Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5ba34bfc-218d-11db-b650-0000779e2340.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5ba34bfc-218d-11db-b650-0000779e2340.html
Date: August 1, 2006

Transcript: Interview with Mark Malloch Brown
Published: August 1 2006 22:10 | Last updated: August 1 2006 22:10
Mark Turner of the Financial Times interviewed Mark Malloch Brown, United Nations deputy secretary general, in New York on July 31. This is an edited transcript of his remarks.
One’s got to recognise there are a lot of actors now to this, whose acquiescence is needed if we’re to find a solution.
The government of Lebanon and within that Hizbollah, which has been politically strengthened by what has happened, and Syria and Iran, but more generally the demons have to be quieted across the wider Islamic world, where this have been a polarising and radicalising event
When people talk about the dangers of this spreading or not, I don’t think the real danger is some kind of formal involvement of Syrian and Iran, and the war regionalising in that sense so much, as it is this dangerous radicalising of the whole Arab-Islamic world.
From day one, this has been much more of a political war than a military war in terms of how you define victory.
Maybe that has often been the case for Middle East conflicts, but it has been acutely so this time for several reasons: firstly, the nature of the coverage. You’ve got a very polished Israeli machine, with very good spokesmen, articulating a very strong, rationale for Israel’s actions, and you’ve indeed got a kind of natural justice argument on Israel’s side: its soldiers were kidnapped, had to live under this horrendous issue of Hizbollah attacks, and today you’ve got a massive displacement of people from northern Israel.
And yet, those facts and words are as nothing compared to the pictures. This is the first Middle East war that Israel has fought into the teeth of the mature global cable television news industry; yes there was CNN before, but there wasn’t Al Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, there wasn’t cable access and 24 hour news channels all over the world. And this is fundamentally affecting public attitudes towards this. 
On civilian casualties:
This is certainly not the first modern conflict where civilians have taken the brunt of the casualties.
The argument of proportionality doesn’t fall away but it has to be interpreted, in the light of asymmetrical warfare, in the context of the fact you do have to dig these military assets from amidst civilians, but it still doesn’t justify the level of civilian casualty. That’s the judgement of it.
But there is another argument of proportionality, that while the Hizbollah campaign has been less successful in claiming lives, it has been a thousand times more indiscriminate in its effort to target civilians, it is making no effort to hit military targets; it’s just a broadside against civilian targets.
It’s all very challenging.
On the US and the UK:
What is troubling to me is the US and UK now carry with them a particular set of baggage in the Middle East. The challenge for them is to recognise that ultimately they have to allow others to share the lead in this effort diplomatically and (in putting together) a stabilisation force.
It’s not helpful for it again to appear to be the team that led on Iraq or even on Afghanistan. It’s not helpful to couch this war in the language of international terrorism. Hizbollah employs terrorist tactics, it is an organisation however whose roots historically are completely separate and different from Al Qaeda.
It draws on a strong political well of support in southern Lebanon and after the events of the last few weeks more deeply, and until that is addressed you are not going to stop it.
So it’s a combination of an easy association that this is an effort led by the US and the UK, in the minds of the region that this is Iraq redux, which has got to be countered.
The US is a critical broker of peace, a vital partner to make this happen, but it’s got to find others to do this with – countries such as France, others would be drawn into a peacekeeping effort, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, there’s got to be an outreach to Syria and Iran even if it is not by the US.
This cannot be perceived as a US-UK deal with Israel.
The challenge this week is can it (the US) take the work that Condi Rice has done in the region and broaden the support for it, both with the Europeans, but also wit regional allies, to make this an international approach, with strong regional buy-in.
To the UK:
After a career spent in multilateralism, one of my first bosses taught me it’s really important to know not just when to lead but when to follow.
For the UK, this is one to follow. To be a very constructive player behind the scenes; we don’t want to fall into this Iraq redux issue.
The UK has immense knowledge and influence; it can be a behind the scenes player. But we need Chirac and Bush, or Chirac, Bush, and Mubarak and Abdullah on a podium, not President Bush and Mr Blair. 
It’s good to know when to be in the spotlight and when not to be.
Britain has tried very very hard to keep with the US on this; one respects the reasons for that entirely, but you have a security council and international public opinion, while fully understanding what has been done to Israel, now believes strongly in a cessation to hostilities.
This is where the UK is a crucial swing vote. When it comes behind a cessation of hostilities, it makes it that much harder for the last stalwarts to hold out.
Without a cessation of hostilities, the region is not going to listen to the other steps of a plan.
On the future of Hizbollah:
Everybody would want a solution here which takes away the recruiting power of Hizbollah in the broader Arab world.
That is one which addresses the territorial issue of the Sheba farms, which in a broader way addresses Lebanon’s sovereignty and integrity in a way that allows Hizbollah a political as against a militia future inside an independent Lebanon.
If those issues can be addressed, then the support for a militarised Hizbollah falls away. But the idea that there is a peace which either Hizbollah would respect, or which would draw the wind out of Hizbollah’s sails which doesn’t address those political things is I think far-fetched.
Over time there’s got to be a similar future as there have been for other terrorist fighters; a settlement which addresses the political issues of their cause as well as the military ones. Which secures disarmament and reintegration into a non violent political process.
Hizbollah now is the principle voice of Shia Muslims in Lebanon – something like 40 per cent of the population – that gives them immense power as a political party if they were to forsake the military route. 
On Iran and Syria:
There’s this wonderful quote I read, if you want to make peace in the Middle East you need Syria. 
We feel very strongly that before this process is over that Syria needs to be consulted and brought in some way or other informally or otherwise as a party to this agreement. Its concurrence will be necessary.
What Syria would need in terms of a cessation of hostilities is very different to what Syria needs in terms of comprehensive peace agreement. For cessation of hostilities it needs agreement that there is a stand-down which all sides are going to respect; some period of time while a broader agreement is sought. For the broader agreement Syria will obviously have national issues of its own.
On Iran:
We’ll just have to see.
It’s probably fair to see (that) for Iran the great game on both fronts (the nuclear resolution and the issue of Hizbollah), (is) that in both cases perhaps there is a common strategic objective – which is Iran wanting a normalization of its relationships and to be brought back into the international community.
We need to understand Iran’s principle diplomatic objective across both these issues: respect. 
On Gaza:
This could be the catalyst now for finally spurring a much broader Middle East settlement. That is the one silver lining one might see from all of this.