President Trump will soon have a chance to assert U.S. leadership, save taxpayer money and promote peace in the Middle East. On Aug. 31, the United Nations Security Council is scheduled to vote on whether to renew the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. In 2025 Unifil was given the task of disarming Hezbollah and instead enabled the Shiite militia.

The annual vote is typically a rubber stamp, because inertia rules the U.N. The mission was created in 1978 to monitor an Israeli withdrawal in a long-forgotten skirmish with the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO is no longer in Lebanon, but Unifil still is. It didn’t keep the peace in 2006, when Hezbollah started a war by taking an Israeli hostage, or in October 2023 when Hezbollah joined in Hamas’s attack on Israel.

The ensuing war proved Unifil’s corruption. Hezbollah operatives captured by Israel testified that the group paid Unifil personnel to exploit their outposts and security cameras near the border. Hezbollah tunnel shafts were built within 100 yards of Unifil watchtowers, and rocket firing positions put next to Unifil bases. A tunnel running into Israel—designed to facilitate an Oct. 7-style attack—was found dozens of yards from a Unifil “observation” post.

The U.S. is on the hook for 27% of Unifil’s budget, or around $150 million a year. The Trump administration has described Unifil as an “abject failure” and clawed back U.S. payments for the current year in the rescission package. But France and others are pushing hard for a reprieve for Unifil. Peacekeeping missions give Paris a vestige of presence and influence in former colonies.

The first Trump administration considered nixing Unifil but was persuaded to compromise on a package reducing its size and supposedly introducing reforms. There will be temptations for the U.S. to compromise again. But if Unifil survives, it will eventually regrow under a less vigilant administration.

Some in the administration argue the Lebanese army isn’t ready to take over for Unifil. But Unifil doesn’t keep the peace, so there’s nothing to get ready for. Last month, with its reauthorization up in the air, Unifil was busy organizing “a training on gender mainstreaming in military operation” and other woke seminars for the Lebanese army, while another had a mass therapy session for “local women leaders.”

If the U.S. doesn’t veto Unifil, it would undermine the credibility of Washington’s broader demands—both for genuine disarmament of terror groups in Lebanon and Gaza and for broader U.N. reform.

The U.N. is organizationally designed to avoid oversight. U.N peacekeeping missions, with their requirement of periodic Security Council authorization, are one of the few places where the U.S. can directly impose accountability. Unifil isn’t the only peacekeeping mission that has outlived whatever usefulness it had. The missions in Western Sahara and Golan Heights likewise make no sense giving changing geopolitics in those places. Even the threat of ending those organizations would put the U.S. in a position to demand real change throughout the U.N.—or at least save some money.