France Backs Down

Surprising? No. Disappointing? Yes. This is from the Washington Post:

France on Thursday rebuffed pleas by U.N. officials to make a major contribution to a peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, setting back efforts to deploy an international military force to help police a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, according to U.N. and French officials.
French President Jacques Chirac said Thursday that France would contribute only 200 additional troops to the U.N. operation in southern Lebanon, which the Security Council wants to expand from 2,000 troops to 15,000.

Why did they back down? Could it be from fear of Hezbollah?

The decision was prompted in part by the French military's anxiety over serving under U.N. command, diplomats said. French officials cited the loss of 84 French troops in the U.N. mission in the early 1990s in Bosnia, and the seizure of French peacekeepers as hostages. French officials had also expressed concern that Hezbollah fighters were not prepared to disarm and might turn their guns on peacekeeping troops, according to U.N. diplomats. In 1983, Islamic militants killed 58 French paratroops in a suicide bomb attack in Beirut.

Maybe this is a good thing, considering France's support of Arab dictators such as Saddam Hussein as well as recent praising of Iran as a "stabilizing force in the region".