weakened as a result of Sabra-Shatila and the increasingly bitter domestic arguments over the wisdom of the Lebanon war. For a few weeks a serious, and at times heated, debate took place within the Administration over how the U.S. should exploit this opportunity and use its clout as a superpower to put Lebanon together again and secure the withdrawal of all foreign forces. Several strong points of view were voiced. The NSC staff was in favor of attempting a bold move to assert American influence. This required putting great pressure on Israel and Syria to agree to troop withdrawals and for Amin Gemayel to agree to internal reforms in Lebanon. Furthermore, quick Israeli and Syrian withdrawals from Lebanon were considered essential if the Reagan Peace Plan was to stand a chance. The problem was that such a posture could not be implemented unless the U.S. and its MNF partners were to assume a much wider peacekeeping role throughout Lebanon. It would have meant introducing U.S. army units, as distinct from Marines, and being prepared, if necessary to give an ultimatum to the Syrians and the Israelis to withdraw. A key element to the proposals was close cooperation among the allies in order to establish a fair and sensible division of labor for extending the role and mission of the MNF. This viewpoint was strongly opposed, but for very different reasons, by the Departments of State and Defense. The State Department's position, vigorously pressed by Phil Habib, was that negotiations between the local parties for troop withdrawal had to be the priority, beginning with an Israeli-Lebanese agreement. Inserting more U.S. presence at this time would be counterproductive, and, anyway, would be resisted by the Congress. The Defense Department officials also opposed any expansion of the U.S. mission since their priorities were elsewhere; they had always been the most reluctant partners in the MNF concept. They believed that the most sensible U.S. approach was to get tough with Israel and demand unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. Denial of arms aid should be used as a lever to get the Israelis out. The Defense Department felt that close U.S. association with the Israelis was compromising our relations with the moderate Arabs whose support was so necessary for our expanded Middle East Insight defense plans for the Persian Gulf and the protection of oil supplies. It was also clear that the Republican leadership in Congress was opposed to any expansion of the MNF mission. In these circumstances it was impossible for the President to override the wishes of these powerful parties. Yet in retrospect this was the one window of opportunity the United States had to make a bold initiative. Instead, what happened laid the foundation for the eventual tragedy: the priority established by the end of October 1982 was to secure a quick agreement on Israeli withdrawal "in a matter of weeks" and then proceed to negotiate with the Syrians. If this had been done in weeks, the future might have been very different but, predictably, the diplomatic negotiations got into deep trouble from the very start. November 1982 - May 17, 1983 Throughout the fall of 1982 the mood in the White House was one of intense frustration. The Reagan peace initiative had received a good hearing among most of the Arab countries and visits from Arab leaders to Washington led to expectations that the Reagan plan might have a future provided, of course, Lebanon was settled. Until the Israelis were out of Lebanon no Arab leader was going to invest capital in the Reagan plan. But since the Begin government had angrily rejected the Reagan plan, it became clear that the longer the Lebanon problem lingered, the less the chances for its adoption. At numerous White House meetings that fall the question of a date for Israeli withdrawal was raised with increasing irritation at what appeared to be Israeli stalling. This was a very low period in U.S.Israeli relations. They did not significantly improve until early 1983 when Sharon was fired as a result of the Kahane Commission Report on Sabra and Shatila and Moshe Arens, the Israeli Ambassador to Washington, returned to become Minister of Defense. The Israeli government, under increasing pressure to justify its actions in Lebanon and the high number of casualties, obviously wished to make the best possible deal with Amin Gemayel. Israel presented a list of demands that undermined Gemayel's fragile political consensus and infuriated Hafez elAssad. While Habib was engaged in intensive Summer 1988 negotiations with the Israelis and the Lebanese, the only contact the U.S. government had with Syria was through the U.S. Ambassador, Bob Paganelli. By the fall of 1982 two important events had occurred concerning Syria. First, the Soviet Union had decided to quickly resupply and rebuild the Syrian air defenses. Second, Hafez el-Assad, playing upon the confessional conflicts within Lebanese society, had manipulated the Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, to the point where his cooperation with the Gemayel regime was non-existent. At the same time, Assad was sending mixed signals to Gemayel, saying, in effect, negotiate the best deal As the weeks of negotiations with the Israelis dragged into months, the inevitable happened. So much human capital and so many egos had been invested in the IsraeliU.S.