Foreign interventions in lebanon allusions of benevolence

]fable of ContentsAcknowledgementsMarines to the Rescue: Eisenhower and Lebanon 25Chapter Three The Lebanese Civil War: A Hobbesian State 37Chapter Four Fighting "Terrorists:" The Israel

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Thesis title Foreign Interventions in Lebanon: Allusions of Benevolence

Date May 15,2008

Signature RemovedAccepted for the Libraries _

FOREIGN INTERVENTIONS IN LEBANON:ALLUSIONS OF BENEVOLENCE

byJIMMY BIERMAN

Magnus Bernhardsson, Advisor

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the

Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors

in History

WILLIAMS COLLEGE

Williamstown, Massachusetts

May 15,2008

For Mom and Dad

]fable of ContentsAcknowledgements

Marines to the Rescue: Eisenhower and Lebanon

25Chapter Three

The Lebanese Civil War: A Hobbesian State

37Chapter Four

Fighting "Terrorists:" The Israeli Invasion of Lebanon Supported by the United States

56Chapter Five

"Peacekeepers at War:" Reagan Sends Back the Marines

100Conclusion

Lebanon and Iraq: What Can Be Learned?

133Bibliography

138

AcknowledgementsOver the past nine months I have learned, among other things, that writing a thesis

is really hard Reading a thesis you did not even write, over and over again, however,may be harder I have to thank my advisor, Professor Magnus Bernhardsson, for

consistent and helpful guidance throughout this process Without his help, this thesiswould have turned out very differently, and definitely not for the better My first class atWilliams College was Professor Bernhardsson's "Modem Middle East" on a Thursdaymorning in the fall of 2004 Itis fitting to end my academic career with Prof

am indebted to him for such a wonderful academic experience I must also thank

Professor MacDonald and also Professor Bill Darrow for discussing my thesis with meevery Tuesday and Thursday after International Studies class in the final months of thisprocess

Lastly, I wish to thank my friends for putting up with me no matter how stuck on

my thesis I have become and for insisting that I enjoy my senior year

"[The Israelis] had forgotten the basic rule which all foreign armies invading Lebanon are forced to learn: that by making friends with one group of terrorists, you becomea

terrorist yourself "

Robert Fisk inPity the Nation!

At 6:22 am, on October 23, 1983, a suicide bomber drove a truck loaded withdynamite into the barracks of the United States Marine contingent of a peacekeepingMulti-National Force (MNF) at the Beirut International Airport in Lebanon Most of themembers of the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit lay in their bunks asleep.2 Many wouldnever wake up Lance Corporal Eddie Difranco, the only Marine left alive who hadwitnessed the radical Shiite Muslim bomber as he barreled toward the compound, gavethis haunting account of the attacker: " he looked right at me and smiled.,,3 ColonelTim Geraghty would comment that "[t]here may have been a fanatic driving that truck,but I promise you there was a cold, hard, political, calculating mind behind the planningand execution of it.,,4

The carnage of this tragic moment in which 241 American servicemen were killedoutmatched the losses from any single incident for the Marines in the entire Vietnam War

or Korean War D Day on Iwo Jima marked the last time so many Marines had died in asingle incident.5 In response, the United States vowed that the "terrorists" and the statesthat supported them would be dealt justice.6 In the immediate aftermath, President

Ronald Reagan insisted that strength needed to be shown and peace preserved in

Lebanon, not just for the sake of the Lebanese, but for the sake of America's reputation in

! Robert Fisk,Pity the Nation: The Abduction ofLebanon, Fourth Edition (New York: Thunder's Mouth

Press/ Nation Books, 2002), 387.

2 Eric Hammel,The Root: The Marines in Beirut August 1982-February 1984 (Pacifica, California:

Pacifica Press, 1985),287.

3 Qtd in Thomas Friedman,From Beirut to Jerusalem (New York: Anchor Books, 1990), 201.

4 Qtd in Ibid.,204.

5 Larry Pintak,Beirut Outtakes: A TV Correspondent's Portrait ofAmerica's Encounter with Terror

(Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988),6.

6 Ronald Reagan, "Address to the Nation on Events in Lebanon and Grenada," (White House, Washington,

D.C.,October 27, 1983), http://\\'\V'W.reagan.utexas.edu!archives/speeches/publicpapers.html.

the world Within less than six months, the "peacekeeping" Marines were gone for goodfrom Lebanon and the Lebanese Civil War raged for six more years, beyond even thesecond term of the Reagan presidency.

How had the U.S presence in the tiny country of Lebanon somehow become, forReagan, "central to our credibility on a global scale?,,8 And how and why had the U.S.put itself into such a precarious position? Why did a major power become so consumed

by the domestic outcomes of a historically geopolitically minor place?

This thesis will examine the history of U.S and U.S sponsored interventions inthe Civil Wars in Lebanon, attempting to answer such questions and to explain why U.S.superpower intervenes in the Middle East and why and how it succeeds or fails ItwillbrieHy discuss the use of U.S Marines to calm civil strife in Lebanon in 1958, and focuspredominantly on the invasion of Lebanon by key U.S ally Israel in 1982 and the

placement of a U.S led MNF in Beirut between 1982 and 1984 In examining these threecases, this thesis will reHect on the very meaning of "intervention" and the importantdifferences between the explicit and implicit goals and motivations of intervention It

will illustrate that there was a disconnect between the explicit and implicit objectives ofthe U.S superpower and the hopes and dreams of the many competing Lebanese factions.While the U.S maintained technical and military superiority, such concrete power wasrarely able to overwhelm the abstract power of the will of Lebanon's warring factions

To Americans, their plans appeared benevolent and effective on paper; to the Lebanesethe U.S merely wished to impinge on Lebanon's precious sovereignty

Sovereignty, the right of a state apparatus to exert total control over the areawithin its designated borders, is a principle fundamentally protected by international law.With the rise of the nation-state and international institutions such as the U.N.,

7 Qtd in Francis X Clines, "'Credibility' cited,"New York Times, Oct 25, 1983, AI.

8 Ronald Reagan, "Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session With Regional Editors and Broadcasters

on the Situation in Lebanon," (White House, Washington, D.C, October 24, 1983),

http://Vv'vl\v.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/publicpapers.html.

sovereignty remains central in the international spectrum Gone, at least in theory, arethe days of conquering armies and imperialist wars designed to expand territory But thishas in no way stopped states from unilaterally imposing their will on opposing states, orfrom intervening in the affairs of other states without international or domestic

consensus Ithas, however, changed the dialogue of intervention considerably Or has it?

