There is no answer, because this war does not have an aggressor - an aggressor that would have been named in UN Security Council's resolutions, such as Resolution 1701, which provides for the current unstable peace in the country.
There is no aggressor, but the damage is enormous. The Lebanese legislature's commission for public works and transport estimates that 15,000 residential buildings, homes to 300,000 people, are beyond repairs. As many as 39 schools, hospitals and libraries were destroyed, along with 76 bridges; 94 roads were damaged. The unemployment rate is expected to reach 20% by October, which means that every fifth person will be out of work. Budget tax losses are estimated at over $200 million. Damage to agriculture, including lost profits, stands at $350-$500 million; to the environment at $65-$75 million; and to energy facilities at $245 million. Losses from a lower tourist inflow are estimated at $3 billion and from lower foreign investment at another $3 billion by the end of this year alone.
Lebanon's aggregate damages, including projected losses until the yearend, amounts to $9.5 billion, or 40% of its gross national product. Losses will continue next year as well, which means that half of the country's economy has been destroyed.
The parliamentary commission assessing the damage deals only with economic issues, and does not say anything about more than a thousand people that were killed, one third of them children.
The situation with reimbursement is a clear illustration of international law today and how it works. This time it has turned into a clinch of opposing ideologies within the international community.
To put it simply, different people from different countries name different parties as the aggressor in the conflict.
If you are an American or an Israeli, or just share certain convictions, it is clear to you that it is Lebanon who should pay. It should pay for Hizbollah acting on its territory, for missile strikes on peaceful Israeli cities, etc. The usual argument about Israel's "excessive response" (to destroy half the country because of two soldiers' abduction) does not work for such people. They have different reference points - Hizbollah's actions that took place long ago.
Proponents of the opposite view, especially, but not only in the Muslim world, will respond that Israel's campaign against Lebanon had been planned for a long time, at least since the beginning of this year, which became known earlier this month. So the two abducted soldiers had nothing to do with it (but quite in the opposite sense).
The view held by Chandra Muzaffar, a Malaysian politician and President of the International Movement for a Just World, is interesting already because Malaysia, as a Muslim country, is not a Middle-East state, situated a 6-hours flight from the region. Besides, an ethnic Indian, Muzaffar had serious problems with his country's Islamists for a long time. So his view should be a moderate one. Nevertheless, he titled his recent report "The Israeli Aggressor Is Let Off the Hook," referring to the fact that the UN Security Council's Resolution 1701 did not name Israel as the aggressor.
International law is made in the UN. This is not a global government, but almost a supreme international court. It is likely that representatives of all states speaking at the opening of the UN General Assembly's session in late September will voice their views on the Lebanese war. But they are witnesses, not judges. The question of who the aggressor is and who has to pay for the destruction is decided at the UN Security Council's meetings. It was clear from the very beginning that even if someone had tried to add the word "aggressor" (referring to either of the two parties) in the resolution, there would have been at least one veto.
The Middle East is not the only region in the world to be facing this dead end. Lebanon is not the only war-devastated country that has found itself in a murky legal zone. No one has reimbursed Serbia for the damage inflicted on its civil population and infrastructure during the 1999 war. That war did not have an aggressor either. And this subject is almost taboo in today's conversations, just like reimbursements to Lebanon.
Actually, the only case in recent years when the aggressor was officially announced was Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990; the rest fall into the murky zone.
It has been generally acknowledged that Israel's war on Lebanon was a defeat rather than a triumph of Israel and its supporter, the United States. However, the Lebanese government and people are unlikely to agree. They would confirm that we are now witnessing an intolerable and absurd situation: half of the country's economy has been destroyed, but there is no one to blame.
Intolerable situations often lead to tectonic shifts on a regional level or even broader scale. For example, it is widely believed that the U.S. and Israeli influence in the Middle East has shrunk drastically after the Lebanese war, and that this vacuum will be filled by other forces, perhaps, Iran or even France. It is possible that countries that will help to restore Lebanon - and will then try to protect their investment - will increase their influence in the region. And it is also possible that we have yet to see global competition for this role of a peace builder.
