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APN Report Card #2 - Bush Administration Receives a "C-" for Lebanese Cease Fire Implementation

APN Notes Improvement on Aid Front, Continuing Failure on Leadership, Diplomacy and Vision

(8/28/06)

APN Notes Improvement on Aid Front, Continuing Failure on Leadership, Diplomacy and Vision

This is the second in a series of report cards, issued by Americans for Peace Now (APN), on the performance of the Bush administration in implementing the UN Security Council Resolution which ended the Israel-Hezbollah War. The first report card in this series gave Bush a "D-" and is available at http://www.peacenow.org/updates.asp?rid=0&cid=2920.


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1. Working to Get Boots on the Ground

Grade: Incomplete

On August 21, 2006, one week after the establishment of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, President Bush made a key foreign policy address focused on Lebanon and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, explaining "what we're doing to ensure UN Security Council 1701 [sic] is implemented and its words are quickly put into action." With respect to the new international force in Lebanon - the central focus of UNSCR 1701 - he stated:

"An international force requires international commitment. Previous resolutions have failed in Lebanon because they were not implemented by the international community...The new resolution authorizes a force of up to 15,000 troops. It gives this force an expanded mandate. The need is urgent. The international community must now designate the leadership of this new international force, give it robust rules of engagement, and deploy it as quickly as possible to secure the peace.

"America will do our part. We will assist a new international force with logistic support, command and control, communications and intelligence. Lebanon, Israel and our allies agreed that this would be the most effective contribution we can make at this time. We will also work with the leadership in the international force, once it's identified, to ensure that the United States is doing all we can to make this mission a success."

The past two weeks have been fraught with problems and delays with respect to getting international "boots on the ground" in southern Lebanon, and there is plenty of blame to go around. Some nations can't seem to decide what they want to do. For its part, the UN is failing to provide sufficient leadership. Syria seems determined to complicate the mission, planning, and deployment of any force. Hezbollah is playing its own games of sending contradictory messages. Israel has raised new concerns about the composition and mission of the international force.

The U.S., too, must shoulder its share of responsibility. President Bush cannot guarantee the success of UNSCR 1701 no matter what policies he undertakes; however, he can virtually guarantee the failure of UNSCR 1701 by electing not to invest the full force of U.S. diplomacy, leadership, and moral suasion in an effort to see it succeed. It was good news when on August 24th the French finally agreed to contribute 2000 troops to the international force, to complement the Italian commitment of 3000 troops. It was further good news when on August 25th European Union officials pledged to send additional troops to make a total European contingent of up to 6900 additional troops as the "backbone" of the mission. Hopefully these developments signal a new international commitment to the force in Lebanon, with additional commitments and support from other nations to come.

2. Providing Aid to Lebanon

Grade: C-

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hezbollah war, the U.S. has shown great generosity in offering assistance both to evacuate Americans from Lebanon, and to help the Lebanese people who suffered as a result of the conflict. The Bush Administration and the American people deserve credit for this generosity, coming as it did during a time of acute need in the U.S. and of other crises in the world.

In the post-ceasefire period, however, U.S. assistance is no longer just about generosity. It is also about U.S. national security. In the aftermath of the violence, Hezbollah is mobilizing tremendous resources and capital to position itself as the patron and steward of Lebanon's post-conflict reconstruction, and to erase any blame that might be attached to it for starting the conflict. In this effort Hezbollah has a distinct advantage over U.S. and other international donors: it is accountable only to itself, it knows the terrain and people intimately, and it is benefiting from the financial largess of outside backers with deep pockets.

The U.S. and the international community cannot afford to cede the reconstruction and humanitarian effort in Lebanon to Hezbollah, financed by Iran. This is why it is vital that they urgently examine their aid programs and strategies, to make sure that they are doing everything possible to ensure visible, high impact interventions on the ground. Unfortunately, it is not clear that the Bush Administration has fully grasped the dangers of the current situation or the need for a genuinely new assistance paradigm in Lebanon, with clearly recognized political as well as humanitarian goals.

On August 21, 2006, President Bush announced that the U.S. "will send more aid to support humanitarian and reconstruction work in Lebanon, for a total of $230 million." This is $180 million more than the President had previously promised and a welcome announcement. Unfortunately, close scrutiny of the tables of U.S. assistance to Lebanon (included in daily Situation Reports available on the USAID website), seem to indicate that the numbers are not consistent with the sort of robust, high-impact assistance policy that is needed in the current context. A few examples are:

As of August 24th, only $47.8 million of the $230 million mentioned by the President has been spent or obligated for humanitarian assistance programs in Lebanon. This means that of the total funds referred to by the President, only around 20% have been spent or are close to being spent.

