ARAB-EUROPEAN RELATIONS - Aug 1 - Blair Urged To Take Lebanon Back Seat.

The UK and US are warned by the UN' second most senior official that as "the team that led on Iraq" they are poorly placed to take a leading role in diplomatic efforts on the crisis in Lebanon. In a striking admonition of two permanent security council nations, Mark Malloch Brown, deputy secretary-general, told the FT that the UK should take a back seat in dealing with the conflict, while the US should allow other countries to share the diplomatic lead. Later it appeared that UN appeals for a Franco-US rapprochement were bearing fruit, as diplomats said the two countries were close to an agreement on a staged end to the fighting, with a call for an immediate cessation of hostilities, followed quickly by a sustainable longer-term political deal and an international force. UK officials had earlier said they were trying to bridge the gaps betwen the US and France over a UN resolution. However on Aug 1 night Israeli forces were reported to have launched a major operation in the eastern Bekaa valley deep inside Lebanon, targeting Hizbullah positions with warplanes and helicopters. Malloch Brown said: It's not helpful for it again to appear to be the team that led on Iraq. This cannot be perceived as a US-UK deal with Israel. One of my first bosses taught me it's really important to know not just when to lead, but when to follow". Malloch Brown said the image of the US and UK presenting a joint leading role in resolving the conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hizbullah, the Shi'ite Islamist movement, risked creating the impression of "Iraq redux, which has got to be countered". He suggested that Britain would be better playing a constructive role behind the scenes in the Lebanon conflict. The deputy secretary-general, who only last month criticised the Bush administration's approach to the UN, said the US was a "critical broker of peace", but "for the UK, this is one to follow. We need [Jacques] Chirac and Bush, or Chirac, Bush and [Egypt's Hosni] Mubarak and [Jordan's King] Abdullah, on a podium, not President Bush and Blair. There's got to be an outreach to Syria and Iran, even if it is not by the US". His comments came as Tony Blair acknowledged tacitly the "war against terror" was being lost, with the Lebanon conflict exacerbating the alienation of moderate Muslim opinion from the west. Blair, addressing the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles, said: We will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values we are at present far away from persuading those we need to persuade". In remarks appearing to presage a change of stance by the UK government, Blair talked of the need to "reappraise our strategy". However, hours earlier Britain joined Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic in resisting an EU statement that called for an "immediate ceasefire" and censured Israel for "a severe breach of international humanitarian law".