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Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk
The State of Lebanon
[Telegraph-UK] Editorial - The opening of a second front to Israel's north stems from unfinished international business in Lebanon. In September 2004, UN Security Council Resolution 1559 called on foreign forces to withdraw and militias to disband. The Syrians completed the pull-out of their troops in April last year but Hizballah, with its thousands of fighters and Katyusha rockets, remains the most formidable military presence in the country. Sponsored by Damascus and Teheran, it makes a mockery of Lebanese sovereignty. That one party in the government coalition should have an armed wing operating with foreign support in defiance of central authority is intolerable. The UN, or a coalition of the willing among its members, should deploy troops in southern Lebanon to disarm the militiamen. Hizballah's defiance of 1559 should be the focus of both the Security Council and of the team that Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General, is sending to the region.