The terminology of intervention is often liberal, humanitarian, and benevolent,and is not disingenuous to an extent Ironically, many interventions seek to "restoresovereignty," even as their very nature removes total control from state apparatuses But

in such positive descriptions of mission objectives, there is the inherent assertion that thevalues "protected" by such interventions are in fact the values of the country into whichone intervenes More often than not, they are merely the values the intervening countryseeks to impose on another country Thus, while modem countries rarely focus explicitly

on the expansion of territory, such arguments for intervention imply the expansion of theintervener's interests

As the lessons of Lebanon will demonstrate, success of intervention is predicatedupon the will ofthose in the intervened country.9 Failures can occur due to the faith inthe supremacy of one's value system Negotiation and diplomacy, while attempting toresolve conflict, also remain intent on preserving such values In order to preserves suchvalues, a country may place its friends and allies in a position of privilege, despite thefact that this may hamper the ability to win the "hearts and minds" in the intervenedcountry and resolve conflict Intoday's world of anti-expansionist international law,such political success is as crucial as military success

The history of the U.S intervention in Lebanon reveals the foregoing: while itwas always in the name ultimately of the Lebanese, it reflected U.S will primarily Morespecifically, the assumption was that interests of the U.S were the same as those of the

9 Arguably, unless one is willing to use completely destructive force and become a truly expansionist power, it will be necessary to respond to the demands of the country into which one intervenes.

Lebanese Even the Israelis, who can be linked inextricably with the U.S for a variety ofreasons, saw themselves as liberators The mistakes of both the U.S and the Israelisreflect their inability to recognize that their actions and the desires of the majority of theLebanese did not go hand in hand Furthermore, their belief in the justness of their causeled them to ignore actions oftheir allies that only further called into question the "valuesystem" they were upholding Ultimately U.S superpower was realist and

uncompromising in its desire to exert its will Inthe name of "justice" and "security," theIsraelis killed countless civilians In the name of "freedom" and "democracy," the U.S.supported a Lebanese government that oppressed its non-Christian citizens These

inconsistencies seemed apparent to everyone but the Americans and their allies AsDouglas Little points out, Americans "overestimate their own Yankee ingenuity" at thesame time that they "underestimate the resourcefulness of Arabs and Jews."IO In essence,the Americans and their allies overestimated the appeal of their interests, methods, andvalues and underestimated the ties the Lebanese had to their families, communities,culture, and, perhaps most importantly, Lebanese sovereignty and self-determination.Thus the Americans were deluded into thinking they were invincibly righteous and

consummately loved, at the same time that their actions led everyone else to view theirrhetoric and the contradictions it contained with caution

In purely military terms, the American supported incursions were not whollyunsuccessful The Israelis and the Americans lost far fewer men than their opponents.And yet, they left Lebanon discredited with their tails between their legs Their

experience, as former military strategist Ralph Hallenbeck points out, is reflected in ananecdote of another failed superpower intervention: the Vietnam War Colonel HarrySummers recalls telling a North Vietnamese colonel: "You know, you never defeated us

on the battlefield." The North Vietnamese colonel thought for a moment and responded,

10Douglas Little, American Orientalism: The United States and The Middle East since 1945 (Chapel Hill:

The University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 7.

"That may be so, but it is also irrelevant."ll U.S.-built warplanes and bombs did cmshingphysical damage to the Lebanese factions whose interests did not coincide with those ofthe U.S and Israel, but in the end the Americans were vanquished.

Such mistakes are not simply the result of incompetence or naivete As this thesiswill show, the Lebanese situation was exceedingly complex and hard to comprehend.But the lessons are no less important When thinking of diplomacy or the use of militaryforce, calculations are more often than not made solely on the basis of self interest But

in order to make those calculations properly when it comes to intervention, it is necessaryalso to be able to calculate the interests of the country into which one is intervening Thistask becomes even more complicated when dealing with a country wracked by civil war,for there it is necessary to calculate the competing interests not of a state, and not evennecessarily of a people, but of the most powerful, and often most radical, groups withinthat country

A careful study of Lebanon can serve as a cautionary tale for any country thatconsiders military intervention as a straight forward way to impose authority in a foreignland Nevertheless, few historians appear to have approached Lebanon as a subject forexamining intervention's role in the history ofthe U.S superpower Historians havewritten numerous books on the Iran··Contra affair, the Iranian Hostage Crisis, the

Lebanese Civil War, or the Palestinian Intifada, but it is difficult to find a book dealingdirectly with American involvement in Lebanon

While there is a dearth of historical analysis of these interventions, there is plenty

of source material to work from Journalists who witnessed Beimt's carnage have writtenprolifically and often questioned the U.S.'sreasons for becoming so involved in such aweak country across an ocean No place in the Middle East has been more open to theWestern press than Beimt because the weakness of the Lebanese state prevented the

11 Qtd in Richard Hallenbeck, Military Force as an Instrument ofus.Foreign Policy: Intervention in Lebanon: August 1982-Februmy 1984 (New York: Praeger, 1991),60.

