Realism deficit

It will take more than one intervention in the “near and uncomfortable regions” of their midst to detach themselves from the public’s fragile egos. Discussion of a thickly European multinational intervention force in Lebanon, no matter what it intends to do, will only end up maintaining the status quo because it will be undermined. They will lose the war on the home front.

"European public opinion is as elaborately constructed as its cathedrals."

writes Nidra Poller in TCS Daily.

To stop the fighting, they brandish the pure white flag of a hypothetical international force with a strong European contingent that will somehow achieve what no pinpoint attack, negotiation, security zone, incursion, or UN Resolution has heretofore accomplished. Whichever way you turn these solemn promises, they come up ridiculous. Denying, on the one hand, the realities of blood, sweat and tears combat and, on the other hand, the totality of European attitudes and reactions to events in the Middle East since the onset of jihad-intifada in September 2001, these vague proposals serve as a fancy veil to hide the face of European duplicity.

For the past several years European governments, with rare exceptions, have elaborated foreign policy in terms of anticipated reactions from their growing Muslim populations.

The notion of deploying a multinational peacekeeping force that includes Europeans is a farce. They will not assist Lebanon in disarming Hizballah because their every action will effect their domestic tranquility.

If you think about the fact a handful of cartoons from Denmark was used as a reason to be outraged in the streets of the Near East, just wait and see what happens when French military units are duped into a skirmish or ambush, and to the horror of jihad's social Gestapo emerge only slightly bloodied. Libération, The Guardian, and the Indy will indeed make a point of showing their readers the blood on Europe’s hands during election time, and will go into contortions to avoid comparisons with the deployments to the former Yugoslavia. They will only end up tacitly inferring that this new-found concern for Hizballah’s “Minutemen” will diminish the regard they had for similarly tribal Slavic lives in the past.

Those moss covered branched of the press will surely give them a honeymoon for a while, and try to point to a greater good it might have, but will recede into their usual Dr. Strangelovian tic of calling anything of the sort a foreign occupation. They will look back on their kid glove treatment as hypocrisy as soon as a ballot box comes into view.

French military participation in Afghanistan is off the radar screen. French troops are seen with a tender eye only when they participate in humanitarian operations—rescuing survivors of a tsunami, bringing food and medicines to Hezbollah fiefdoms in southern Lebanon. José Luis Zapatero got elected in Spain when he promised to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq...in reaction to the Madrid train bombing. Romano Prodi is adored because he is likely to do likewise. Tony Blair is despised, even in his own country, because he actively supports American policy in the Middle East.

Europeans are steeped in diversity worship. European intellectuals preach dialogue with the adversary, concessions to the aggressor... they refuse the very idea of enemies.

At the first news of a handful of dead Europeans (or Hizballah scum for that matter), and the addiction to forming comparisons will walk right out of the AA meeting Jonesing for a fix.
Forces will either be staged into withdrawal by a sufficient amount of combat or be told to become withdrawn and given the same doctrine the Dutch had in Srebrenica solely for reasons of political expedience at home.

It’s doomed from jumpstreet, says Poller:

If you don't believe me, ask the EU's foreign policy man, Javier Solana:
"Asked who would disarm Hizbullah—a central demand of Israel—Solana said that the Lebanese could play a role and that he hoped a political end to the conflict would deprive the militant group of its rationale for arms."

It would be a two-front war: in the slums of south Beirut and in "the 9-3" that no political contortionist could escape from.

The fuse is lit!