-Lebanese negotiations that any alternative policy approach was ruled out by the State Department as "counterproductive," even though most U.S. Mideast specialists were convinced the Syrians would never accept the agreement. The State Department negotiators believed there had to be a withdrawal agreement between Israel and Lebanon before anything else could happen. Furthermore, by the time Sharon had gone, the expectation was that the Israelis would be more accommodating and sensitive to Lebanese needs and therefore a speedy agreement could be reached. However, it was not until April 1983, when Shultz made his first visit to the Mid-East as Secretary of State, that a final piece of paper was agreed upon. By now the political landscape had changed for the worse: The U.S. Embassy in Beirut was bombed by terrorists on April 18, 1983, and 17 Americans, including Shultz's close adviser, CIA specialist Bob Ames, were killed; the Reagan plan stagnated; the Syrians rearmed; and Gemayel seemed incapable of rebuilding domestic consensus as he attempted to satisfy the Israelis, the Americans, and his own constituents. This last point is especially poignant because throughout the Fall of 1982, up to and including Christmas, there had been genuine hope in Lebanon for the first time since the civil war broke out. The manifestation of this was the mood in Beirut during the Christmas holidays: expatriates came home; there were Summer 1988 President Reagan with Prime Minister Begin at the White House in 1982. parties. No one underestimated the difficulties ahead but it looked as though there might be a silver lining. When George Shultz arrived in the Middle East in April, Syrian opposition to the proposed agreement was becoming more and more vocal. The two basic Syrian concerns were. first, that Syria and Israel were being treated as "co-equal" occupiers of Lebanese territory when, in fact, Syria had been invited in 1975 (with tacit U.S. and Israeli support at the time) to protect the Christians. The Syrian "peacekeeping" role had been authorized ex post facto, by the Arab League. The second Syrian concern was that Israel not be allowed to profit from its invasion of Lebanon by undermining the essentially Arab character in Lebanon and its close historic ties with Syria. Syria's hostile reaction to the LebaneseIsraeli negotiations was made abundantly clear to Shultz when he visited Damascus on May 7. the day after the Israeli cabinet agreed in principle" to the proposed agreement. On May 17 the agreement was signed. The Syrians IMED Middle East Insigh rejected it out of hand and sought to influence other Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia, to do likewise. Syria now did everything in its power to make life difficult for the Gemayel government and put pressure on the regime. This included violence. May 18, 1983 - August 31, 1983 The situation in Lebanon continued to worsen during the summer. The major issues were: continued Syrian hostility to the May 17 agreement; growing tension within Lebanon as the Lebanese armed forces prepared to expand their role in anticipation of a tactical Israeli redeployment; growing frustrations in Israel over the coolness and lack of cooperation between themselves and the Gemayel government. By July it was clear that without some level of cooperation from Syria there was no hope of reconciling the various conflicts between the Lebanese confessional groups, especially the rivalry between the Druze and the Maronites in the Shuf mountains. The Druze militia, armed by Syria, but also courted by the Israelis, held the high ground in the mountain overlooking Greater Beirut. The only force that stood between them and other anti-Gemayel forces in West Beirut was the IDF. As the summer wore on the Israelis found themselves acting as "peacekeepers" between the Druze, the Phalange militias and the LAF. This was not a role that Israel had in mind when the May 17 agreement with Gemayel was reached. Israel's patience with Lebanon was beginning to wear thin, especially since the Israelis themselves realized that Hafez elAssad was right and that the May 17 Agreement was "stillborn." Against a back-drop of a deteriorating military situation in the Shuf mountains, Shultz visited Beirut and Damascus on July 5 and 6 for meetings with Gemayel and Assad. The Lebanese cabinet was preoccupied with security issues and the Syrian threat. Assad, on the other hand, was calm and reasoned in his approach to the U.S. delegation. He knew that the Israelis were no longer in the mood to stay indefinitely and that in the absence of a strong LAF capability the Gemayel govern ment would become increasingly reliant upon the United States to protect it. This meant that • Middle East Insight Syrian forces in Beirut. direct U.S.