censorship found in most Arab countries and in Israel Lebanon is the only place whereWestern reporters have had relatively uninhibited access to Middle Eastern conflict

without Israeli "protection." The Israeli invasion in 1982, for instance, was the first

major Arab-Israeli conflict where reporters could report in good faith from the side

opposite the IDF.12 Many of these reporters such as Robert Fisk, Tom Friedman,

Jonathan Randal, Larry Pintak, Sandra Mackey, Terry Anderson, Ehud Ya'ari and Ze'evSchi1Ihave written books on their time covering Lebanon Given the reputations of theseauthors and their consistent use of their own journalistic material, their books constitute

crucla pnmary sources

Political memoirs such as the recently releasedReagan Diaries also offer insight

into the thoughts and goals of the Reagan administration during this time Althoughwritten after the fact, the memoirs of George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger, for example,clearly describe the debates within the Reagan Administration While politicians havedevoted sections of their memoirs to considerations of Lebanon, it has remained

secondary to other geopolitical concerns

The editorial and op-ed pages of America's major newspapers also examined thereasons for intervention in Lebanon In addition, the many speeches of Reagan, "thegreat communicator," provide the public justifications for intervention Unfortunatelymost State Department and Military Records have not yet made it to the National

12Fisk, Pity the Nation, 401-442

13 Robert Fisk is probably the most decorated Middle Eastern correspondent in the world and currently

writes for British newspaper The Independent In the 1980s he was employed by The Times Tom

Friedman won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in Lebanon for the New York Times Terry Anderson,

who was the AP Bureau chief in Beirut, became world famous after he was held for over seven years by radical Islamists Sandra Mackey has written numerous books on the Middle East and appears frequently

as an "expert" on American talk shows Larry Pintak was a CBS television correspondent during the Civil War and is now the director of the Center for Electronic Journalism at the American University in Cairo Ehud Ya'ari and Ze'ev Schiff shared the Israeli version of the Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on Israel's Lebanon War and their book on the same subject, used extensively in Chapter Four, was a national

bestsdler that caused quite a stir within Israel Schiff was a long time military correspondent for the

Ha'aretz, Israel's most widely read daily newspaper, and died in 2007 Ya' ari is a television correspondent

with Israel's channel 2 and an associate of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Archives and are not now available for public consumption.14 The Department of

Defense Commission on the bombing of the Marines in 1983 conducted by AdmiralRobert Long, however, has been made public and is another critical primary source

This thesis will also rely on contemporary histories, some of which cover parts of

the study, such as Marius Deeb's The Lebanese Civil War, written shortly after the initial fighting in 1975-1976, Hamar Rabinovich's The War for Lebanon, revised when the conflict was extended in the 1980s, Kamal Salibi's Crossroads to Civil War, written in response to the fighting in 1975-1976, and David Gilmour's T71e Fractured Country,

finished in late 1982 while Gilmour taught at the American University in Beirut

Chapter One will rely heavily on the insights of these contemporary histories andjournalistic accounts to provide an overview of the history of Lebanon and its creation in

1943 While not directly addressing the circumstances of the two civil wars, by focusing

on the historical backgrounds of the factions that comprise the Lebanese matrix, thischapter will help to explain the root causes of inter-Lebanese strife Chapter Two willdiscuss the U.S intervention in Lebanon in the 1958 Civil War, which was the first

outbreak of internecine fighting in Lebanon Itwill describe President Dwight

Eisenhower's assumptions behind the dispatch of 15,000 troops to Lebanon and assessthe intervention's success to provide the first window into how American interests

operated in Lebanon Evaluating the effects of that intervention allows us to furtherexamine the fragile nature of the Lebanese state Chapter Three will continue the storywhen, after years of apparent stability following U.S involvement, Lebanon appeared tofall apart in a matter of months Chapter Four will analyze the Israeli invasion of

Lebanon in 1982, which sought to put Lebanon back together, but in a strange and

destructive manner Itwill discuss U.S reactions to the invasion and the effects of U.S

14 Most State Department records take at least 30 years to reach the National Archives But the inability to access these sources can be seen as posing less of a problem given that the thesis focuses as much on the public spin of the mission as on its private goals Additionally, there is extensive documentation in

memoirs and journalistic accounts of what people perceived to be important internal struggles that may actually illuminate those struggles better than, for instance, wire cables sent to one's boss or coworker.

reactions, examining why the u.s supported the invasion and how this support damagedu.s credibility Chapter Five will cover the time of the Multi-National Force in Beirutbetween September of 1982 and February of 1984, when, in an effort to restore that

credibility, the u.s became directly involved once again

This history of U.S intervention, direct and indirect, in Lebanon can serve as abroad prism to reflect on several major themes in Middle Eastern History and PoliticalScience Though this thesis focuses on events within a specific country, it will also beaddressing broader questions First, the u.S involvement in Lebanon from Eisenhower

to Reagan involved the imposition of a Cold War framework onto the Middle East thatsimply did not fit Lebanon's geopolitical importance was directly linked to the

perception that it could act as a bulwark against Soviet aggression Intruth, to the

Lebanese, their domestic conflicts had little to do with Cold War politics While the U.S.saw Lebanon as a country that might fall to the Soviets and set off a shockwave of

