Pakistan, June 5 -- The latest US-brokered framework for Lebanon is less a peace plan than an attempt to restore the logic of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 under wartime pressure. Israel and Lebanon have said they are prepared to move towards a conditional ceasefire built around two familiar requirements: Hezbollah would halt its fire and withdraw from the area south of the Litani, while the Lebanese Armed Forces would assume exclusive control of designated security zones free of non-state armed actors.

Since the 2006 war, Lebanon has been asked to perform the functions of a state while one of the most consequential decisions any state can make - war or peace - has remained beyond the government's exclusive control. Any ceasefire t...