According to this piece in the Financial Times, the Italian government has decided to pick up the baton and is pushing forward as the lead force within UNIFIL. Now while it's nice to see a nation taking a pro-active stance with regards to Lebanon, I have agree that the center-right opposition and military forces of Italy are right when they note their weariness towards putting their armed forces into southern Lebanon against a armed terrorist group like Hezbollah especially when you have fuzzy mandates and no clear-cut rules of engagement like they have under 1701. I think the following sums up my concerns about the deployment of troops(A lot of our allies) into Hezbollahland:
"“If we were to be allowed to disarm Hizbollah, then I would be the first to say yes to the mission, but as things stand we risk placing our troops in the middle without even being allowed to slap anyone,"” said Francesco Storace, an opposition politician and former government minister.I wish them luck but too many things look very similar to 1983 Beirut and that's not good. No wonder the French gave a big "non" in being the lead force in southern Lebanon.
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