UN peacekeeping chief warns smooth transition essential before Lebanon withdrawal

For decades, United Nations peacekeepers have been woven into the security fabric of Lebanon, and the head of those operations now cautions that unwinding that presence demands as much care as the original deployment. The peacekeeping chief's warning — that a smooth transition is a prerequisite, not a preference — places an old human dilemma in sharp relief: how does an outside stabilizing force leave without becoming the cause of the very instability it came to prevent? The answer, the UN suggests, lies not in a departure date but in the readiness of Lebanese institutions to stand in the spac