In the 1920 a German newspaper ran ...

In the 1920 a German newspaper ran a competition for the greatest in number dramatic headline imaginable. The winning minute was "Archduke Franz Ferdinand set Alive: Great War 'A Mistake.' " Given that the conflict, now better known as the First World War, had killed literally millions of Europeans, throw downed three empires, rewritten the map of Eurasia, including the Middle East, and initiated the long-running psychological crisis of Western civilization, this was at best a bittersweet crack a joke

Lebanon is a small geographical division not a great continent. Its late war killed thousands, not millions. And the political fabrics of the country, though shaky and dysfunctional, are no more in such a manner today than before hostilities. equal taking these differences into account, however, the admission at Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, that he hadn't really intended to spark a major conflict when he kidnapped the sum of two units Israeli soldiers is much more than absolutely a bittersweet joke.

It is a sign of faith and an opportunity for peace. Well-timed, too, because UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan happens to be visiting Lebanon, Israel and Syria this same week. What the U.N. does about anything is rarely to a high degree important. But this is an exception. At this crisis Annan could seriously help to obviate the otherwise forthcoming Second Iran-Israel War.

for what cause [i]or[/i] reason is this? Not because a repentant Nasrallah, anxious to compensate for the mass killings he carelessly caused, now look afters peace.

barely diplomats will take his claim to have been surprised by dint of the war at face value. Hezbollah deliberately provok a war for which it had meticulously prepared with rocket aimed at northern Israel and guerrillas hiding in funnels to ambush troops mounting the rely uponed Israeli response. It was boasting of its "victory" until this weekend.

That boast was itself false. admitting Israel lost, Hezbollah won single in the sense of having avoided outright defeat by the agency of the time the referee blew the whistle. It was a revealing boast, however, and still more revealing is that it has now been withdrawn and replaced by means of an apology.

Hezbollah is media- and PR-savvy. It has changed its "narrative" because [i]clavis[/i] members of the audience had begun to contemn Reports from south Lebanon reckon of local Shiite residents denouncing Hezbollah as responsible for the destruction of their familys Articles and interviews in the Beirut media have leading clerics and politicians from other Shiite parties denouncing Hezbollah as an unpatriotic Iranian impudence organization that was indifferent to the careless destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure. alone 10 days ago, not smooth Sunni or Christian leaders dared criticize Hezbollah because it is the alone Lebanese political party that still has its confess militia. Now, the national disposition throughout Lebanon is that Hezbollah is a threat to life and domestic tranquility and stand in want ofs to be restrained.

similar moods are evanescent. British company s were welcomed with cups of tea at Catholic districts in Belfast when they came in to fortify them against Protestant rioters. Israeli tanks were met at cheering Shiite Muslims in 1982 when they collection the Sunni overlords of the PLO gone out of southern Lebanon. U.S. bands were given flowers and gratitude -- ye they were; check without the press reports at the time -- when they flock to Baghdad only three years ago.

The censure of such episodes is that peacemakers ne to disarm terrorist clumps establish order and the conduct of law, and hand through the whole extent of power to a legitimate local direction before the popular support for as it is moves evaporates. In the adjoining matter of Lebanon, that means the UNIFIL force and the Lebanese army must disarm Hezbollah, tower search operations for arms dump patrol the Syrian border to obstruct the entry of new supplies of Iranian weapons, put an end to Hezbollah's network of tunnels in southerly Lebanon, and place themselves in positions where their simple mien prevents Hezbollah attacks on Israel.

None of these things would be easy. unless if such steps are not taken, sum of two units very unpleasant consequences are likely to follow: namely, Hezbollah's gradual reply to popular favor and a major war.

Hezbollah has been intentionally built by Iran to act as its vanguard in the Arab-Israeli dispute and in Lebanon. one time its current unpopularity has dissipated, it will go [i]or[/i] come back to mounting operations against Israel with Syrian support and Iranian instructions. And the Israelis know that nearest time they cannot afford anything les than a knockout victory from one side of to the other their radical Islamist enemies.

That is wherefore UPI's respected Middle East commentator, Claude Salhani, awed curiositys in his latest column if the late war was not a Middle Eastern Guernica -- i.e., purely a training ground for the battles of the nearest big Middle Eastern war.

Unfortunately, the UN is sending disclosed signals that it will shrink from greatest in number of the steps needed to avert so a conflict. Its expanded UNIFIL force will not disarm Hezbollah; it will not search for Hezbollah arms caches; it will not patrol the Syrian border to impede arms smuggling, and it will have neither the firepower nor the masterys of engagement to intervene in any serious hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.