The resolution calls for Hezbollah to cease all attacks, and for the IDF to cease offensive operations. The resolution also calls for Lebanon to take responsibility for supplanting Hezbollah as a military force inside its borders, while also calling for a demilitarized zone between the border and the Litani River and for Lebanon to uphold all UN resolutions. It is unclear how a battered Lebanon will be able to accomplish any of these things, or who will pay for the Lebanese infrastructure that Israel has destroyed.
There is no mention of the return of the two IDF soldiers, nor is there any linkage to the more permanent solution that Bush called for from the beginning, such as a unilateral disarming of Hezbollah. Instead, it looks like Condi’s demand for an interim agreement first to defuse the situation and get the IDF to withdraw may have carried the day, especially since it was she who called the Israelis to get them to back away from the offensive and give diplomacy another chance.
For some reason, the administration and Israel changed their posture on this matter in the last 24 hours. To the Israelis, it appears that Rice felt she had to save Israel from itself, simply because some in the Bush Administration felt that Israel and the Olmert team couldn't explain what the hell they defined as success. In other words, kind of like the Bush Administration and Iraq.
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