Superpowers and Small States:
an Overview of American-Lebanese Relations.
By: Dr. Paul E. Salem
Courtesy of Lebanon Select web
site
(Mr.Michel El Hayek)
Introduction
The determining factors of U.S. policy toward Lebanon are deeply intertwined with U.S.
Policy considerations at the global, regional, and bilateral levels. The thread of
American-Lebanese relations must be traced amidst the thick web of interconnecting
policies and relations of which Lebanon is a part. For example, U.S. Marines landed in
Lebanon in 1958 as part of the U.S.-Soviet tug-of-war; Lebanon became a center for
American diplomatic, intelligence, and commercial activity in the late 1960s and early
1970s because of the collapse of U.S.-Arab relations in the wake of the 1967 Arab-Israeli
war; general U.S. support for Lebanon stemmed from American empathy toward Lebanon's
democratic institutions, its liberal economic system, and its cultural pluralism. U.S.
policy has always reflected such a mix of global, regional, and bilateral concerns.
The perceptual problem for most Lebanese, however, which we will look into in more
detail later, is that U.S. policy toward Lebanon is always seen as bilateral. The landing
of U.S. Marines in 1958 and again in 1982 was deemed as proof of America's concern for
Lebanon as was its heavy presence prior to the 1975 war. Even its inaction in preventing
the collapse of the state in 1975 was part of a "Kissinger master plan" and
evidence of America's complicity in destroying Lebanon, hence proof of Lebanon's
importance - even if negative - to the U.S. All strings seemed to lead to Washington. In
reality, for the U.S. Lebanon occupied and occupies very little prominence; indeed, it
often barely appears on the foreign policy agenda at all.
Lebanon's inflated sense of self-importance is, perhaps, an instinct natural among
small nations that must exaggerate their apparent value to outside players in order to
survive; or perhaps it is the residue of the attention lavished on the country earlier in
the century by France. In any case, this self-importance distorts Lebanese perceptions of
U.S. policy and perceives the U.S. as always engaged either in championing or
battling the Lebanese cause; whereas, most of the time, the U.S. is simply disengaged. In
this article, I will trace the course of U.S. policy toward Lebanon; review the global,
regional, and bilateral elements in the relationship; and finally examine the perceptions
and misperceptions of each party toward the other. Only by looking at this larger and
multi-faceted complex of relations and perceptions can one begin to recognize the course
and color of the light thread of U.S.-Lebanese relations woven into the wider fabric.
The Political History:
>From the Protestant Missions to the Cold War
Before World War II, the U.S. had not moved fully onto the world stage, aside from a short
foray into Europe in World War I. The Middle East, especially, was the special reserve of
the colonial powers, Britain and France. American companies began to appreciate the
importance of the Arab Gulf area as a source of oil early in the twentieth century, but
U.S. policymakers were still far from contemplating any active policy in the Middle East.
With regard to Lebanon, American interest was limited to the activity of American
Protestant missionaries who had come to Lebanon in the mid-nineteenth century and built
several educational institutions, most notably the American University of Beirut
(established originally as the Syrian Protestant College). But this interest was of an
unofficial cultural nature and was channeled through private church and missionary
organizations. Contact had also been established in the reverse direction by the thousands
of Lebanese emigrants who settled in the United States in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries.
This cultural interest was overtaken by commercial interests only in the 1940s and
1950s when Lebanon became integrated into the world oil market. The British Iraqi
Petroleum Company built an oil pipeline through Syria to the Lebanese port town of
Tripoli, while ARAMCO built its Trans Arabian Pipline (TAPLINE) with a terminus in Sidon.
American firms and businessmen began to set up shop in the country, and Beirut gained
increasing importance as a business, banking, communications, and tourist center.
America's definitive entry into world politics in World War II, accompanied by the
collapse of British and French power, the establishment of Israel, and the emergence of
the Cold War, propelled the U.S. into the arena of Middle Eastern politics. The U.S.'s
first objective in this phase was to consolidate the still generally pro-Western regimes
of the Middle East into a regional alliance system aligned with the West and designed as a
bulwark against Soviet expansion south into the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, or the
Indian Ocean. This objective crystallized into attempts to establish a Middle East Command
in 1951,and then the Baghdad Pact in 1955,which was centered around a southern tier
alliance with Turkey, Iraq ,and Iran. Throughout this period, the Lebanese government went
along with general American policy in the region and came to be regarded as an ally
-albeit a minor one. Opposition to the U.S. policy in the region, however developed under
the leadership of Egyptian President Gamal Abd al-Nasser. Between 1954 and 1958 Nasser led
a wave of opposition to the United States which saw the downfall of pro-Western regimes in
Syria and Iraq and the destabilization of other pro-Western regimes in Jordan and Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the Soviets acquired new clients in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. The Cold War had
come to the Middle East.
In Lebanon, this was reflected in increased polarization. President Camille Chamoun
(1952-1958) chose close alignment with the U.S and was the only Arab head of state to come
out in open support of the Eisenhower Doctrine in 1957. His administration was rewarded
with American financial and other support, often channeled through the CIA, which was
especially effective in helping Chamoun's supporters sweep the 1957 parliamentary
elections. In this early phase, however, Lebanon was regarded simply as one of America's
friends in the frenetic and high stakes game of the Cold War. No elaborate or involved
policy had been developed for Lebanon nor was there any deep understanding among American
policy makers about Lebanon's domestic politics and its regional situation. The rude
awakening came in 1958 when domestic political tensions surrounding Chamoun's attempt to
renew his term of office, exacerbated by ideological tensions over Nasserism and the
rising tide of Arab nationalism, plunged the political system into paralysis. This was
followed by civil strife which claimed some 2,000 lives.
The Eisenhower administration expressed "concern" about developments in the
country, but took little action. Only when the crisis took on regional, and indeed, global
significance - namely after the overthrow of the pro-Western monarchy in Iraq by Communist
and Nasserist forces in July 1958 - did the U.S. administration accord importance to the
Lebanese situation and dispatch Marines to the beaches of Beirut. For Washington, the
Marine deployment was a warning to Moscow and Cairo, and an act of reassurance for
America's remaining allies in the region. The move was part of America's maneuvering on
the regional and global stages; that U.S. diplomats could take advantage of their
country's temporary engagement in Lebanon to work out a denouement to the local political
crisis was of marginal importance.
However, U.S. involvement in Lebanon opened the eyes of U.S. diplomats and
policy-makers to the complexities and contradictions of Lebanese politics of which they
had known only vaguely before. The Lebanon they now perceived was one of bewildering
confessional diversity and shifting alliances - a 'Precarious Republic', as the American
political scientist Michael Hudson would label it in his influential study of 1968. In
practical terms, the 1958 experience resulted in the shaking of U.S. faith in the ability
of Lebanon to be a useful ally in regional or global politics. As Henry Kissinger would
reflect several years later, Lebanon appeared too involved in caring "for its own
fragile cohesion to play an active role in Mideast diplomacy."[1] When the Marines
left Lebanon, U.S. policy-makers' tentative commitment to Lebanon as an ally in the Cold
War against Moscow and Cairo left with them.
Lebanon came to be regarded as a fragile state of subtle alliances and delicate
balances, unfit for the rigors of the Cold War. The U.S. continued to welcome warm
Lebanese-American relations and to appreciate the Lebanese government's generally
pro-Western orientation in cultural and economic matters, but Lebanon was dropped from the
chessboard of Cold War politics to be set adrift in that coldest of regions in the Cold
War: the 'neutral' zone.
In Lebanon, of course, American moves were explained in bilateral terms as proof of the
U.S.'s staunch commitment to the Lebanese state and its willingness to commit troops in
its defense. In narrower confessional terms, it was taken as proof of American commitment
to a strong Maronite presidency and opposition to a larger share of power by the Sunni or
wider Muslim community. The shadow of the 1958 intervention would color Lebanese
perceptions and calculations for years to come.