Communist power, the Lebanese and their Syrian supporters saw Lebanon as part of aCivil War, not the Cold War Intheir Civil War and liberation struggle, they were

fighting ethnic groups, not superpowers, and were more worried about Israel's influenceover their sovereignty than they even recognized Russia's desire for authority Trouble inthe Middle East was never solely about the United States and the Soviets; it was aboutlines drawn on a map decreeing that certain groups must live together and that certaingroups must not Itwas about arbitrary designations of power that allowed some people

to rule and forced others into subordination By failing to understand the Middle Eastfrom the perspective of the Middle East itself, the Americans weakened the chances oftheir intervention being effective, as they created unreasonable objectives and

benchmarks to success

The imposition of a flawed framework and the unwillingness to work to

understand other cultures forms another side of the prism, as this history of interventionreflects the nature of U.S interaction with the outside world in general, and, more

specifically, the Third World The U.S has a long, deep history of "American

Orientalism," in which it is prone to see the people of the Middle East and especially theMuslim World as backward and "better suited for theocratic or autocratic rule than forAmerican-style democracy," as historian Douglas Little writes.IS Thus, it is not

surprising that the United States blindly supported non-Muslim leaders in Lebanon, such

as the Maronite Christians There is also a long history of regarding Arabs as "irrationaland unrealistic," eliminating any incentive to try to understand them 16 Instead, thosewho appealed to "universal," i.e American, values were given extra privileges and

accepted as the righteous actors in the Lebanese conflict.

Additionally, American Orientalism explains the blind support of the Israeli

invasion If the tragedy of Lebanon could be blamed on demonic, irrational Arab

terrorists, it was not necessary to examine the flaws of American or Israeli policy Thiswas certainly how the Israeli folly into Lebanon was explained in Israel "The mostpopular explanation of all," explains Tom Friedman, "was that the reason Lebanon turnedinto a mess wasn't Israel's fault at aU; it was Lebanon's fault.,,17

A third side of the prism of this conflict reflects on the complications of placingthis incursion into the American concept of 'just war," which is often adhered to eitherimplicitly or explicitly by American foreign policy makers By placing the conflicts inLebanon into the Cold War and American Orientalist contexts, the U.S created a

scenario in which the actions of its allies could be deemed to be inherently just Politicalscientist Robert Tucker began a study of policy in 1960with the assertion that "there is

an apparent simplicity about the American doctrine of the just war that readily lends it tocaricature," and that "the most striking characteristic of this doctrine is its simplicity.,,18Historian Michael Beschloss recounts Reagan's theory of the Cold War as being, "We

15 Little,American Orientalism, 13.

16 Ibid., 26.

17 Friedman,From Beirut, 185.

18 Robert Tucker,The Just War: A Study in Contemporary American Doctrine (Baltimore: The Johns

Hopkins Press, 1960), 11.

win and they lose!,,19 This incredibly binary, black/white view meant that anything "wedid" to "win" was "good." As Inis Claude Jr explains, "The applier ofthe just war

doctrine normally finds villains and heroes in each conflict to which he addresses

himself ,,20

But as Claude also explains there are actually three logical positions in the justwar doctrine: that war is "always," "never," or "sometimes" justified This is not assimple as it may seem Claude argues that despite the assertions of the first two

positions, realistically the only position that can be understood is the last.21 In Lebanon,when the U.S intervened as "peacekeepers," they were arguing explicitly that conflict inLebanon was unjust They were under orders to keep the peace but not fight back TheirLebanese and Israeli counterparts, however, appeared to adhere to notion that war andviolence were always justified The implicit reasoning within the framework imposed bythe U.S was that U.S allied violence was just But the very mission ofthe peacekeeper

is not to pick winners and losers but to help create stability to avoid war This inherentcontradiction made the intervening U.S appear to many as yet another terrible actor in aterribly violent war "In Ronald Reagan's world, the good guys wore white hats and thebad guys wore black," explains Larry Pintak, "In Lebanon all hats were gray.,,22

For what the Lebanese Civil Wars really reflected, on another side ofthe prism,was the harsh nature of civil, ethnic, and religious strife within post-colonial countries.Much of the political science and historic study of war throughout the twentieth century

has focused on state actors and interstate conflict The very structure of Lebanon, as created by its colonial fathers, contributed to the eruption of a unique intrastate and

transnational conflict in which perhaps the better focus was on "para-state" actors As

19 Qtd in Michael Beschloss,Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America

1789-1989 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 283.

20 Inis Claude, "Just Wars: Doctrines and Institutions,"Political Science Quarterly 95, no 1 (Spring, 1980):

84.

21 Claude, "Just Wars: Doctrines and Institutions," 87.

22 Pintak,Beirut Outtakes, 172.

Torn Friedman jokes, "The law of Lebanese politics was: I have a checkpoint, therefore Iexist.,,23 These types of wars, which according to political scientist Herfried Munklerhave resulted from the fact that "states have given up their de facto monopoly of war" inthe post-colonial context, have become known as "new wars.,,24

Three major aspects of "new war," all found in the study of the American

involvement in Lebanon, differentiate it from "old war" in a way that requires new

political strategies and understanding for traditional state actors New wars are marked

by the "privatization" of military force, rather than the old reliance on state power; thepredominance of "asymmetry" between the many various actors, rather than a commondefinition of state and sovereignty; and, the "autonomization of forms of violence" inwar, meaning that the various asymmetric actors lack a common notion of what is or is

not jus in bello (just in war) 25

Finally, post-I967 American intervention in Lebanon reflects the nature of theU.S.lIsraeli alliance and reveals some of its complications That alliance is publicly built

on shared value systems The purpose of this thesis is not to make a broad claim aboutthe effectiveness of that alliance and the reasons for it, as is undertaken by John

Mearshimer and Stephen Walt's recent controversial study The Israel Lobby, but rather to

point out that Israel is not always the helpful friend one might expect of the biggestrecipient ofD.S aid.26 Direct intervention in the second Lebanese Civil War might neverhave occurred had not Israel broken an II-month ceasefire and impinged on Lebanesesovereignty.27 But the U.S.'s view of the situation always remained colored by its ties toIsrael Even though the U.S.'s objective was to leverage Israel by getting involved, it

23 Friedman,From Beirut to Jerusalem, 119.

24 Herfried Munkler, The New Wars, trans by Patrick Camiller (Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 2005), 1.

