests of them. Presumably Bolton was closely involved in this, and presumably he has more sway with Israel. But thus far the US has seemed unwilling and possibly unable to pressure Israel to play nice.
And France, as a stand-in for Hezbollah? I could see Chirac speaking with and for Rafiq Hariri’s Lebanon before his death. But Lebanon’s government has been all but castrated by the Israeli assault. So unless you’ve got a surrogate for Hezbollah, or preferably Hezbollah itself, you’ll be left with the problem of getting Hezbollah to agree to a plan it had no part in. Until Hezbollah is brought into the process, I assume they will answer, as they seem to be already, "Yeah, who’s going to disarm us? You and whose army?"