From Cold War to Arab-Israeli War: 1958-1975
After a brief honeymoon period of stability and prosperity between 1958 and 1966, Lebanon
was dragged back into the international political arena, this time through the door of
regional politics. While in 1956 the U.S. had avoided classification as a full-fledged
enemy of the Arabs because of its opposition to the Israeli-French-British invasion of
Egypt during the Suez crisis, America's open support for Israel in the much more
devastating 1967 War confirmed its status among Arab nationalists as an enemy of the
Arabs. While in 1958, alliance with the U.S. was problematic, in the late 1960s even
normal diplomatic relations with the U.S. became dangerous. Anti-American feeling spread
in the region and contributed in Lebanon to renewed internal polarization. The situation
was exacerbated by the breaking of diplomatic relations between Egypt, Syria, Iraq and
other Arab states, and the U.S., and the relocation of a number of U.S. diplomatic,
business, and intelligence operations to Beirut under a government still friendly to
Washington. Beirut quickly gained a reputation as an outpost of "American
imperialism", and "progressive forces" led by emergent Palestinian
guerrilla movements and leftist Lebanese parties, with support from like-minded
governments in Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad, set out to do battle with the imperial
hegemon on Lebanese soil.
Lebanon quickly lost its political integrity as a nation-state. South Lebanon became a
battleground in the War of Attrition that developed in 1968-69, and the growth of
Palestinian armed power in Lebanon, with Arab backing, led to a gradual collapse of state
sovereignty. This situation was recognized quasi-formally in the Cairo Agreement of 1969
in which the Palestinians were allowed special military and political privileges. The U.S.
was alarmed at the rapid advances made by the Palestinians and the radicals and soon lent
its political support to a tougher Lebanese stance in which the Lebanese would deal with
the Palestinians as King Husayn had dealt with them in Jordan. This was referred to as the
'Ammanization' option. President Franjiyyeh, elected in 1970, seemed to have the required
tough-man characteristics to do the job, but aside from an abortive May 1973 army attack
on the Sabra refugee camp, the state proved unable to act decisively. Muslim, leftist, and
Syrian opposition to the clampdown tied the state's hands. Once again, political and
communal tensions were leading toward paralysis and civil strife.
The U.S. gave up hope for the 'Ammanization' of the emerging Lebanese crisis and fished
around for a new policy for Lebanon's domestic problems based on political reform and
accommodation with the Palestinians. U.S. Ambassador G. McMurtrie Godley courted Rashid
Karami and the reformist Maronite leader, Raymond Eddé, and urged all parties to reach a
new political consensus through reform. Indeed, Godley's efforts represent the first signs
of American understanding of, and concern for, the Lebanese political crisis on its own
terms, separate from regional or global concerns. In 1973, however, the U.S.
administration was soon overtaken by the momentous events of the October War and its
aftermath of spiralling oil prices.
The war changed U.S. Middle East policy in several ways. First, it disproved the
principle laid down by President Johnson in 1967, and reaffirmed by Kissinger, that the
U.S. could prevent war in the Middle East and ensure the free flow of oil by maintaining
the clear military superiority of its principal ally in the region, Israel.[2] Arab
frustration had led to a war that not only threatened to overwhelm Israel but also to drag
the U.S. into direct confrontation with the Soviet Union; furthermore, it led to the
consolidation by the Arabs of the use of oil as a powerful political weapon against the
West. Kissinger reacted to these realizations by embarking on a vigorous diplomatic
initiative to forge peace between the Arabs and Israel, based on step-by-step diplomacy
and bilateral negotiations between individual Arab states and Israel.
Second, the war shifted the focus of U.S. attention from the Levant - the scene of Cold War confrontations and Arab-Israeli wars - to the Gulf, where the U.S.'s massive oil interests - which had been threatened by the oil embargo - lay [3] The Levant became a marginal arena whose importance increased or decreased depending on how the situation there affected the flow of oil from the Gulf. U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia and Iran developed into large-scale military and economic alliances overshadowing U.S. relations with all other Middle Eastern countries except Israel.
The Lebanese War
Disengagement: April 1975 - March 1976
As the Lebanese policy unraveled between 1973 and 1975, in the wake of the failed attempt
to curb the power of the Palestinians in Lebanon, the American administration seemed to
take little notice and made few policy statements on the matter. First, it had begun to
question Lebanon's value as a political asset beginning in 1958 and confirmed its belief
in the inherent precariousness of the country in 1969 and 1973. In their memoirs, several
U.S. presidents and policymakers such as Nixon, Carter, and Kissinger, referred to Lebanon
simply in terms of its "chronic crisis".
Second, the U.S.'s foreign policy apparatus under Kissinger was almost entirely
dedicated to the pursuit of Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy between Israel, Egypt, Jordan,
and Syria. The success of the peace process was of paramount importance; most other
matters became marginal[4]
Third, the Nixon administration was mired in multiple crises including popular
opposition to the war in Vietnam, followed by the collapse of South Vietnam, regional
crises in Angola and Ethiopia, and domestic problems related to the Watergate scandal. The
executive branch was under attack, and any notion of resolute American military action to
stem the collapse of Lebanon, after Vietnam and after the Nixon Doctrine, was unthinkable.
Fourth, the early 1970s saw the emergence of Detente between the superpowers. In such
an atmosphere, unlike in 1958, the polarization and disintegration of Lebanon could be
viewed as a domestic or, at most, a regional problem without global superpower overtones.
Indeed, the collapse of Lebanon - after all, a fairly pro-Western state - and the success
of the Palestinian-leftist coalition which enjoyed Soviet support in the first year of the
war raised few cold war hackles in Washington .Lebanon was not perceived as being lost to
the Soviet Union or to its clients; it was merely being lost to itself. Hence, the loss
could be perceived as of little importance to the U.S.
The Syrian Option: 1976-1981
Kissinger began to pay attention to the deteriorating situation in Lebanon in the spring
of 1976. By that time, the Palestinian-leftist alliance had gotten the upper hand, the
Christians were embattled and losing ground, the Army had split along confessional lines,
and the Syrians had become directly involved in the conflict through their Palestine
Liberation Army battalions and Sa`iqa forces. As previously, the reason for American
interest in Lebanon stemmed from sources beyond Lebanon: this time it was American concern
that Syrian involvement in Lebanon could precipitate Israeli involvement which might lead
to confrontation and a derailment of the Israeli-Egyptian peace process.
The Syrians, for their part, were worried by the situation. Although they had
originally helped arm the Palestinians and the leftist alliance in Lebanon, now they
feared their victory. A victory for the Palestinian-leftist alliance might mean the
partition of Lebanon between a radical leftist state with close links to Libya and Iraq,
and a rump Christian state allied with Israel. Both would constitute a threat to Syria.
The radical leftist state would provoke Israel into action and drag Syria into
confrontation with it, and the rump Christian state would provide a base for a projection
of Israeli power on Syria's flank. What the Syrian government wanted was an end to
hostilities and a reconstitution of central state authority accompanied by an expanded
military and political role for Syria in the country. Syria's interest in both Lebanon and
Jordan had increased in the wake of the signing of the Sinai II Accords in September 1975
and the beginning of Egypt's withdrawal from confrontation with Israel. Left alone in
confrontation with Israel, Syria wished to consolidate its position through increased
influence over Jordan and Lebanon.[5]
Initially, Kissinger had no positive inclinations toward the Syrian role in Lebanon.
Syria, after all, was a Soviet client and had been recalcitrant in the peace process with
Israel. As Syrian intervention in Lebanon increased in the early months of 1976, Kissinger
and the U.S. administration privately and publicly expressed their opposition to any
large-scale Syrian intervention. Between March and April 1976, however, the U.S. policy on
this matter changed. >From warning against Syrian intervention, Kissinger and the State
Department began to issue statements describing the Syrian role in Lebanon as
'constructive' and made it known that a larger Syrian role in Lebanese affairs would be
tolerated and might, in fact, be welcomed.
The reason for this important shift is not yet fully clear and must await more
substantive historical evidence, but there are two plausible interpretations: one
interpretation explains the shift as a realization by Kissinger that inviting the Syrians
to intervene would kill several birds with one stone.[6] First, the Syrians could deal a
strong blow to the PLO who were one of the main opponents of Kissinger's peace diplomacy
and who had been accorded legitimacy at the Arab summit meeting in Rabat in October 1974.
