Why Hizballah Can't Be Disarmed

If peace in the Middle East is a Rubik's Cube whose every piece has to align properly to arrive at a solution, the puzzle posed by Hizballah seems to have more than six colors for six sides. The Shi'ite militia has skillful fighters, powerful patrons in Iran and Syria and roots so deep in Lebanon that it has become a state within a state. Israel couldn't beat it during 18 years of occupying Lebanon and last week had to withdraw its troops from the border village of Bint Jbeil, a Hizballah stronghold, after sustaining heavy losses. Yet unless Hizballah renounces its aim of destroying Israel, or at least stops acting on it, stability in the Middle East will be impossible. Diplomats last week were twisting the squares of the cube mightily for a negotiated, political solution. The Lebanese government, crucially including Hizballah Cabinet ministers, thought it might have found one and started pressing it upon U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She declared it had some "very good elements," an intriguing glimmer that a fix for the region's immediate agony might be taking shape, though she shied away from others. But even if this crisis abates soon, the knotty problem of defanging Hizballah will remain.

For the past three weeks, Israel, with its enormous edge in weaponry, has tried one approach: crushing Hizballah militarily. But the group's estimated 1,000 to 4,000 active fighters have managed to inflict surprising casualties on Israeli forces in Lebanon and to keep firing hundreds of rockets on civilian targets as far as 30 miles into Israel. Along the Lebanese border, as Israeli intelligence drones the size of model airplanes whined overhead, an Israeli army major sent to reassess tactics was grimly impressed. "Nobody here looks down on Hizballah," he says. "This is their home, they're the defenders, and they've probably booby-trapped every house."

But even with an implicit U.S. green light to keep fighting a while longer, a military-only strategy would be self-defeating for Israel. Carpet bombing Hizballah strongholds is impossible, says military spokesman Captain Mitch Pilcer, because "some of these Lebanese are our allies, and if they come back to a flattened town, they might turn around and join Hizballah." Indeed, although Christian, Druze and some other factions in Lebanon were furious at Hizballah for instigating the war and hiding weapons in civilian neighborhoods that then suffer Israeli retaliation, polls show that the group's overall popularity in Lebanon and the Arab world has risen.

If Israel can't bring Hizballah down, could foreign forces help squeeze it into better behavior? Potential donors to a multinational force will be trying to hash out a plan this week. But its composition, mission and rules of engagement are acutely tricky. Rice declared that no U.S. troops would join; they're already overstretched in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. French President Jacques Chirac said he might be willing to commit French forces, but not through NATO. Soldiers from Muslim countries like Turkey and Egypt would be a plus, but so far none have materialized.