HE FIGHTING along
T the demarcation line
LEBANON collaborate with the Syrians, provided that they reined in between the two camps had ceased, to be replaced by car bomb explosions, just as murderous
Lebanon: a region and terrible but more treacherous, because they are unthe pro-Iranian forces in Lebanon and worked for the release of the American hostages. The US and Syria reached agreement on a compromise candidate to succeed Gemayel as foreseeable and nobody claims responsibility. Other of permanent wars, within the two territorially defined camps, took advantage of the lull to explode.
There were wars between factions within the reacpresident.
Geagea's FL (and thus Israel), together with the "legal" army of General Michel Aoun, scuppered this agreement. Having reached the end of his term of office without an elected successor, Gemayel tionary Maronite camp, between rival Muslim factions, between Palestinian
IN THE last six months the Lebanese war has factions, between the Palesflared up again with renewed violence. Between tinian camps and the Shi'ite
1986 and the start of 1989, what we might call the movement, between Shi'ite traditional war — that is to say the war between factions, between forces allied to Israel in south Lebathe reactionary Christian camp and the regions non and the totality of antiwhere Muslims are in the majority - abated
Israeli forces and so on. This somewhat. It is this war that has formed the only was the period of the war for hegemony within the two constant element in the multiple conflicts in great opposing camps in the lull in the fighting between them for control of the country as a whole.
Within the Maronite camp, an "enlightened" faction of the militia of the Lebanese Forces (FL) led by Hobeika, that wished to collaborate with the Syrians and reach agreement with the Muslim camp, was eliminated by the pro-Israeli faction under Samir Geagea.
Geagea went on to knock out the dominant faction of the Falangist Party, which had remained loyal to the Republic's President and son of the party's founder, Amin
Gemayel, a traditional rival of the FL.
Gemayel, who was approaching the end of his term of office — he was elected for six years in 1982 by a Lebanese parliament sitting under Israeli guard - found himself abandoned by the "legal" army, re-organized and supported by the United
States, although this army had itself clashed with the FL on several occasions.
On the other side, the Amal movement, supported by Syria, relentlessly attacked the Palestinian camps to prevent Arafat's from re-establishing themsupporters selves and threatening Syrian power in the region.
Lebanon.
### SALAH JABER
At the same time steps were taken to stop the growth of the Shi'ite fundamentalist current, Hezbollah, supported by an Iran, which, although allied to Syria, has its own specific projects in the region. Finally, on the pretext of re-establishing an order that had indeed been undermined by repeated battles between its own allies, Syria once again sent troops into West Beirut and the other regions from which it had been dislodged by the Israelis in 1982.
### Washington burns its fingers
By 1988 it seemed that Syria was once more in control in the mainly Muslim areas. In order to consolidate this success, Damascus needed to install a friendly figure at the head of the "legal" Lebanese government, who would not question his subordination to Syria. The time seemed right. Washington had got its fingers burnt in Lebanon and seemed ready to at the last minute gave General Aoun the task of forming an interim government in which presidential power would be vested while the post was unoccupied, under the rules laid down by the Lebanese constitution. This appointment was rejected by the opposing camp who saw it as a kind of last minute coup d'etat, an impression that was reinforced when Aoun set about forming a government composed of military men who were, moreover, Christian.
The government already in place under Selim Hoss, a Sunni Muslim as is the constitutional custom in Lebanon, continued to function in the regions under Syrian control and with Syrian support. For the first time since independence in 1943, Lebanon found itself with two opposed governments both claiming to be the "legal" one.
The status quo lasted for a few months until the entry — or rather the return — to the scene of Iraq which had played no part in the Lebanese conflict from 1980 to 1988, when it was at war with Iran. Iraq had come out of the war — which at one time had threatened to bring it to its knees -— rather well and was now determined to make their enemies, their brother Ba'athists in Syria, pay for their support to Khomeini's Iran during the war. Baghdad therefore decided to lavish arms, munitions, money and logistical support on the anti-Syrian Lebanese Christian camp.
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Slaughter
International Viewpoint #169 • September 18, 1989
LEBANON capable of taking control of the whole of Lebanon. He even imagined that the great majoriiy of Lebanese, including Muslims, would welcome his victory.
First of all he established his dominance in his own camp, making the FL knuckle under and taking over ports that they had controlled in the Christian zone. Then he decreed a sea blockade of the ports in the Muslim zone. This lunatic decision could only provoke clashes, mutual bombardments of ports and air-
"War for the liberation of
Lebanon"
On March 14 the general — maliciously nicknamed "Napolaoun" by the feudal leader of the Druzes and head of the Progressive Socialist Party, Jumblatt — declared war on the Syrians and proclaimed the start of the "war for the liberation of Lebanon." He thereby unleashed a new cycle of violence that was going to beat all previous records for destructive fury and criminal absurdity, as the two sides bombarded each other with an unprecedented quantity of heavy calibre shells.