Second, they could deal a strong blow to the pro-Soviet Lebanese left. Third, their
movement into Lebanon would divert them from the Golan and the separate peace being
prepared between Israel and Egypt and, indeed, would divert and divide a large section of
the Arab world. The alternative interpretation, which sees a more passive American role,
is that after Sinai II, Syria was determined to expand its influence into Lebanon, and
that its entry by proxy through the PLA and Sa`iqa forces in January was to test the
waters for larger intervention later in the year. In this scenario, the U.S. and Kissinger
were simply reacting to Syrian policy with the main concern of trying to avert a
Syrian-Israeli confrontation.
In either case, the U.S. played a crucial role in brokering an informal agreement
between Syria and Israel, referred to later as the "red line" understanding on
the basis of which Syrian troops entered the country in force beginning on June 1, 1976.
The understanding stipulated that Israel would tolerate a Syrian entry into Lebanon on
certain conditions: (a) that Syrian troops not be deployed south of a "red line"
drawn west from the Litani River; (b) that the number and equipment of Syrian troops be
limited; (c) that Syria deploy no air forces or anti-aircraft missiles; and (d) that Syria
limit its use of naval forces.
The wider understanding between the Syrians and the Americans was that Syria would stem
the Palestinian-leftist advance and restore order to the country; it would help parliament
to convene in order to amend the constitutions to allow for early presidential elections;
a new president would be elected to replace President Franjiyyeh; and the new president
would appoint a cabinet of national unity and implement the principles of reform agreed
upon previously in the Constitutional Document declared by President Franjiyyeh in
February after extensive consultation with Damascus. [7] An earlier attempt by U.S.
special envoy Dean Brown to gain a ceasefire and arrange for the election of a new
president in spring, 1976, had led nowhere.
Indeed, throughout 1976 U.S. policy suffered from an absence of regular representation
in Beirut. Ambassador Godley had left Beirut precipitously in January for medical reasons;
Brown visited briefly as a special envoy; the new ambassador, Francis E. Meloy, Jr.,
arrived in April but was assassinated in June; Talcott Seelye was appointed ambassador on
an interim basis but he also left the country when embassy staff was reduced for security
reasons. This meant that Washington was receiving little high-level field input and that
it had a reduced ability to influence leaders and events in the country. In addition, the
embassy was located in Ras Beirut, an area under the control of the PLO, with whom the
Americans were not allowed formal contact. This further reduced the ability of U.S.
representatives to move about the city.
Despite the large-scale Syrian entry, things did not go completely as planned. The
Palestinians put up stiff resistance, especially in Sidon in the South, and Egypt, Iraq,
Libya and several other Arab states roundly denounced the Syrian intervention and
reaffirmed their backing for the Palestinian-leftist alliance. Nevertheless, the die was
cast. Syrian forces eventually overwhelmed Palestinian-leftist resistance, and Arab
opposition was dealt with through the good offices of Saudi Arabia who, with encouragement
from the U.S., arranged an October meeting between Presidents Asad and Sadat in Riyad in
which Asad agreed to drop his opposition to Sadat's concessions to Israel in exchange for
Sadat's dropping his opposition to Syria's role in Lebanon.[8] The agreement was
formalized in an Arab summit meeting in Cairo later that month in which the Arab Deterrent
Force was created to give an official Arab League mandate to Syrian forces in Lebanon, and
to add to their numbers units from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, and other Arab countries.
By the end of the year, the fighting in Lebanon had died down, a new president
committed to reform and reconstruction was in place, and Kissinger left office with the
belief that the crisis in Lebanon had passed. Furthermore, he could be satisfied that
Syria's entry into Lebanon had served his broader Middle East agenda. Syria was now deeply
involved in the Lebanese "quagmire,' it faced Muslim and Arab opposition for siding
with the Christians in the Lebanese war, and it faced Soviet opposition for crushing the
leftist-Palestinan alliance in Lebanon .[9]Meanwhile, Arab ranks had split and Sadat
enjoyed new freedom of maneuver.
The period between 1978 and 1981 lay the foundations for the gradual unravelling of
U.S.-Syrian understanding over Lebanon. First, the Syrians were unable to bring real peace
and stability to the country: reforms had not been instituted, the PlO remained dominant
in Beirut and the South, and Syrian troops were in open confrontation with the
increasingly pro-Israeli Christian militias. The capital, Beirut, remained lawless. U.S.
efforts to strengthen the Lebanese state under President Sarkis and the Lebanese armed
forces, to which the U.S. had committed $100 million, were not met with a cooperative
response from Syria. There were even deliberate Syrian attacks on Lebanese Army positions,
most notably the attack on the Fayyadiyyeh barracks in February 1978.
Second, the Syrian presence had not forestalled Israeli military intervention in
Lebanon; the Israelis launched an invasion of the South in March 1978 which threatened to
escalate into direct confrontation with Syria. The U.S. was forced to condemn the invasion
and lend its support to UN Resolution 425 calling for an immediate Israeli withdrawal, and
to the sending of a UN Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) to replace Israeli troops.
Third, after Sadat's visit to Jerusalem in 1977, Asad had joined the rejectionist Front
of Steadfastness and Confrontation and moved to a position of all-out opposition to the
American peace process. U.S.-Syrian relations declined sharply from the cordial days of
1975-76.
Fourth, Detente with the Soviet Union was collapsing and was dealt a final blow by the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979. U.S. administrations, first under Jimmy
Carter and then under Ronald , moved back into an active Cold War posture. The U.S. began
to challenge the Soviets in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique, Libya, Ethiopia,
Afghanistan, and Kampuchea. [10]This reflected directly on U.S. attitudes toward Syria and
its presence in Lebanon.
The Israeli Option: 1981-1982
As U.S.-Syrian understanding on Lebanon deteriorated, Israel, under the leadership of
Begin, Sharon, Shamir, and others, began contemplating an alternative plan for the
country. This was based on crushing the PLO supplanting Syrian hegemony with Israeli
hegemony, and setting up a government in Beirut which would be friendly to Israel and
which would be the second to sign a peace treaty with Israel. The plan hinged on the
growing relationship between the Israelis and the commander of the Christian Lebanese
Forces militia, Bashir Gemayel. Relations between the Christian right-wing and Israel had
begun in earnest in 1976 and grew steadily after that with Israel supplying arms,
training, and money to the Christian militias. There are also reports that the CIA station
in Athens participated in helping the Christian militias in this way.[11] In any case, the
U.S. at no point opposed the growing Christian-Israeli relationship, although it ran
counter to its original policy on Lebanon.[12]
The Christian-Israeli relationship was tested in fighting between Bashir Gemayel's
forces and Syrian troops during the siege of Zahleh in early 1981. The fighting was
especially fierce and the Western media covered it extensively, expressing sympathy with
the besieged civilian population of the town. The U.S. Senate even passed a resolution
condemning Syria and the PLO. In this atmosphere, Bashir called for and received Israeli
support in the form of an air sortie in which Israeli jets shot down two Syrian
helicopters involved in the siege. Syria responded by moving SAM-6 missile batteries into
the country (in violation of the "red line" understanding) and the Begin
government promptly threatened to destroy them. In the polarized regional and
international environment of the time, the confrontation threatened to escalate out of
control.
Regional and international considerations prompted the Americans to act in Lebanon. To
defuse the crisis, President Reagan dispatched veteran diplomat Philip Habib to work out a
settlement. The deal Habit secured in June was that Bashir's forces would withdraw from
Zahleh, the siege of the city would be lifted, the Israelis would not attack Syrian
missile batteries in the Biqa`, and Syria would not use its missiles against Israeli
reconnaissance flights over Lebanon. Habib was called back to Lebanon days after
concluding his first mission in order to work out another settlement, this time between
Israel and the PLO. A massive Israeli air raid on PLO headquarters in Beirut in July, in
which 250 people were killed and 500 wounded, led to intense cross-border clashes and also
threatened to get out of hand. Habib worked out a ceasefire between the two sides; its
importance stemmed not only from the fact that it held, but also that it was the first
time the Israelis had negotiated, even indirectly, with the PLO.