Another good source on "new wars" is Mary Caldor,New and Old Wars: The Organization o/Violence in

a Global Era, 2ndedition, (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2007).

remained too concerned with Israel's value judgments and missed the apparent facts ofwar on the ground Worse than simply following Israel down the wrong path, the UnitedStates attempted to weakly pressure Israel to change its course according to an incorrectview of Lebanon that Israel had helped create.

This five-sided thematic prism of the American experience in Lebanon will formthe backbone of the exploration Although this thesis will not explicitly focus on eachtheme separately, together they broaden this inquiry beyond what happened in Lebanonand why to the what and why of American interventions in the Middle East in general.Studying and exploring this incident will also address the fundamental question of whythe U.S government, filled with "foreign policy experts" so often seems to fail to do itshomework properly in the Middle East and falls victim to umealistic assumptions aboutpower There are few regions of the world where the United States has more at stake inthe form of foreign aid or has been more involved directly or indirectly, and yet there arefew regions where the United States seems to be more hated.28 This thesis will analyzewhy, despite its size and firepower, it is not always easy for the United States to imposeits will on other countries

28 For instance, in 2007, theNew York Times reported on the results of a Pew Research Center poll.

Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Global Attitudes Project, explained, "Anti-Americanism since 2002 has deepened, but it hasn't really widened It has worsened among America's European allies and is very, very bad in the Muslim world." Qtd in Meg Bortin, "U.S Faces More Distrust from World, Poll Shows,"New York Times, June 28,2007, A12.

Chapter OneThe Paris of the Middle East?: A Brief History of Lebanese Animosity

"If I have written at some length about the country's history, it is because I believe that the civil war cannot be explained exceptas alegacyofthat history "

-David Gilmour inLebanon: The Fractured Countryl

Lebanon is a country smaller than the state of Connecticut located on the

Mediterranean in the heart of what is known as the "Middle East." Ithas no oil or othermajor natural resources Its existence as a "nation" in the formal sense is due largely tocolonial lines drawn on a map and post-colonial granting of nation status by the French inthe 1940s.2 Lebanon has a diverse population with four major subgroups: MaroniteChristians, Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, and Druze Muslims In total, there are

adherents of 17 different officially recognized religious groups.3 This chapter seeks tocontextualize the Lebanese Civil War by reviewing and recognizing the history of

Lebanese identity While the circumstances of the war are absent from this discussion, itnevertheless seeks to illustrate the complications of Lebanese identities in order to

understand the causes of Lebanese conflict

At times it appears as if every book written on Lebanon has to mention that beforethe second Civil War in 1975 Lebanon was a thriving "Paris of the Middle East" ofprosperity and happiness "Very few Lebanese politicians or academicians were willling

to concede the presence of serious political problems among the country's confessional

groups," explains Hilal Khashan in the opening of his study Inside the Lebanese

democracy in the Arab East.,,4 Itwas thought of as an open political system with a

1David Gilmour, Lebanon: The Fractured Country (New Yark: St Martin's Press, Inc., 1983), x.

2Larry Pintak, Beirut Outtakes: A TV Correspondent's Portrait ofAmerica's Encounter with Terror

(Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988), :l2.

3Sandra Mackey, Lebanon: A House Divided (New York: W W Norton & Company, 2006), fIrst

published as Lebanon: Death ofa Nation (New York: Congdon & Weed, Inc., 1989),4.

4Hilal Khashan, Inside the Lebanese Corifessional Mind (New York: University Press of America, 1992),

1.

freewheeling capitalist economy.5 Although it had a poor distribution of wealth,

Lebanon had one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East.6 During the

1950s, for instance, when Lebanon had actually gone to war, the economy grew at anannual rate of 7 percent and it grew almost as fast throughout the 1960s.7

Beirut, Lebanon's "western-oriented," glamorous and fashionable capital city,was a model of coexistence and multi-ethnic harmony "The cosmopolitanism ofthe cityreflected the rollicking pluralism of the society," memoirist Jean Said Makdisi writes,

"which was multisectarian and included many ethnic groups come to take refuge [inBeirut] from the vicissitudes oflife elsewhere in the region."s Furthermore, Beirut

boasted the Middle East's only truly open press.9 The standard Lebanese narrative

emphasizes this prosperity and harmony Itsees the Civil War of 1958 as a minor blip ofconfllict in an otherwise happy history Itrefers to the breakdown in 1975 and the CivilWar that raged until 1990 as the result of outside forces, namely the presence ofthePalestinians, the expansionist desires of Israel and Syria, and the interference of globalsuperpowers

But despite such optimistic views and positive features, Lebanese society and thecountry of Lebanon, as constructed largely by the pro-Christian French, was always ahouse of cards While democratic in theory, the built-in injustice of its constitutionalstructure restricted the relative power of each ethnic group regardless of the demographicrealities.lo Lebanon's independence was built on an unwritten "National Pact" of 1943, acompromise between Sunni Muslims and Maronite Christians Mount Lebanon, orsimply "The Mountain," as the great mountain range running through the heart of

Lebanon is called, had long been a gathering place for minorities, most notably the

5William Harris, Faces ofLebanon: Sects Wars, and Global Extensions (Princeton: Markus Wiener

Publishers, 1997),43.

6 Fahim I.Qubain, Crisis in Lebanon (Washington: The Middle East Institute, 1961),2.

7Gilmour, Lebanon: The Fractured Country, 7.

8Jean Said Makdisi, Beirut Fragments: A War Memoir (New Yark: Persea Books, 1990), 70.

9Harris, Faces ofLebanon, 57.

10Pintak, Beirut Outtakes, 15.