-Syrian negotiations would be necessary to resolve the impasse. The next significant event was the replacement of Phil Habib as the U.S.-Mid-East negotiator by Robert McFarlane, Bill Clark's deputy at the NSC staff. Unlike Habib, McFarlane was acceptable to the Syrians and during his brief tenure in the job had several long meetings with them. However, by the end of August dialogue with Syria was not enough to prevent the War in the Mountain which took place in September. The immediate cause of the War in the Mountain was the precipitous, unilateral withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Shuf Mountains. It had been McFarlane's hope that an agreement between Jumblatt and Gemayel could be reached which would allow the LAF to gradually replace the IDF in the peacekeeping role in the Shuf without posing a direct threat to either the Druze or Phalange Summer 1988 militias. For this to work, close, detailed cooperation between the IDF and LAF was necessary. For a host of reasons, many of them personal, Gemayel and Arens never got to meet each other. Exasperated, angry and conscious of the unpopularity of the occupation at home, Arens decided to pull back and bring many of the Israeli soldiers home for the Yom Kippur High Holiday without coordination with the LAF and in spite of U.S. pressure to delay the process. Fighting began almost immediately as the Druze and Phalangists sought to control the mountain. At this point the American MNF contingent began to take its first casualties. September 1 - October 23, 1983 The United States' role in Lebanon now changed significantly due to the escalation of the confessional fighting and the direct involvement of U.S. forces in retaliatory military action. The period climaxed with the bombing of the Marine headquarters at Beirut airport on October 23, 1983, an event which virtually assured that the MNF would be withdrawn at an early date. The immediate U.S. response to attacks on the MNF in late August was to step up efforts to get a cease-fire among all the parties. This could not be done without the help of the Syrians. One interesting twist was that at this point the Saudis decided to become actively involved and dispatched Prince Bandar Sultan to act as a go-between and broker for the various Syrian and Government of Lebanon proposals for a cease fire. This took place against a backdrop of increasing Druze and Shia attacks on the MNF and stories about the impending massacre of Christians at a village called Deir el Qamar. This, in turn, generated fear for Christian reprisal against Gemayel for not doing enough to protect his own supporters. On the ground the most salient feature of the fighting was the vulnerable forward position of the LAF which was located on a high ridge line in the foothills of the Mountain about three miles from Ba'abda and Yarze, the locations of the Presidential Palace and the American Ambassador's residence, which served as McFarlane's headquarters. The battle for this ridge line centered on a Summer 1988 small village called Suq el Gharb and as cease fire negotiations accelerated in pace and content so did the intensity of the fighting. On the evening of September 10th there was a fierce battle and the military report the next morning suggested that the LAF line might collapse leaving an open road and a 20 minute drive to Yarze and the Presidential Palace. McFarlane urged the NSC to consider modifying the rules of engagement to include the use of firepower to protect the Americans and MNF presence (including the Residence) from hostile acts. On September 19 the U.S. navy began to use naval gunfire support to protect the LAF If a strong president were to be elected in Lebanon, the United States should recommit itself to help rebuild Lebanon's institutions. and the American residency from the attacks along the ridge line which were intensifying day by day. This was a crucial decision and clearly represented a major change in the rules of engagement. To those in the residence under constant artillery and rocket attack, it was regarded as a minimal effort to protect Americans. To the world, however, it was seen as a deliberate military move to protect Gemayel and a dangerous escalation in the U.S. involvement in Lebanon. Nevertheless