Despite the success of both agreements, Israel continued to elaborate its plans for
action in Lebanon focusing on a large-scale ground offensive to completely crush the PLO
in the South, deal a blow to the Syrians, and install Bashir Gemayel as the new president
of Lebanon. The timing of the attack hinged on two factors: the completion of the
timetable for Israeli withdrawal from Sinai in April 1982 according to the
Egyptian-Israeli Treaty and the expiration of Lebanese President Sarkis' tenure in
September 1982. The U.S. was aware of Israel's intentions to strike into Lebanon but
assumed the attack would be concentrated in the South and would resemble the invasion of
1978. It took no firm stand, pro or con, on the potential attack but urged that any attack
be a measured response to a recognizable provocation. In Israel, the equivocal U.S.
position was taken as an amber light and as a sign of American willingness to go along
with the operation without publicly supporting it. After all, the U.S. had taken a
similarly vague position in the prelude to the 1967 War, although, in the end, it had
ended up staunchly supporting the Israeli effort. Israel surmised that the U.S. had
reached a dead end in Lebanon and that it would welcome an alternative to the problematic
status quo, especially one which favored an American ally and dealt a blow to a Soviet
one. Secretary of State Alexander Haig had been especially keen on painting Middle Eastern
politics in traditional Cold War, East-West terms.[13]
The Israeli operation that was launched on June 6, 1982 proved to be much wider in its
scope than was expected. First, aside from Sharon and his collaborators, who had planned
for a major campaign, most members of the Israeli government and the public were not
informed of, or prepared, for the scope of the operation in Lebanon. Opposition mounted
sharply as Israeli casualties mounted and it became clear that the war was not confined to
reinforcing a buffer zone for Israel in southern Lebanon.
Second, the U.S. government and public also had not been adequately informed or
prepared and opposed the operation when it went beyond the originally declared southern
strip. The U.S. intervened diplomatically to ensure a ceasefire on June 12 between Israeli
and Syrian troops and generally to dampen the ferocity of the Israeli attack in light of
graphic television coverage from Western crews in Lebanon.
Third, the Syrian army managed to absorb the Israeli attack, confronting the Israelis
where possible and retreating in an orderly fashion in other places. The idea was to avoid
a full blow to Syrian forces in Lebanon and wait for the Israeli attack to wind down on
its own. Besides massive losses to the Syrian air force, the plan succeeded.
Fourth, Israel's ally in Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, backed away from previous commitments
to Israel: he refused to commit his militia to enter West Beirut as had been agreed and,
after his election to the presidency, he declined to negotiate a peace treaty with them.
What was especially galling to the Israelis was that after they had done all the 'dirty
work' Bashir had begun to turn toward the Americans proposing to them a close alliance in
isolation from the Israelis. Intended as a quick and efficient battle, the Israeli
operation evolved into a long and drawn out affair.
The American administration, at this time, was in a state of flux. Haig had made many
enemies within the administration, and his apparent tacit encouragement of the Israeli
invasion without proper consultation and clearance from the White House and other
departments proved his undoing. The U.S. was perceived as having backed the invasion, and
popular opposition to the Israeli operation, both in the U.S. and abroad was strong and
mounting. Particularly in a year when Reagan was suffering several domestic problems and
very low approval ratings in the polls, the domestic political fallout from the Israeli
operation was threatening. Haig was chosen as the sacrificial lamb; he was sacked and
replaced by George Shultz. Reagan sent stern messages to Begin and tried to make sure that
the invasion would not go beyond the limits it had reached by the end of the first week:
Israel had occupied all of South Lebanon and had moved up to the outskirts of Beirut, but
it was not in active confrontation with the Syrians and was outside most parts of the
capital.
American negotiator Philip Habib, again dispatched to the area, worked out a denouement
to hostilities by negotiating a Palestinian withdrawal from Beirut, a modest Israeli
retreat from Beirut's city limits, and the arrival of an American and European
Multi-National Force (MNF) to ensure the safe departure of the PLO. Eight hundred U.S.
Marines arrived in Beirut on August 25 after a 24 year hiatus. As before, they arrived in
response to pressing regional considerations. But this time their mission was more
limited: they were simply to oversee the safe departure of the PLO from Beirut, and then
they were to leave. This was no grand gesture designed to warn the Soviets or to threaten
another Nasser, but a limited commitment of American military personnel in a non-combat
role in order to facilitate the progress of political negotiations involving Israel,
Syria, Lebanon, the PLO, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries. U.S. Defense Secretary
Caspar Weinberger was unhappy about the use of the military as a tool of American
diplomacy and was worried about the commitment of military personnel without a clear
military objective. His worries were later confirmed.
Trying to make virtue out of adversity and to satisfy Arab demands for some quid pro
quo in the face of the PLO's abject defeat and evacuation from Beirut, the new
secretary of state devised a comprehensive peace proposal announced by President Reagan on
September 1, which would balance progress on settling the Lebanese crisis with progress on
settling the larger Arab-Israeli dispute over the West Bank and Gaza. Not only did Israel
and Syria reject the American initiative, but by linking progress in Lebanon to progress
in trading land for peace in the West Bank, the U.S. unwittingly ensured Israeli
obstructionism in Lebanon. From that point on, the U.S. and Israel were working at cross
purposes in Lebanon. As for Syria, it branded the initiative, which made no mention of the
Golan Heights, as "another Camp David" and vowed to oppose it.
Habib continued his diplomatic activity, urging American approval for the election of
Bashir Gemayel to replace Sarkis as president. Gemayel enjoyed strong Israeli backing and
dominated the Christian community. He had been introduced to U.S. policy-makers in a trip
arranged for him by Habib to Washington in august 1981. As a young, powerful, pro-Israeli
leader, he was viewed as an alternative worth trying after the failed experiment of
Sarkis' weak and pro-Syrian presidency which had made no progress in ending the Lebanese
war.
Bashir's assassination on September 14 threw American and Israeli plans off course. Not
only was the linchpin of Israel's political ambitions in Lebanon eliminated, but the
massacres in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps that followed the assassination sharply
increased popular discontent in the U.S. and Israel with Israel's presence in Lebanon.
Because Habib had given guarantees to the PLO that the civilians left behind by them in
Beirut would be safe, Reagan felt morally and politically 9obligated to send the marines
back into Beirut. They returned on September 29.
The American Option: 1982-84
As the marines suddenly moved back into Beirut, the U.S. unwittingly inherited the entire
legacy of a devastating and failed invasion in a country already ravaged by seven years of
war, divided along ideological and communal lines, and occupied by numerous militias and
armies. The U.S. found itself in the driver's seat without a policy for the country,
without the political or military means to enforce its will, and without the political
will at home to absorb even the smallest failure. Its principal ally in the immediate
neighborhood, Israel, was losing interest in Lebanon and turning inward, and its erstwhile
friend, Syria, had long since turned hostile and had clear messages from Moscow that U.S.
troops on the eastern Mediterranean were not to be tolerated. In Beirut, the U.S. had as
ally a young president, Bashir's older brother Amin, who was as surprised about being in
the Presidential palace as the Americans were about being in Beirut. He led a state whose
institutions had severely atrophied and whose minuscule army was deployed timidly in the
small hills around the palace.
The rushed dispatch of the Marines to Beirut after the Sabra and Shatila massacres
ushered in one of the more confused episodes of American foreign policy. Without a deep
commitment to or understanding of Lebanon, and without sufficient influence on the
internal and external players, the U.S. found itself suzerain over a country whose state
and institutions it would have to rebuild from scratch, and whose territory played host to
a large assortment of armed and ideologically hostile players.
With no clear way out of this commitment, the Reagan administration resigned itself to
the necessary task of trying somehow to turn Lebanon into Reagan's first foreign policy
success. The president pledged himself personally to the Lebanese cause and his foreign
policy team put together a deceptively simple plan: the U.S. would help Lebanon negotiate
an Israeli withdrawal; the Lebanese Army would be strengthened to assume security duties
over the whole country; and Syria's withdrawal would be secured simultaneously with the
Israelis and in light of the Lebanese Army's increased capacity to maintain order, thus
allaying Syria's security concerns in Lebanon. What was missing, among other things, was a
clear concerns in Lebanon. What was missing, among other demands, a workable program for
evacuating foreign forces and disarming the militias, and a framework for internal reform
to serve as the basis for internal cohesion.
