Israel's military response to unprovoked attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah has elicited the usual United Nation's rhetoric: Secretary General Kofi Anan's proposal that European nations send troops to participate in an international "stabilization" force. Mr. Anan's solution to the Levantine warfare is as useful and effective as consulting an astrologer to stop a hurricane.

Suppose the UN were to support Mr. Anan's proposal? What is a "stabilization" force?

By definition a stabilization force is a small contingent of so-called peace-keepers, embarked upon its mission after fighting has ceased. We saw in the Balkans that those peace-keepers easily become hostages for an aggressor preparing to resume military hostilities. Or worse, as we saw in Africa and the Balkans, peace-keepers become sexual predators exploiting the plight of displaced populations.

Whence are these European stabilization forces to come? European nations either have no effective armies or say that they have already committed their limited forces to deal with Iraq or other conflicts.

Somehow, true-blue liberal-socialists like Senators Kerry and Kennedy never remember that the UN does exactly nothing unless the United States is prepared to lead the way by invading the miscreants. Only then will other nations join us, if at all, usually with no more than token forces.

Liberals profess unquestioning faith in the socialist doctrine of world peace through world parliamentary government. The brutal truth is that all we can expect from the Socialist International and its successors, the League of Nations and the United Nations, is lots of high-flown talking and no effective action, except when the United States takes the lead, fielding an army to confront the aggressors.

Should a consensus develop in the UN, it will be a resolution either condemning Israel for responding to Islamic jihad, or proposing some variety of sanctions. We saw how ineffective sanctions were over the decade in which Saddam Hussein thumbed his nose at UN resolutions while conspiring with UN officials to perpetrate the largest financial crime in the history of the world, the oil-for-food program.

Whatever diplomatic negotiations may prove useful will be in secret, one-on-one among the directly involved countries, as by definition and necessity they must be. We are dealing with the perceived political and economic interests of Middle Eastern countries. If Iran, Syria, or Palestinians are prepared to make deals that both sides can live with, they certainly will not do so in the publicity glare of the UN General Assembly. That would make them look weak in the eyes of other Islamic nations, whom Iran aims to lead in the jihad.

The UN is simply a forum for propaganda posturing dominated by Islamic enemies of Israel and third-world, socialist countries like Cuba and Venezuela. However much they may give lip service to utopian visions of world peace and to Islam as a religion of peace and justice, Iran, Syria, and the Palestinians are still eager to behead anyone standing in their way.

The General Assembly will debate Mr. Anan's proposal inconclusively for months if the cause of Islamic jihad seems to be prospering. But if Israel seems about to neutralize or obliterate Hezbollah or Hamas, the UN will do what it always does: quickly condemn Israel for Zionist imperialism and crimes against humanity.

In the present situation, UN peace-keepers would serve to reverse Israeli diminutions of Hezbollah power and to push Israeli forces out of southern Lebanon. This would leave Iran's surrogate Syria free to reassert its control over the Lebanese government. Hezbollah, we must remember, is an Iranian creation. Clearly, the impetus behind Hezbollah's attack from the north, coordinated with Hamas' attack from the south, is Iranian efforts to pressure the United States in Iraq.

The UN would become the de facto agent of Iran and Islamic jihad, if Mr. Anan's proposal were to be implemented.


Thomas E. Brewton is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.


His weblog is THE VIEW FROM 1776
http://www.thomasbrewton.com/

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