  • Of the $47.8 million that has been obligated, a very large percentage represents administrative costs, logistics, security, and training. While it is impossible to know the full extent of such costs (since in many cases they are combined with other substantive program functions) around $5 million of the total on the funding table - around 10% - clearly falls into this category. Without question, there are legitimate overhead and operations costs associated with any assistance program; however, in evaluating the scope and impact of U.S. assistance, funds used in this manner cannot be counted as funds that mitigate or compete with Hezbollah's humanitarian outreach efforts.
  • Of the $47.8 million, $24 million is program funding that dates from before the ceasefire, of which $11.7 million was programmed on or before July 26th. This means that more than half of U.S. humanitarian aid to Lebanon to this point has gone for pre-ceasefire programs, including housing of displaced persons and evacuation of third-country nationals - programs that have run their course. Most of the major program funding included in the USAID table - like $3.3 million for Mercy Corps for use in Beirut, or $3 million in funds for the World Food Program - dates from well before the ceasefire and has not been increased since then. While the U.S. deserves credit for funding these programs, they do not contribute to the new assistance goals in any way.
  • Nearly 25% of the $47.8 million comes under a single program - U.S. surplus wheat. Of the funds that have been added since the ceasefire, the surplus wheat constitutes almost 50% of the total. On August 21st President Bush referred to this program, noting that the wheat would be shipped to Lebanon "in the coming weeks." Unfortunately, while U.S. surplus wheat is a cost-effective way for the U.S. to provide aid, it does not represent quick, high-impact assistance, especially in a country where food shortages are not the major issue (generally U.S. surplus wheat is re-sold by the recipient government in order to generate funds for other programs).

The U.S. can and must do better, both for the sake of the Lebanese people, and for the sake of security and stability in the region. As we stated in our Week 1 report card, the U.S. must re-think the scope and structure of its assistance for Lebanon. The scale of U.S. assistance must be dramatically increased to push Hezbollah out of the reconstruction business, and the assistance must be delivered quickly, particular with high-impact programs to meet vital humanitarian needs, rehabilitate key infrastructure, and rebuild housing. It is vital that the remaining $182 million promised by President Bush be used in this manner, and that additional aid is provided. In addition, the U.S. also should be working in a very public way to mobilize additional support from the international community. The international donor conference scheduled for August 31st presents an important opportunity to do so.

3. Providing Aid to Israel

Grade: B+

APN applauds the Bush Administration for its announcement that it intends to ask Congress to extend the existing U.S. loan guarantees for Israel for additional years. Loan guarantees have in the past proven an effective and financially prudent way for the U.S. to help Israel, short of providing additional cash transfer assistance. It should also be emphasized that this would not be a new U.S. obligation, but rather the extension of an existing program whose resources were not exhausted during the program's original life span.

4. Learning/Applying Lessons

Grade: F

The Israel-Hezbollah war did not emerge out of a regional vacuum. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the unresolved Israel-Syria issues have been left to fester, infecting extremists and warping the political landscape, with dangerous consequences for Israel, the U.S., and stability in the region. The Bush Administration's dogmatic approach to the Israeli-Arab conflict has given rise to the unprecedented situation in which the U.S. has abrogated leadership, ceased engagement, and cut off contact with key players in an arena where vital national security interests are at stake.

Unfortunately, President Bush thus far has failed to rise to the challenge of this moment to begin dealing with these underlying, festering issues. Real leadership requires the President to take a new, hands-on approach to the Middle East, replacing his failed "sanctions only" approach to Syria with a new policy that includes both carrots and sticks. Likewise, it requires him to replace the failed approach of sitting on the sidelines waiting for a more palatable Palestinian leadership to emerge, with policy that strengthens and empowers moderate, serious Palestinian leaders, exploits ideological cleavages within Hamas, and revives a meaningful and productive peace process.

APN repeats its call for President Bush to mobilize a peace conference - as his father did before him - to launch Israeli-Arab negotiations that include not only Israel and Lebanon, but also the Palestinians, Syria, and any other parties in the region that can be brought to the table. Israel's experiences with Egypt and Jordan clearly demonstrate that stability and security will not come from ceasefires or other stop-gap measures, but rather only through real peace agreements - and accompanying security guarantees.

As President Bush should now clearly understand, there is no stable status quo in the Middle East, whether on Israel's long-neglected northern border with Lebanon, or in the Gaza Strip or West Bank. If things are not getting better then they are almost certainly getting worse. The U.S. - as Israel's closest ally, as the world's last superpower, and as a nation that has vital and fragile interests in the region - cannot continue to abdicate its responsibility to work for a resolution to the Israeli-Arab conflict.


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A Note About APN's Report Cards:

Americans for Peace Now received a great deal of feedback regarding last week's Report Card. Most of the feedback was positive, but in a few cases readers expressed concern that APN was unfairly heaping blame on the Bush Administration, when the blame is shared by many players. In at least one case, it was suggested that APN is being unfair in blaming the Bush Administration for failing to do enough to support implementation of UNSCR 1701 since in the views of this reader, the resolution is fatally flawed and cannot be implemented, no matter what effort the Bush Administration invests.

We would like to make clear that APN is well aware of the failures of other parties. We explicitly refer to these failures in both Report Card 1 and Report Card 2. However, as an American organization whose mission is to educate and mobilize the American public and to press the U.S. government to implement real pro-Israel, pro-peace policies, our focus is deliberately and appropriately on the performance of the Bush Administration and the job it is doing making sure that UNSCR 1701 is successfully implemented. The Bush Administration played a pivotal role in determining both the content and timing of the resolution and, regardless of the fact that the resolution may be problematic, now has a responsibility to do everything possible to support its implementation.