a cease-fire was arranged and went into effect on September 26. It was seen as a sincere effort by the Americans, the Saudis and the Syrians to prevent a more dangerous conflict. The problem now was to monitor it and for this purpose McFarlane sought to establish a wider peacekeeping role for the MNF by bringing in an observer team and to help organize reconciliation meetings Middle East Inst between the Lebanese factions. When McFarlane finally left Lebanon in mid-October to replace Bill Clark as National Security Advisor there was a glimmer of hope that the cease-fire would hold and the Lebanese would get their domestic act together. However, it was clear that without the MNF presence to supervise protection for meetings nothing would happen. The unanswered question is to what extent the ceasefire could have held if Gemayel had been more imaginative about power-sharing and the eventual disaster to the MNF on October 23 had not occurred. It is risky to speculate in situations like this but an argument can be made that up until October, 1983, the MNF had played a useful role in holding Lebanon together. However if it is believed that the MNF itself, especially the American action in September automatically led to October 23, another interpretation is possible. The point is that the scale and magnitude of the attacks on October 23 against the U.S. and French MNF virtually assured that it was only a matter of time before they left. At that point the Syrians knew that time was in their favor. Had October 23 not been so murderous it might have been another story. October 24, 1983 - March 1984 From the U.S. perspective the bombing of the Marines meant that it was not a question of would the MNF leave, but when? The domestic pressure in the U.S. to pull the marines out coincided with the Defense Department's long standing wish to re-deploy the troops back to ships. It was clear to the President's domestic advisors that when the Congress returned in January from the long Christmas recess grass roots support for keeping the marines in Lebanon would be zero. Hence if any use was to be made of the interim time period it had to be well thought out. By now Donald Rumsfeld had replaced McFarlane as Mid-East negotiator and it was his unfortunate role to preside over the demise of the MNF and to be part of the exceedingly acrimonious argument that took place in Wash-ington over the wisdom of continuing to use American military power to influence events in Greater Beirut. 54 Middle East Insight Syria and Iran denied any involvement in the October 23 attack. On October 27, President Reagan said that the United States would stay in Lebanon and that it would be dishonoring the dead marines to engage in an untimely pull-out. But the bombings led to growing tension, including Syrian anti-aircraft fire against U.S. reconnaissance aircraft. A climax of sorts occurred on December 4 when four U.S. fighter bombers were shot at while attacking Syrian anti-aircraft positions. Two of the aircraft were downed; one pilot was killed and the navigator of one aircraft, Lieutenant Robert Goodman, was captured by the Syrians. On December 13, the Syrians again fired at U.S. aircraft but there were no casualties. American warships retaliated by opening fire on Syrian anti-aircraft batteries. On December; 14, two more U.S. aircraft were fired on. This time the USS New Jersey opened fire for the first time in retaliation for the Syrian actions. Much the same action/reaction involving reconnaissance missions and anti-aircraft fire and U.S. warship response with gunfire con tinued throughout December and the war of words between Syria and the United States persisted. Then, on December 30, Hafez elAssad agreed to meet with the Reverend Jesse Jackson to discuss the fate of Lieutenant Goodman, who was in Syrian custody. Four days later on January 3, the Syrians released Lieutenant Goodman "in response to the humane appeals of the Reverend Jesse Jackson." On January 14, Hafez el-Assad said that Syria would not move out of Lebanon until the United States did. Within the U.S. Congress, there was growing concern about the vulnerability of the marines and increasing pressures by democrats to force legislation or other action to bring home or withdraw the marines from the airport. On February 8, the New Jersey opened fire on Druze positions in the heaviest shelling yet. The 16-inch guns were used and the targets were "in Syrian-controlled Lebanon" where guns had been firing on the city of Beirut. This was interpreted as a new definition of the rules of engagement since U.S. forces were now permitted to hit at any units attacking the city of Beirut. On February 14, the Lebanese army began to suffer serious defeats as concerted pressure both around the perimeter of Beirut and Summer 1988 |