Maronite Christians, whose cause was heralded by France when it created Lebanon

within its sphere of influence.I I But the fact that the Mountain was not a sustainablepolitical entity was evident from what happened in WWI when thousands of Maroniteswere cut offby fighting and starved to death For this reason, predominantly Muslimareas, such as the cities of Beirut, Sidon, and Tripoli and the fertile Bekaa Valley wereadded to make Lebanon viable.12 In order to bring on board the Sunnis and Shiites thatnow made up a large sector of the population, internal compromises were put in placesuch as the well known divvying up ofleadership positions among confessional groups.Based on a 1932 census in which the Christians had held a slight majority, the Presidentwould always be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, and the

Speaker of the Parliament a Shiite Muslim Civil service positions would be designatedbetween Christians and Muslims in a 6 to 5 ratio.13

The optimist may refer to this confessionalism as a stabilizer, forcing the

Lebanese to govern with "consent and concession" and making it difficult for a singleindividual to grab dictatorial powers.14 At the same time, confessionalism implicitlyperpetuates sectarian identity.ls Itis not an understatement to say that one could not be anon-religious unidentified Lebanese Religion controlled everything from the schoolsone attended, the sports clubs one could join, or even the courts in which one was tried.16

Religion's grip on politics restrained parties from becoming national, and

alliances were made on the basis of personal relationships, even at the highest levels of

11Harris, Faces ofLebanon, 59; Qubain, Crisis in Lebanon, 9.

12Jonathan Randal, Going All the Way: Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventurers, and the War in Lebanon

(New York: Viking Press, 1983),49.

13Mackey, Lebanon: A House Divided, 110-111.

14Qubain, Crisis in Lebanon, 21.

15Michael C Hudson, Arab Politics: The Search for Legitimacy (New Haven: Yale University Press,

1977),288.

16Gilmour, Lebanon: The Fractured Countly, 29. An old joke holds that a student registering for classes at the American University of Beirut left the space for religion blank on his registration slip, prompting the registrar to ask him to complete form "But I'm an atheist," he explained "Yes," she patiently replied,

"But are you a Christian Atheist, a Muslim J<\theist or a Jewish Atheist'?" Carl Ernst, Following

Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 58.

government "Politics was often treated like a family business," Gilmour explainsY Justbecause politics could not cross confessional lines did not mean that battles would not beheated In fact, fighting within confessionals may have been even more heated because

of it More than just deferring to religion, one deferred to family, and the fact that thefamily unit became the grouping of choice may indeed have retarded the development of

a viable nation state.]8 Lebanese loyalty was first to family, then to political boss, then toregion, then to religion, and then finally to the state Because religion governed politicsstrictly, however, political careers were defined within religious circles, where traditionalleaders struggled to maintain their prominence.]9

Wealth and political power went hand in hand as well, creating a Lebanese statethat was extremely top heavy Thirty-two percent of the GNP was in the hands of fourpercent of the population, while halfthe population held 18.3 percent.20 Nowhere wasthis inequality clearer than in Beirut, which boasted some of the most affluent

neighborhoods in Lebanon and its most destitute slums Beirut was a chaotic, diverseplace?l The political scene, while "democratic" in design was, in fact, feudal Theelectoral system operated to entrench community notables (Zu'ama) and to retard thedevelopment of parties across communal and regional boundaries, according to !tamarRabinovich "By electing parliamentary members through regional lists," he explains,

"the Zu' ama were practically assured of election and could often carry with them intoparliament a number of clients.,,22 Anastonishing statistic describes the familial nature

of the system: between 1943 and 1975,26 families within all of Lebanon held 35 percent

17Gilmour, Lebanon: The Fractured Country, 35.

19Mackey, Lebanon: A House Divided, 91.

20 Ibid., 9-10.

21Makdisi, Beirut Fragments, 70.

22Itamar Rabinovich, The War For Lebanon: 1970-1985 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985),25.

of the parliamentary seats.23 In total, about 250 families monopolized parliament, still afraction of the total population in the history of country.24

But more than simply creating a confessional system, the National Pact also

consisted of compromises with respect to the very nature of the state Because both theChristians and the Muslims would have to commit to total Lebanese independence, it wasunacceptable under the agreement to ask for outside assistance either from the West,which had traditionally aligned with the Christians, or from the Arab world, which hadtraditionally aligned with the Muslirns.25 In popular terminology, Lebanon became "acountry with an Arab 'face' and language and a part of the Arab world-with a special'character ",26 But, more concretely, as the Long Commission points out, "The NationalPact set forth what Lebanon wasnot. Itwas not an extension of Europe, and it was not apart of a Pan-Arab state Itdid not establish in positive terms what Lebanonwas.,,27

Central to conflict in Lebanon from its inception has been the debate over whatLebanonis While, Jonathan Randal makes the understandable statement that during the

Civil War the Lebanese "ceased to be rational,,,28 a logic and a rationality behind thechaos of the war can be dissected with the proper understanding of Lebanese history andthe competing visions of the Lebanese state At the same time, an attempt to break downthe complexity of the Lebanese situation gives rise to contradictions that are stranger thanfiction Maronite historian Kamal Salibi writes that "The [civil] war in Lebanon was,

in a fundamental way, a war to determine the correct history of the country.,,29

The self-proclaimed, French-appointed leaders of the Lebanese state, who theAmericans and Israelis supported and who have monopolized the presentation of

23 Mackey,Lebanon: A House Divided, 116.

24 Harris,Faces ofLebanon, 120.

25 Gilmour,Lebanon: A Fractured Countly, 30.

26 Qubain, Crisis in Lebanon, 18.

27 Department of Defense,Report ofthe DoD Commission on Beirut International Airport Terrorist Attack, October 23, 1983 (Long Commission), Washington, D.C., December 20, 1983,24-25.

