It certainly sounded like Europe was ready to muster a significant part of an international peacekeeping force in south Lebanon. European Union foreign policy czar Javier Solana said on Aug. 13 that, within "a very, very short time," 4,000 of the planned 15,000-strong force of international troops would be in the

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nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu) region. "You can be sure that the E.U. is with you," he had said the previous day in Beirut.

But last week, Europe — particularly France — took a closer look at the situation and effectively gulped in horror. A defiant Hizballah...