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Lebanon War Report: Implications for U.S.-Israeli Relations

[Washington Institute for Near East Policy] David Makovsky - The second report on Israeli government decision-making during the summer 2006 Lebanon war highlights the degree to which the prime minister's office was subsequently blindsided by the draft ceasefire resolution negotiated by the U.S. and France. The released text provides detailed accounts of shocked Israeli government officials charging that they had no idea the U.S. would allow carefully negotiated terms to be suddenly reversed. According to the report, this reversal occurred between a draft that Assistant Secretary of State David Welch shared with Israelis on August 10 and a fax of the new draft from Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns late that same night. The Burns draft reportedly included no enforcement for a weapons embargo on Hizballah and no mention that embargo violations would be sanctioned by chapter seven of the UN Charter (which authorizes the use of force). As such, Olmert believed he had no other choice but to approve the ground assault, partly in order to improve the ceasefire terms. The Winograd report - at least the unclassified version - is careful not to blame the Bush administration, admitting that it did not interview U.S. officials who may have their own view of the events. The one person who does blame the U.S. outright is John Bolton, who served as U.S. ambassador to the UN at the time. In his memoirs, he wrote that Washington prioritized its relationship with Europe and the fragility of the Lebanese government over Israeli concerns about the exact terms of Resolution 1701. In essence, then, the report demonstrates that when coordination between the U.S. and Israel weakens, there can be tragic military consequences.
2008-02-04 01:00:00
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