By Andrew L. Jaffee

Just last week, Syrian President Assad was talking of a “peace settlement in the Middle East.” Today, he showed his full (poker) hand, which divulged his true intentions. Assad has no desire to cut off arms shipments to Hezbollah. From the BBC:

In a meeting with the UN’s Mr Roed-Larsen on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the stationing of UN troops along Lebanon’s border with Syria to stop the smuggling of arms to Hezbollah would allow it to lift the blockade.

But Syrian President Bashar al-Assad immediately rejected the idea, saying it would be interpreted as a “hostile act”.

So Assad is defying U.N. Resolution 1701, which welcomes:

the efforts of the Lebanese prime minister and the commitment of the government of Lebanon, in its seven-point plan, to extend its authority over its territory, through its own legitimate armed forces, such that there will be no weapons without the consent of the government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the government of Lebanon, welcoming also its commitment to a UN force that is supplemented and enhanced in numbers, equipment, mandate and scope of operation, and bearing in mind its request in this plan for an immediate withdrawal of the Israeli forces from southern Lebanon…

So who now is the “obstacle” to peace? Will Italy et al — those contributing troops to a UN peacekeeping force — acquiesce to the Syrian border being off-limits?

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Related: Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Terrorist Groups, United Nations (UN)

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