28 Randal,Going All the Way, 87.

29 Kamal Salibi,A House ofMany Mansions: The HistOlY ofLebanon Reconsidered (Berkeley: University

of Califomia Press, 1989),201.

Lebanese history to the West, are the Maronite Christians They have a long history ofunion with the Roman Catholic Church of Europe Once referred to by Pope Leo X as "arose among thoms," the Maronites for the most part remained Christians in a sea of

Muslims.30 And yet, originally, to escape the hated Christian Byzantines, the Maronitessought a more Muslim region.31 Itwas also for this reason that they allied with the

invading Crusaders in 1180, not their formal opposition to the Muslims.32 Nevertheless,the Maronites were not always safe from Muslim persecution "The Maronite

community's history is a continuous struggle to maintain national and religious identity

in a dominant Muslim environment," a seventeenth century Maronite Patriarch wouldexplain.33 A famous civil war between the Maronites and another mountain dwellingminority, the Muslim Druze, cost thousands of lives in the mid-1800s.34 In the aftermath

of that war, with French aid, the Maronites achieved a special political status under theOttomans as a protected minority in 1861.35 From that time until the French would

eventually control the mandate of Greater Lebanon and Syria, the Maronites benefitedfrom the protection of the French

When Lebanon was granted statehood, but not yet full independence by France in

1920, the "State of Greater Lebanon" flew a French tricolor flag.36 While this new entitycontained many Arab elements, and indeed the Maronites were Arabs as well, the

Maronites embraced the notion of being "Lebanese" and of separating themselves fromthe Arab world While much of Lebanon looked to the East, the Maronites stood out aslooking to the West The Maronites proclaimed their Phoenician Mediterranean

30 Salibi,The House ofMany Mansions, 74.

31 Harris,Faces ofLebanon, 20-21.

32 Randal,Going All the Way, 35.

33 Qtd in Gilmour,Lebanon: The Fractured Country, 75.

34 Pintak,Beirut Outtakes, 12.

35 Salibi,The House ofMany Mansions, 25.

36 Ibid., 26.

Heritage.37 With Christian France as the colonial power ultimately controlling how theLebanese state would be shaped, the Maronites accrued the most power Always a

minority of the total Lebanese population and a minority in the predominantly MuslimMiddle East, the Maronites came to fear at all costs the loss of that power and the loss ofLebanon During the second Civil"vvar a Maronite war cry became "We built Lebanonand we will burn it!,,38 Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt once described the Maronites as

"that minority obsessed with their sense of being a minority.,,39

Besides the Maronites, who were estimated in 1975 to make up approximateJly 59percent of the Lebanese Christian population, the Greek Orthodox comprised 16 percent

of that population, and the Melkites comprised another 10 percent These Christians donot always agree, but generally see themselves as a religious minority in the Muslimworld and, in fact, within Lebanon itself.4o The Christians slipped into minority statussoon after the famous 1932 census Even as the government's Christian character nolonger came close to reflecting demographics by the 1970s (a fact Christians

acknowledged), the Maronites still saw themselves as thetrue Lebanese, commenting

that the National Pact was not sufficient because it implied that demographic realitymattered.41 The West largely took the Maronites and their Christian allies at face value

As one Israeli would tell Tom Friedman when he commented that there were Muslims inLebanon as well, "Yes, yes I know, but the Christians are thereal Lebanese.,,42

Unlike the Christians, demogrraphic realities mattered greatly to the Muslims,who, in three major groups, comprised the majority of the Lebanese population The

37 Ibid., 27 At the time of Civil War, many Maronites were insisting that they were of Phoenician, not Arab heritage, and books from the ministry of education also discussed Phoenician heritage while omitting mention of Muslim conquest Khashan,Inside the Lebanese Confessional Mind, 109.

38 Qtd., in Randal,Going All the Way, 62.

39 Qtd in Gilmour,Lebanon: The Fractured Country, 75.

40 Mackey,Lebanon: A House Divided, 30.

41 Ibid., 154-155.

42 Qtd in Thomas Friedman,From Beirut to Jerusalem (New York: Anchor Books, 1990), 135.

National Pact granted the second most power to the Sunni Muslims.43 They are the mostlikely among the Lebanese to seek alliance with the predominantly Sunni Arab world.The Maronites would not let them forget that at the time of the creation of Lebanon many

of the Sunnis had hoped to be part of a unified Arab state.44 Itwould be inaccurate toclaim that the Maronite fears had no basis in reality A major threat to Lebanon's status

as an independent and distinct nation came from Arab, and predominantly Muslim, Syria,which conceived of Lebanon not as a separate entity but rather as a place within greaterSyria.45 Still, it would be inaccurate to imply that the Sunnis were the only group

interested in aligning Lebanon with the Arabs or that that necessarily meant the

destruction of Lebanon as an entity In fact, many Greek Orthodox also saw greater ties

to the Arab world than to the Western World.46 And in one of the many strange

contradictions of the Lebanese state, the pan-Arabism that the Maronites so abhorred andfound subversive in the minds of their Sunni peers had been developed by Christianintellectuals under the influence of European "ethnic nationalism.,,47 Under the

Ottomans, the Sunnis had become great traders, and their ability to work with variousfactions within Lebanon had helped bring prosperity to the region.48 The Sunni positionthat they deserved power, therefore, was no less legitimate in the formal sense than theMaronite desire for domination

When the National Pact was conceived, it was more than anything thought of as aunion between Sunnis and Maronites, with a token concession to the Shiites, who would

43 The Sunnis are a majority in the Muslim world, with about 85% of all Muslims being Sunni Their split with the Shiites, another Muslim group, goes back to the seventh century.