Negotiations for an Israeli withdrawal bogged down as Israel was unhappy about not
securing a peace treaty and preferred to delay the negotiations in order to delay the
closing of the Lebanon chapter, which would be inevitably followed by the opening of the
West Bank chapter. The Americans opposed the signing of a full peace treaty between
Lebanon and the Arab world, but more importantly because it feared that rewarding Israel
in Lebanon in such a fashion would render it recalcitrant in agreeing to a settlement on
the West Bank.[14] The negotiations ended anticlimactically on May 17, 1983 with the
signing of an agreement the Israelis were committed to overturn. Only the Americans seemed
committed to it, because it represented the only visible fruit of their efforts so far,
furthermore, the Israelis added in a casual side letter to the Americans that regardless
of the agreement, they would not withdraw unless the Syrians and the PLO withdrew first.
With the May 17 Agreement, the Americans had reached a diplomatic stalemate with Israel,
Syria, and Lebanon.
To add to the U.S.'s mounting political troubles in the country, Israel in September
began a unilateral withdrawal - despite American protestations -from areas it had occupied
around Beirut to points further south. With neither the MNF nor the small Lebanese Army in
a position to rapidly and effectively replace the Israelis, their withdrawal left a
dangerous power vacuum to be filled by militias or Syrian forces. This was especially
dangerous in the Shouf and Aley districts which were hotly contested by Israel's erstwhile
allies: the Christian Lebanese Forces and the Druze militia. Israeli intelligence was
probably well aware that leaving the areas in a highly charged atmosphere between the two
militias would result in hostilities. And hostilities there were, including fierce battles
between the two groups, mutual massacres, the rout of the Christian militia, and the
displacement of the entire Christian population of the Shouf and Aley districts.
Disillusioned by the Christian militia's reneging on its promises in the summer of 1982,
and embittered by its entire experience in Lebanon, the Israeli leadership was more
concerned about bringing its soldiers home than about what troubles they might leave
behind. And if their departure created some problems for the Americans that would keep
them busy and distract them from demanding concessions on the West Bank and elsewhere,
then all the better.
Problems for American policy in the country were also emanating from elsewhere. Syria
had begun to recover from the setbacks it suffered in the limited confrontation with
Israel in 1982. During the brief tenure of Andropov in Moscow (November 1982 - February
1984), the Soviet government had undertaken to re-equip the Syrian air force and army.
Most importantly, Syria received the advanced SAM-5 anti-aircraft system and SS-21
surface-to-surface missiles. Both systems had never before been deployed outside the
Warsaw Pact area.[15] Syria was in a much better position to challenge the Israeli and
American positions in Lebanon. While it had temporarily accepted the U.S. presence in
Lebanon as a buffer against Israel, neither Syria nor the Soviet Union would tolerate a
long-term American presence there. Meanwhile, Israel was in internal disarray and planned
a withdrawal from most of Lebanon except the extreme south. The U.S. had reached a dead
end with the May 17 Agreement and had no alternative plan to move forward with. Within
Lebanon, President Gemayel had failed to put together a strong multi-confessional
coalition and although the Army was being strengthened rapidly, the political foundations
of the state were still shaky.
Successive shocks came in the fall of 1983. First, in late August, there was an
uprising against the government and the army in West Beirut led by the Shi`ite Amal
movement, with backing from the Druze PSP and Syria. Although the Army regained control of
the situation, the uprising indicated the profound precariousness of the political and
security situation in the capital.
This was soon followed by the outbreak of the Christian-Druze war in the mountains
leading to Druze advances, with Syrian backing, in the Shouf and Aley districts. The army
had not been deployed in those areas and only intervened belatedly toward the end of the
conflict when Druze moves toward the town of Suq al-Gharb threatened the seat of the
Presidency in Ba`abda. Souq al-Gharb came to be considered the government's last line of
defense against its opponents and fierce battles raged around it. It was at this point
that the American military presence in the country evolved from passive peace-supervisor
to active participant in defense of the Gemayel government. The U.S. special envoy at the
time Robert McFarlane, asked for and received an upgrading of U.S. rules of engagement to
"aggressive self-defense" in order to allow U.S. naval forces to back the
Lebanese Army in the defense of Souq al-Gharb with the rationale that its fall would
endanger U.S. Marines in Beirut. President Reagan declared "The U.S. will not allow
Syria, aided and abetted by 7,000 Soviet advisors and technicians, to destroy chances for
stability in Lebanon."[16]
Again, however, the U.S. was reacting to events rather than controlling them. Reagan,
in effect, authorized military engagement against certain Lebanese factions as well as
their Syrian backers without having formulated a clear ideal or clear policy as to where
this type of military engagement would lead and how willing the U.S. was to see such
engagement through if it escalated. In any case, naval artillery joined in the defense of
Souq al-Gharb, and opposition assaults on the town soon stopped.
In October, these events were followed by a knockout blow against Western forces in
Lebanon: the truck-bomb attack against U.S. and French forces on October 23 in which 241
Marines and 47 French soldiers were killed. This brought the day of reckoning. A previous
truck-bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy building in April had left over 30 dead and 100
wounded. For the American administration, Congress, and public it was now time to look at
the bottom line. What vital interests was the U.S. defending in Lebanon? What plan was it
pursuing for success? And at what price was this policy to be pursued? On all three
questions, the Reagan administration came up short. There were no identifiable vital
American interests in Lebanon short of a vague commitment to the country's independence,
sovereignty, and territorial integrity" and a belief that solving the Lebanese issue
would be the key to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The administration had never started with a clear policy on Lebanon, and the policy it
had put together in the fall of 1982 had come apart after the collapse of May 17 Agreement
and the failure of the new Lebanese government to make solid headway in consolidating
political and military power internally. Finally, as far the American public was
concerned, whatever interests and policies were being pursued, they were definitely not
worth the loss of 241 American 'boys' - the largest American loss since the Vietnam War.
Reagan saw the writing on the wall and instructed his foreign policy team to begin
preparing an American exit from Lebanon.
Disengagement: 1984-1989
In Lebanon, the shift in American policy was translated into American suggestions to
Gemayel to reach some accommodation with the opposition and with Syria - the newly
recognized power on the ground. Meanwhile, the U.S. moved to patch up relations with
Israel, damaged in differences over Lebanon, and revived the U.S.-Israeli Strategic Accord
and renewed the shipment of cluster bombs and other equipment that had been frozen since
the Israeli invasion. Attempts to reach an inter-Lebanese compromise were made in the
Geneva national reconciliation conference of November 1983, but reaching accommodation
with the opposition and with Syria while American and other European forces remained in
Beirut proved impossible.
The situation broke in February 1984, when a second attempt by Amal to take over West
Beirut - again with Syrian backing - succeeded, this time in the wake of a successful
appeal by Amal leader Nabih Birri for Shi`ite soldiers to desert the army. The partition
of the Army and the loss of control of West Beirut indicated the final collapse of the
American plan for Lebanon and put the Marines and other MNF forces in immediate danger.
Within days, the Americans had 'redeployed' to ships offshore and the other MNF forces
were following suit. Gemayel scrapped the moribund May 17 Agreement, dismissed his
cabinet, and appointed a new cabinet including members of the opposition and leaders more
sympathetic toward Syria.
Unlike in 1958, U.S. Marines left Lebanon in 1984 in defeat. But like in 1958, U.S.
policymakers left with renewed appreciation of the complexities of Lebanese politics and
with renewed determination to steer clear of Lebanon as a small but confoundingly
troublesome country. Secretary Shultz bore the additional grudge of seeing the May 17
Agreement, in which he had invested much personal prestige, overturned.