The whole of Beirut is increasingly coming to look like one of the cities razed to the ground in the Second World War. Previously this had only been the case with the zones near to the demarcation line. This was no problem for the prospective dictator, who had declared to the press that Beirut had been destroyed several times in the course of the centuries and could take it one more time. And thus he had decided, crouching in his bunker in the deepest cellar of the presidential palace.
At the same time, Iraq worked in the Arab world to isolate Syria and back up the offensive launched by Aoun on the ground with a diplomatic offensive. The most enthusiastic ally of Saddam Hussein in this undertaking is the Arafat leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization, who had not hesitated to support Amin Gemayel when he was president. The Arafat leadership certainly has good reasons for holding a grudge against the Syrians and their allies, but are their memories really so short as to have forgotten that the worst massacres of Palestinians, including those of Sabra and Chatila, were carried out by the other camp? And it is almost indecent of Arafat's accredited adviser, Bassam Abu Sharif to describe the Syrian action in Lebanon as the "crime of the century", as if the Israeli army had arrived in Lebanon in 1982 on a trip to see the sights.
Internationally, just as Washington was taking its distance from its traditional allies in Lebanon, the "socialist" government in France decided to upstage its western partners and plunge into an inter4 fled in serious contradictions er the vention. But this policy has become entan-
French government under President Mitterrand is showing more interest in the Lebanese Christians' reactionary camp than ever before, even under Giscard D' Estaing, this has clearly got nothing to do with the President's religious sympathies. French imperialism's sole aim is to reinforce its reputation for effectiveness, by profiting from Syria's relative isolation. They do this all the more willingly in that the French are acting in concert with the Iraqi dictatorship, their special partner in the Arab world.
the Tripartite Commission - Algeria, Saudı Arabia and Morocco - formed by the last Arab summit of Arab heads of state, the Syrian regime decided for the first time in 10 years to give its Lebanese allies the goahead to try to break through the traditional dividing line between the two camps. On August 13 a broad offensive was unleashed, that has to date had no notable
Syria's aim is not to invade the whole of the "Christian redoubt", an enterprise that would meet with the double veto of Israel and the United States. The objective is for the Syrian dictatorship to achieve on the ground, through its Lebanese and Palestinian allies (in this respecting formally the prohibition on sending its own troops over the "green line"), a sufficiently impressive military success to break the morale of the opposing side and persuade it to get rid of the "General-Liberator". Syria hopes to force Michel Aoun to resign.
Syrian offensive marking time
The first Syrian offensive however is marking time, while Iraq and France are increasing their military threats and stepping up their diplomatic offensive. Thus Moscow, whose client Syria is, has finally decided to intervene to calm things down, in line with Gorbachev's policy theme of universal "reconciliation". The Soviet Union is also the main supplier of arms to Iraq and is on good terms with Iran. It is thus in a unique position to work out a new compromise formula for getting out
Whatever the outcome of the current negotiations, however, they can only, even in the best of cases, signal a new pause, of greater or lesser duration, in the Lebanese conflict. Furthermore, if the wai between the two large camps abates, this will merely allow the many other conflicts in the extraordinary madhouse that Lebanon has become to regain their full fury.
Lebanon is today controlled by a myriad of rival or enemy militias armed to the teeth. They are the instruments through which several states — the US, Israel, Syria, Iraq, Iran and plenty of others either through proxy or to a lesser extent almost directly, wage war on Lebanese soil. Furthermore, the different militias have their own interests derived above all from the situation of war itself in which they operate like armed bands from the Middle Ages. Even if outside interference in Lebanese affairs were to cease, none of the militias that currently exist is in a position to impose its authority on the others. To do this would, besides, require an appalling bloodbath.
The infernal Lebanese Imbroglio
The only conceivable way to resolve the infernal Lebanese imbroglio lies in the reintegration of the Lebanese state into the Syrian whole to which it belongs culturally and of which it was a part before French colonialism detached it in 1920. This solution requires the overthrow of the military-bureaucratic dictatorship in Syria, whose interests lie in hegemony over an "independent" Lebanon which offers all manner of lucrative sources of revenue — including those from hashish - that the bosses in Damascus would not get in the confines of their own state. (See IV 162, May 1, 1989)
In the meantime, it is to be feared that the murderous escalation will continue indefinitely, in a country now firmly established in the list of regions of permanent slaughter on the planet. *