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How Do You Take a Gun Away?

[New York Times] James Traub - Can Hizballah be disarmed? The UN Security Council, the major Western powers, and the government of Lebanon have all called for the Shiite militia to be shorn of its weapons. But how? And by whom? And if Hizballah is not disarmed, all of the appalling bloodshed just concluded may be only the prelude to something worse. Victors in war forcibly disarm the losers. But in a war that ends without decisive victory, the fighting force must more or less agree to disarm itself. Disarmament, like peacekeeping itself, offers a set of time-tested, codified practices that are quite effective under certain political conditions and futile in their absence. Kosovo and Sierra Leone worked not because peacekeepers got disarmament right but because the politics were right, or because the balance of force was favorable to peacekeepers. Otherwise, disarmament fails. Hizballah has used its weapons on Israel, and it fights Israel with the professed goal of destroying it. If we take Hizballah at its word, disarmament can come only in the wake of apocalyptic triumph. ()
2006-08-28 01:00:00
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