In Lebanon, Syria was gaining increasing influence. In December of 1985 it brokered a
Tripartite Agreement between Amal, the PSP, and the Lebanese Forces to institute political
reform, end the war, and establish 'distinctive' relations between Lebanon and Syria. The
agreement, however, collapsed when LF leader Elie Hubayqa was overthrown in mid-January by
Samir Ja`ja` with the tacit support of President Gemayel. Gemayel's own attempts to reach
a workable compromise between the new leadership of the Lebanese Forces and the left-wing
Muslim opposition, while at the same time satisfying Syria but not provoking Israel,
failed. The Lebanese government moved fitfully from crisis to crisis. Between 1984 and
1988 the U.S., under the foreign policy direction of Shultz, treated Lebanon with benign
neglect offering only its good offices to help in negotiations between the Lebanese and
Syrian governments on new proposals for political reform and improving bilateral
relations. Provocations by Iran and its proxies in Lebanon through the kidnapping of
Americans and other Westerners did not draw an important American response in Lebanon
although they led to clandestine U.S.-Iranian dealings which came to a halt with the
Iran-Contra scandal.
A turning point came in 1988 with the expiration of Gemayel's term of office. Attempts
to agree on a new President for the country had logjammed. The Maronites could not agree
on a candidate to put forward while the Syrians would only accept the election of one who
was a friend of ally of Syria. The constitutional deadline came and went without electing
a new president despite the last-minute high-level intervention of the U.S. in a mission
led by Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East Richard Murphy. Murphy's mission was
motivated partly by bilateral American concern for the continuation of constitutional life
in Lebanon, and partly by concern for the avoidance of a full collapse of the Lebanese
state which might provoke a regional crisis between Syria and Israel.
After talks in Beirut and Damascus, Murphy got Asad to drop his insistence on the
election of former President Sulayman Franjiyyeh, in favor of Mikhail Daher, a deputy from
the Akkar region who had good relations with Syria and who was thought to be acceptable to
the Christian leadership. Daher's election, however, was rejected by the Lebanese Forces
and the Maronite Patriarch. Literally minutes before his term expired, Gemayel appointed
Army Commander Michel Aoun to head a transitional military government until a new
president could be elected. It soon became clear that Aoun viewed his tenure as far more
than transitional, and he set off on his own political course.
The Americans did not favor Aoun. First, they were against the accession of a military
man to power in Lebanon because they feared that it would exacerbate both internal and
external tensions. They feared that a military man would militarize the domestic and
regional aspects of the political situation in Lebanon and re-ignite the Lebanese
powderkeg. Indeed, this soon happened, as large-scale fighting broke out between the army
and Lebanese opposition groups, the Syrians, and finally, the Christian Lebanese Forces.
Second, personal contacts with Aoun had not been positive. Aoun's primary Western
contacts were with France and he charged that Gemayel's American policy was what had
brought Lebanon to its sorry condition. Furthermore, relations between him and successive
American ambassadors, Reginald Bartholomew, John Kelly, and John McCarthy had not been
warm. He judged that American policy in Lebanon was to support the status quo, and he was
committed to overturning this. He believed that the U.S. would help those who helped
themselves and that in the end the U.S. would back a strongman once he had proven his
merit. He also surmised from the Palestinian and Iranian experiments that the Americans
were more likely to respond to hostility than to friendliness. In any case, Washington
worked against Aoun. They sought to put together a Christian coalition made up of the
Lebanese Forces, the Maronite patriarch, and Christian deputies, and orchestrated the
Bkirki Declaration of 18 April, 1989, in which these groups declared their serious
reservations about Aoun's course of action.
After it became clear that the U.S. would not back his policies or his candidacy to the
presidency, that it favored the Lebanese Forces, and that it was staunchly opposed even to
his continued tenure as prime minister, Aoun broke with decades of Christian foreign
policy tradition and began openly attacking the U.S. This led to protests by his
supporters in front of the U.S. Embassy and a rapid heightening of tensions. Already
having a distasteful memory of involvement in Lebanon in 1982-84, the U.S. was only too
willing to look for an excuse to withdraw completely from Lebanon. The ambassador and his
staff left in September of 1989.
Behind the scenes, the U.S. administration was encouraging Saudi Arabia and the Arab
League to help find a resolution to the worsening Lebanese crisis. The conflict had
developed into one between Aoun and Syria which involved most of the local Lebanese actors
on one side or the other, and also had a new regional dimension with Iraq backing Aoun.
Israel chose to remain uninvolved. The Arab League met in Casablanca in May 1989 and
formed a special committee to work out a solution. A preliminary report of the committee
came down heavily on Syrian and was rejected by Damascus. The second and final report was
more acceptable to Syrian and provided the foundations for convening the Lebanese
parliament in Saudi Arabia to approve a comprehensive plan for political reform, the
ending of the state of war, and improving bilateral relations with Syria.
The U.S. encouraged the Arab efforts. The terms of internal political reform had been
outlined over a fairly long period beginning with the Geneva and Lausanne national
reconciliation conferences in 1983 and 1984, and continuing in the Tripartite Agreement of
December 1985 and the Lebanese-Syrian negotiations of 1986-87. The Americans had
participated in the 1986-87 negotiations through the mediation efforts of U.S. state
department envoy April Glaspie. With regard to establishing 'distinctive' relations with
Syria, as mentioned in the Tripartite agreement and reaffirmed in the Taif Agreement, the
U.S. in 1984 had already come to accept the difficulty of securing full Lebanese
independence, and any arrangement that was workable among the regional actors and which
would 'stabilize' Lebanon was acceptable to the Americans.
Despite the Taif Agreement, Aoun remained in place, opposing both the agreement and the
Syrian presence. The U.S. favored a political resolution to the standoff in which Aoun
would accept Taif, relinquish his position to the new president - first René Mouawwad,
then Elias al-Hrawi and be included in a new national unity cabinet. Aoun proved
unamenable to such suggestions and the crisis dragged on, exacerbated by the fighting in
1990 between Aoun's troops and the Lebanese Forces militia. The Americans had maintained
close relations with the LF and approved of their willingness to accept Taif; furthermore,
they looked to the LF as a force that could help weaken Aoun internally, either to get him
to accept Taif, or to topple him and replace him in the position of leadership of the
Christian community. After his battles with Syria and the LF, Aoun grew weaker but his
popular following continued to grow.
The Syrian Option II: 1990-
The watershed for the Americans came with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, and
the emergence of a U.S. commitment to shape a regional and international coalition in
order to push Iraq back. Aoun had opposed Syrian and American policy in Lebanon, but the
U.S. had not been willing to sanction a Syrian military strike against him. However, as
the U.S. sought Syrian support and participation in the Gulf coalition, it had to make up
its mind regarding the unresolved confrontation in Lebanon. It decided in favor of Syria
and gave a tacit green light -hotly denied publicly - for a Syrian move against Aoun in
October.
The Syrian intervention on October 13 quashed Aoun and his supporters and established
joint Syrian and Lebanese government (that of President Hrawi) control over most Lebanese
territory, except that occupied by Israel in the South. The U.S. supported the Hrawi
government and welcomed efforts to reunify the army, dissolve the militias, and deploy the
Army over an increasingly large portion of the country's territory. It acquiesced in the
signing of the Treaty of Brotherhood, cooperation, and Coordination between Lebanon and
Syria in May 1991, but sent gentle Brotherhood were to be interpreted as giving Syrian
unlimited suzerainty over Lebanon. The U.S. accepted that Lebanon enter the Syrian orbit
but insisted that it be at most a satellite - not an annexed part - of Syria. Moreover,
the U.S. insisted that the deadline for a partial Syrian withdrawal from Beirut and other
parts of Lebanon, set by the Taif Agreement for September 1992, be respected. When this
deadline was ignored, however, the U.S. complained feebly and looked the other way.
After 1989, however, the regional and international situation changed rapidly. The Gulf
War ended with an abject Iraqi defeat and a resounding American victory, while the Soviet
Union collapsed as a unified superpower. Both events had a bearing on U.S.-Syrian
relations, and hence on Lebanon. In brief, the American victory and the Soviet collapse
weakened against a threatening Iraq; second, with the collapse of the Soviet Union it lost
its strategic depth; third, after the cowing of Egypt in the early 1970s and the defeat of
Iraq in 1991, it became the last significant militant Arab nationalist regime resisting
American dominance.
Sensing the precariousness of his position, Asad showed uncharacteristic flexibility.
After offering troops to fight alongside the Americans against a fellow Ba`thist regime,
Asad agreed to face-to-face talks with the Israelis and agreed to join an
American-dominated peace process without a central role for the Soviet Union or the UN .In
Lebanon, he was also key in resolving the long-standing hostage crisis.
