When the French rewrote UNSCR 1701 they provisioned an increase in the UNIFIL force to 15,000 troops, the force strength considered necessary to carry out its various mandates, both old and new.

[The Security Council] ¶ 11. Decides, in order to supplement and enhance the force in numbers, equipment, mandate and scope of operations, to authorize an increase in the force strength of Unifil to a maximum of 15,000 troops, and that the force shall, in addition to carrying out its mandate under resolutions 425 and 426 (1978).

At the time, to improve the chances of the retooled resolution's passage, France encouraged the belief that she would provide the greater part of this force, some 4,000-5,000 troops, the matériel, and the command. The resolution passed August 11, but the rush to a headline success now had France actually thinking about just what she had wrought: the wrenching shift from French diplomacy to French arms, the unavoidable loss of ambivalence in the Arab world, the mission risks, the domestic risks, the percentage plays. France choked. France made new headlines criticizing her own handiwork as rushed, poorly conceived, defective.

Charles Krauthammer, August 25, 2006 (WaPo):

The United States worked assiduously with France to draft a Security Council resolution that would create a powerful international force, and thus a real buffer, in south Lebanon. However, when the Lebanese government and the Arab League objected, France became their lawyer and renegotiated the draft with the United States. The State Department acquiesced to a far weaker resolution on the quite reasonable grounds that since France was going to lead and be the major participant in the international force, we should not be dictating the terms under which the force would operate.

But we underestimated French perfidy. (Overestimating it is mathematically impossible.) Once the resolution was passed, France announced that instead of the expected 5,000 troops, it would be sending 200. The French defense minister explained that France was not going to send out soldiers under a limited mandate and weak rules of engagement -- precisely the mandate and rules of engagement that the French had just gotten us to agree to.

This breathtaking duplicity...left the State Department red-faced.

Playing safe spoiled France's diplomatic success. And she looked a complete ass. So France invented the fiction of vague "assurances" sought from the UN. Just what these "assurances" were beyond the stipulations of the resolution, well, we still don't know. A 35-hour Blue Line work week? This Thursday Jack felt sufficiently "assured" and upped the French commitment by 1,600 troops to 2,000, 40% of the original wink-wink-nudge-nudge French speculative commitment.

FRANCE: EUROPE EYES 6,500-7,000 TROOPS FOR LEBANON

BRUSSELS August 25, 2006 (Reuters) - "With the commitments that were made around the table today, we get to 6,500 to 7,000 [European] troops," [French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy*] told a news conference after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

If troop commitments fall short, deconstruct the narrative.

CHIRAC DEFENDS TACTICS FOR MANNING UN LEBANON FORCE

PARIS August 25, 2006 (AFP) - French President Jacques Chirac said Friday it made "no sense" to deploy 15,000 UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, a figure he said was "totally excessive."

"My feeling is that the figure talked about at the start of the debate of 15,000 soldiers for a reinforced UNIFIL was a totally excessive figure." ... Chirac said deploying such a large UN force alongside the Lebanese army's own 15,000 soldiers, into an area less than half the size of a standard French administrative region,** "makes no sense."

Chirac defended his tactics, saying Paris had to secure security guarantees from the United Nations on the role and mandate of the force.

"I wonder how it would have been judged if I had raced off like a mad dog without thinking or securing minimum guarantees," he said.

Well, Jack, people might have thought that you had been in close consultation with your foreign and defense ministers and that France had put forward a reasonable assessment of the force required and was prepared to act with the same urgency she impressed on others. Instead you have reinforced stereotypes of the French as craven, faithless, and irresponsible.

* The dimmest bulb in the dark Chirac marquee™.

More to the point is what makes sense given the mission and the enemy UNIFIL will confront. Hizballah is thought to have a force strength of upwards of 16,000. A near 2-to-1 advantage would seem prudent generalship. But the Lebanese army (40% Shia) cannot be counted on to seriously challenge Hizballah, which leaves the Blue Helmuts at the above reported 7,000, or at a 2+-to-1 disadvantage. Considering Hizballah's esprit de corps, its ideo-theological motivation, its native command of terrain, language, and customs, and its modern ordnance, the original 15,000 UN number seems too little to do the job.

PFFT (What is this?): Anything for a headline 4½ | Le legs chiraquien ½ | Rayonnement français ½