If the peace process moves toward settlement, then partial Israeli withdrawals from
occupied territories are likely to be accompanied by Syrian withdrawals from large parts
of Lebanon; full Israeli withdrawals would also probably be balanced by full Syrian
withdrawals. If so, Lebanon would stand to benefit. Lebanon suffered terribly from
regional conflicts, both Israeli-Arab, and inter-Arab. If the regional tensions are calmed
and the Palestinians, Syrians, and Israelis reach a workable agreement among each other,
then Lebanon, which served as an arena for their competition, may be granted a
long-deserved respite.
Vis-a-vis the U.S., Washington seems to have accepted that Lebanon's days as a maverick
state playing an independent role as 'window to the Arab world' and 'link between East and
West' are over. Lebanon today is regarded as the sick man of the Middle East, and the U.S.
would rather entrust the Arabs with its care: from the American perspective, the Syrians
have the muscle to keep the place in order, and the Saudis and Kuwaitis have the funds to
help it revive. As far as Washington is concerned, they are welcome to take up the task.
A Review of the Dynamics of the Relationship:
The U.S.-Soviet Dynamic
Before discussing this dynamic, one should note that it has suddenly disappeared. With perestroika
and the collapse of the Soviet Union as a unified superpower, the Cold War is no more.
However, for the four decades that it lasted, the Cold War had a powerful disintegrative
effect on Lebanon. Cold War dynamics were closely linked to the polarization that preceded
the 1958 civil war as well as the heightening tension that preceded the collapse of 1975,
and it is no coincidence that the year that saw the end of the Cold War, 1989, was the
same year in which Lebanese deputies were hustled to a resort town in Saudi Arabia to sign
a document ending their fourteen-year old war.
The Americans and Soviets were active in Lebanon both directly and by proxy. Before 1958, the Americans backed Chamoun against his opponents and the CIA channeled funds to the Kata`ib, the Tashnaq, and to Chamoun's parliamentary election war chest. In the early 1970s, they backed Franjiyyeh against the PLO then looked for a compromise while the CIA Athens station and Israel helped Christian militias equip themselves for the battle against the Palestinians. In the 1980s, the U.S. backed the Gemayel government politically and militarily as it moved into confrontation with Syria and other Soviet clients in Lebanon. Meanwhile, the U.S.'s regional client, Israel, helped train and equip the Christian militias on a large scale to confront the PLO, Syria, and other leftist parties.
Despite various overtures in the 1960s, the Soviet Union never developed close
relations with the Lebanese government. However, it backed a number of groups in Lebanon
including the PLO, the Communist party, and the predominantly Druze Progressive Socialist
Party, whose leader, Kamal Junblat, headed the broad leftist coalition known as the
National Movement. As war broke out in 1975, political support was translated into
military support in terms of training and equipment. More than the U.S., the Soviet Union
was involved on the ground floor of the Lebanese war. Moscow's client, Syria, was involved
on all sides with an especially effective role in strengthening the Palestinian presence
in the early 1970s, arming the Druze PSP and the Shi`ite Amal militia, and promoting the
growth of the Pro-Iranian Hizballah.
In other words, the Cold War set the stage for general world confrontation; in a
country like Lebanon where the population was basically divided, where the two superpowers
and their clients enjoyed strong influence, and where the state was weak, global tensions
could only too easily lead to internal war. There is little doubt that the end of the Cold
War will gradually ease internal political tensions in Lebanon.
An interesting point to note about the Cold War and its influence on Lebanon is that
the U.S. accorded more importance to Lebanon in times of Cold War confrontation than in
times of relaxed U.S.-Soviet relations. While the U.S. intervened in Lebanon amidst the
Cold War atmosphere of 1958, it failed to intervene in the Detente atmosphere of 1975
although the disintegration of the state was following much the same pattern as that of
1958. When the U.S. did intervene again, in 1982, it was amidst renewed paranoia whipped
up by Reagan about the Soviet threat and the designs of the "evil empire". In
sum, then, while the Cold War had a disintegrating effect on the Lebanese polity it also
accorded Lebanon at least a minimum of strategic value for the U.S. on the international
chessboard.
The Regional Dynamic
Regional polarization had an even more visibly disintegrative effect on Lebanon than
global polarization. The establishment of the state of Israel and the displacement of
hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees to Lebanon provided the demographic
foundation for the long-term involvement of Lebanon in regional conflicts. In the 1950s,
the Arab Cold disaster as the Lebanese government lined up on the conservative side and
the opposition sided with Nasser. The 1967 War and the subsequent years of conflict
between Israel and Palestinian commandos in Lebanon devastated the south of the country,
depleted the resources of the state, and completely polarized the Lebanese body politic.
The 1973 War opened the doors for a separate Egyptian-Israeli peace which only heightened
tensions between Israel and Syria. This led to a race for influence and strategic
advantage along Israel's eastern front of which Lebanon was a part, with both Syrian and
Israeli armies maneuvering freely in the country. Conflicts between Syrian and Israel were
played out in Lebanon, directly as well as through proxies, as were conflicts between
Syria and the PLO, Syria and Egypt, and Syria and Iraq. More recently, even Iran joined
the game of proxy wars through Hizballah.
The basic tenet that small and internally divided countries risk internal
disintegration in polarized and militarized external environments is a political lesson as
old as history. Internal tensions are exacerbated by external conflicts. As Thucydides
noted in his history of the Peloponnesian Wars, regarding the internal-external dynamics
of the Civil War on the island of Corcyra: "in peacetime there would have been no
excuse and no desire for calling [outside parties] in, but in time of [external] war, when
each party could always count upon an alliance which would do harm to its opponents and at
the same time strengthen its own position, it became a natural thing for anyone who wanted
a change of government to call in help from outside."[17] Lebanon fits his
description well.
As for U.S. policy at the regional level, it has been motivated by two concerns: oil
and Israel. U.S. concern for the free flow of oil through the Gulf at relatively low
prices dominates its Mideast agenda, especially after the massive oil price rises of 1974.
As long as Lebanon was integrated into the world oil market through its two pipeline
terminals and through the value of the U.S. as part of the oil-commerce apparatus that the
U.S. sought to protect and preserve. But after the outbreak of war in 1975, the
destruction of Beirut, and the eventual closure of both pipelines, Lebanon disappeared
completely from America's oil-related calculations. With pipelines running to Turkish,
Syrian, and Saudi ports, Lebanon is not likely to regain even the marginal importance it
once enjoyed in the oil-export structure. That Beirut could regain some of its role as a
banking, commercial, and touristic center for the oil economies of the gulf and for
international businesses is more likely. Until such time as Lebanon forges an important
role for itself in the web of U.S. interests revolving around the Gulf, it is to remain of
marginal importance.
The U.S.'s concern for Israel, which stems largely from domestic American political
concerns, has been responsible for keeping Lebanon from disappearing completely off the
American agenda. First because Lebanon is a state bordering Israel and hence could pose a
threat to Israel: second, because Lebanon plays host to half a million Palestinians who
are deeply hostile to Israel. Much of America's concern about the war in Lebanon was
related to its concern that events in Lebanon could adversely affect Israel. Thus, the
U.S. intervened diplomatically in Lebanon in 1976 to avoid a Syrian-Israeli confrontation
and to encourage a Syrian blow to the PLO. Habib was sent to Lebanon in 1981 again to
avoid a Syrian-Israeli confrontation as well as an Israeli-PLO confrontation. When Israel
ran out of plans in the 1982 invasion, the U.S. rushed in to pick up the pieces and allow
Israel an orderly retreat. Throughout the war, the U.S. looked the other way while Israel
fought a war with the Palestinians on Lebanese soil, then cordoned off part of the South
to set up a mini-state blocked retribution against Israeli actions in Lebanon at the UN.
American concern for Israel will always be far greater than its concern for Lebanon, and
when the interests of Lebanon and Israel clash directly, the U.S. will always pursue a
policy closer to that of Israel.
The Bilateral Dynamic
Putting global and regional factors aside, U.S.-Lebanese bilateral relations have good
foundations but have suffered terribly over the past two decades. These relations are
founded on the twin pillars of the American University of Beirut and the large Lebanese
immigrant community in the U.S. The AUB has consistently provided a positive image of the
U.S. in Lebanon while Lebanese immigrants made a comparably positive impression on many
Americans. This provided for the accumulation of much mutual good will. Favorable American
impressions of Lebanon were corroborated by the thousands of American businessmen,
bankers, educators, diplomats, and tourists who worked in or visited Lebanon during the
period of stability and prosperity before 1975. They admired its physical beauty as well
as its political and economic liberalism, its polyglot culture, and its religious
pluralism. Lebanon was not just another third world country, but one to which many
Americans in positions of influence grew particularly attached. On a more official level,
the U.S. government appreciated the democratic and liberal nature of the Lebanese
political system. This was expressed in modest amounts of development aid and general
political support for the Lebanese Republic and the continued functioning of its
democratic institutions.
The positive foundations of these bilateral relations is one of the reasons why the
U.S.'s declared policy throughout the Lebanese war remained supportive, at least in
principle, of "the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Lebanon
within its internationally recognized borders," and supportive also of the
establishment of an able central government and a strong army. Alongside these positions
has been opposition to partition and a recognition of the need for political reform.
Unlike its own behavior in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Angola, Mozambique, Afghanistan, etc.,
the U.S. has endeavored successfully not to acquire close clients in the Lebanese war,
preferring instead only to support the state. This has allowed the U.S. to remain fairly
neutral in the conflict and to play a mediating role in bringing it to an end.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, however, anti-American terrorism emanating from -
although not controlled by - Lebanon, has drastically reduced Lebanon's good will credit
among the American population in general. Whereas the name of Lebanon was previously
associated with openness and tolerance, the same name today evokes visions of masked
kidnappers and anti-American rioters. Television coverage of the war itself transformed
the image of Beirut from a bastion of pluralism, moderation, and democracy, to a hellish
portrait of fanaticism, violence, and collective suicide. The dominant impression was
transformed from one of admiration and attraction to one of revulsion and repulsion, mixed
in with humanitarian sympathy for the victims of such a situation. In a media-dominated
democracy like the U.S., such impressions are important and have a profound effect on
policy in the long run. As the dependent and much smaller partners of the bilateral
relationship, the Lebanese have an important task ahead of them of improving this
impression that fifteen years of war have left, lest the socio-psychological foundation of
the two countries' bilateral relations be damaged irreparably.
Lebanese Perceptions and Misperceptions
It is very difficult for most Lebanese to recognize Lebanon's modest position within the
U.S.'s complex global agenda; this would not be of significance were it not for the fact
that the Lebanese must understand their place in the world in order to smoothly and
successfully manage their relations with that world's largest - and now, only -
superpower. There are several reasons for the exaggerated view that many Lebanese have of
their country's importance.
First, as mentioned earlier on in this article, it may reflect the instinctual reaction
of any small state which must exaggerate its importance in order to convince larger powers
to pay attention to it. Insofar as this strategy does not cloud the vision and confuse the
planning of the small state it may be useful.
Second, the history of French solicitousness for Lebanon is expected by many to be
continued by the U.S. as the inheritor of the mantle of the leader of the free world, or,
to some, leader of the Christian world. But the U.S. is not France. It does not have the
same colonial or crusader legacy. It did not establish Lebanon nor did it set up its
institutions. Furthermore, as a nation with a predominantly Protestant background, it does
not have automatic sympathy with the Catholic communities of Lebanon, more specifically
the Maronites, who dominated the state until recently. This lack of sympathy was
exacerbated by competition early on between Protestant and Catholic missions in Lebanon.
Third, Lebanese misperceptions were reinforced by the undeniable fact that the U.S. did
intervene militarily in 1958 and again in 1982. Before Operation Desert Storm, these were
the only two cases of overt American military commitment in an Arab country. To the
average observer, they necessarily demonstrated a particular American concern for Lebanon.
Fourth, many Lebanese believe that the U.S. has a strong commitment to Lebanon because
Lebanon is a liberal democracy and has a liberal economic system. Any student of U.S.
foreign policy, however, will quickly surmise that crusading for democracy is not a high
American policy priority. The U.S. has no mission civilisatrice and American
military and intelligence agencies have the narrow task of simply defusing or countering
security or economic threats to the U.S. around the world. The U.S. has no program for
world democratization, and its interest in democratic systems after World War II stemmed
only from its fear that fascist or communist systems would be naturally hostile to the
U.S. when democratic systems around the third world began to collapse in the fifties and
sixties, the U.S. discovered that it could establish strong and beneficial alliances with
military dictatorships throughout Asia, Africa, and South America. An American ally need
not be democratic; just strong and loyal. Thus, to the surprise of many Lebanese, the U.S.
established close alliances with authoritarian dictatorships in Iran and the Arab world
while its relations with democratic Lebanon remained weak and marginal.
With regard to a laissez faire economy, the U.S. cares about liberal economies
if the economy in question is important as a source of raw material or as a large-scale
market. The commitment to free market economies is material not ideological. The problem
for Lebanon is that the Lebanese economy is simply too small to register on the American
world trade balance sheet. Overshadowed by the vast resources of the Arab Gulf actors,
Lebanon has dwindled into economic insignificance. Whether internally Lebanon runs its
economic affairs on a free market or command economy basis is of little concern to
American businesses or American policymakers.
Lebanon's inflated conception of its economic importance for the U.S. comes from the
experience of the 1950s and 1960s when American oil and construction firms were rapidly
expanding their involvement in the Arabian peninsula while American influence was
declining in Egypt and the Levant with the rise of Nasserism. The cosmopolitan cities of
Egypt and the Levant were the natural gateways for Americans to the insular Arabian
peninsula. These cities, however, became increasingly closed to Americans - all, that is,
except Beirut, which remained open until 1975. The reliance of American business on Beirut
became especially acute after the 1967 War when many Arab countries severed diplomatic
relations with the U.S. When the roof fell on Beirut in 1975, American businesses did what
they did when the roof fell on other Arab cities: they left. In the meantime, Lebanon was
losing its comparative advantage for two reasons: first, the Gulf countries were
developing the human and technological resources to host large American companies and
communities themselves without the need for go-betweens; second, the volume of business
with the Gulf had grown so large, especially after the oil price rises of 1973-74, that
Beirut could no longer handle the volume -with advances in travel and communication,
banking and other financial services began to be handled directly from London and New
York, thus cutting out the Lebanese middlemen.
To be sure, Lebanon can play an important and productive role in the regional economic
network, but there is no doubt that its role of the 1960s and early 1970s has been
overtaken. It will probably never again be the capital of Arab business, but it could, one
day, become again an important town or suburb.
Conclusion
Despite the ups and downs of American-Lebanese relations, despite the perceptions and
misperceptions of both sides, and despite the mistrust and hostility that have been
fomented by fifteen years of war, there is still ample opportunity for a reconstruction of
that relationship on the basis of realistic assessments and expectations in which each
party is aware of the other's priorities and policies. Most immediately, however, if the
U.S.-led that settlement, added to the peace dividends reaped from the end of the Cold
War, are likely to give a vigorous boost to Lebanon and to its reintegration into the
world community. Under such circumstances the Lebanese state can repair and reinvigorate
its relations with the U.S., the uncontested custodian of this new world community.
*This is a revised version of an article which originally appeared in the June 1992 issue of Cahiers de la Méditerranée, published by the University of Nice, Sophia, Antipolis.
**Paul E. Salem is the director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies and the
editor of the Beirut Review. He is assistant professor of political studies at the
American University of Beirut and the author of Bitter Legacy: Ideology and Politics in
the Arab World (Syracuse University Press, 1994, forthcoming).
Endnotes
Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval.Boston: Little,
Brown, and Co., 1982, p.935.
Robert W. Stookey, "The United States," In Haley
and Snider, Lebanon in Crisis, 1979, p.244.
Farid Khazen, "Lebanese-American Relations Within the Politics of Regional Balancing:
1975-1989," (in Arabic), al-Difa` al-Watani al-Lubnani, No.1 (1989), p.13.
Additional References
Brown, L. Carl. International Politics and the Middle East: Old Rules, Dangerous Games. Princeton University Press, 1984.
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