44Harris, Faces ofLebanon, 40-41 As Salibi writes: "The prevalent nationalist mood in the Arab world [at

the time of Lebanon's founding], especially in Syria, was against Lebanon achieving political success; and within the country, Muslim sector of the population could easily be swayed by external Arab nationalist influence, and could be used by other Arab countries as political leverage to keep the Lebanese state

perermially unstable." Salibi, A House ofMany Mansions, 36.

45Sallibi, A Hours ofMany Mansions, 71.

46Mackey, Lebanon: A House Divided, 80.

47Harris, Faces ofLebanon, 76.

48Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: The Abduction ofLebanon, Fourth Edition (New York: Thunder's Mouth

Press/Nation Books, 2002), 56.

be considered virtually second class citizens This is similar to the Shiite positionthroughout much of the Arab world, in which they are considered to be adherents to whatthe Sunni majority conceives of as a blasphemous version of Islam.50 For this reason,Shiites have largely shunned Pan-Arabism; while some Shiites, such as those in Lebanon,are Arab, the pan-Arab establishment is Sunni In Lebanon, Shiites were locked out ofthe political establishment They tended to show even more resentment for their

coreligionist Sunnis than the Maronites, believing that the Sunnis kept them out of thestate.51 Mackey reports that "in 1962, for example, Shiites held only two out of every 70senior service positions.,,52 They had no access to the economic establishment Israelireprisal raids into the predominantly Shiite southern Lebanon where Palestinian guerillashid forced an exodus to Beirut.53 But the many poor Shiite farmers from the south wouldarrive in the "bustling capital" only to find that they couldn't get a job By the outbreak

of the second war in 1975, nearly 250,000 Shiites-40 percent of whom were under theage of sixteen-were packed into a quarter square mile in the slums of West Beirut.54 Bythat time, the Shiites had become a dear plurality in the country; yet understandably, theysaw themselves as oppressed by Maronites, Sunnis, Palestinians and Israelis.55

Another important, although smaller, even more marginalized group than theShiites, the Druze, played a major role in both civil wars The Druze are a tiny but fiercemountain sect that control the Chouf mountains outside Beirut and comprise six percent

49Hudson, Arab Politics, 289.

50Khashan, Inside the Lebanese Corifessional Mind, 124 The Shiites' differences with the Sunnis go 'back

to the very beginning ofIslam itself Following the death of Muhammad, there was a split among Muslims

as to who the successor to the prophet would be Without a male son, Muhammad's lineage would not be perfectly preserved The faction that became the Shiites favored Ali, Muhammad's cousin and husband to his daughter Fatima The faction that became Sunnis favored the election of the caliphate from among Muhammad's lieutenants The split was cemented when Ali was murdered after becoming the 4thCaliph When Ali's son Hussein tried to stand up to the councils of Mecca, his army was sacked in 680 near the town of Karbala in modem day Iraq "In death, Hussein left the Shiites a legacy of ultimate protest," explains Mackey "Through his example, Shiism early attached its roots to a doctrine of selfless sacrifLce in

the name of God against forces of tyranny and oppression." Mackey, Lebanon: A House Divided, 58.

51Khashan, Inside the Lebanese Corifessional Mind, 14.

52Mackey, Lebanon: A House Divided, 78.

53Gilmour, Lebanon: The Fractured Count/y, 10-11.

54Mackey, Lebanon: A House Divided, 77.

55Harris, Faces ofLebanon, 87.

of the Lebanese population.56 The Druze consider themselves to be Muslims, but theyare not by orthodox standards 57 The Druze are committed more to their community than

to theology Their objective is merely to survive as a people In fact, in 1830 the Druzecontemplated a massive fake conversion to Christianity to escape compulsory militaryservice 58 While the Druze had at times fought brashly, their defense of their Choufhomeland was also a defense of their total survival The same justifications the Israelismade for their military actions could have been made by the Druze Robert Fisk's

assessment of the Druze is instructive as it reinforces the nature of religious affiliation inLebanon that this thesis attempts to present: "[The Druze's] real faith-like that of theChristians-was toward their own clan, their villages, their leaders.,,59

Lebanon was a textbook post-colonial society, heralded by colonizers as a successofW"estern guidance and yet rife with tension in the vacuum of displaced colonial power

By 1983,25 independent militias operated within the country.60 The result ofthis

postcolonial legacy was an omnipresent factional mindset in a country that defied

traditional definitions Journalist Terry Anderson relates how he was drawn to Lebanonwhich "fascinated me with its endless complications, its cross-currents and subwarswithin larger wars, and feuds within subwars.,,61 Lebanese society was one in whichinhabitants often appeared to be more tied to their religious community than to the

nation-state in any formal sense.62 Lebanon became, to many outside observers, and even

to some Lebanese, the anathema ofthe modem nation state "For when you got down to

56 Ibid., 63.

57 The Druze are an offshoot of the "Seveners" or Ismai1is of Shiite Islam, when Shiism was again split by

disputes over the seventh Shiite imam (leader) The Druze have many beliefs that are totally alien to

mainstream Islam, such as holding Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, as their chief prophet Also, they believe in reincarnation They do not pray five times a day, because they claim to constantly be in prayer Perhaps most unorthodox of all, most Druze do not even know their own religion Only ten percent of the Druze are "initiated," know all of the Druze' s sacred texts, and initiation is only passed by blood to male

sons on their fortieth birthday Mackey, Lebanon: A House Divided, 61.

58Mackey, Lebanon: A House Divided, 62.

59Fisk, Pity the Nation, 56.

60Pintak, Beirut Outtakes, 9.

61 Terry Anderson, Den ofLions: Memoirs ofSeven Years (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1993),33.

62Mackey, Lebanon: A House Divided, 4.

it," explains journalist Jonathan Randal, "Lebanon never really was a country, much less

a parliamentary democracy.,,63

Despite many claims to the contrary, however, Lebanon was in fact a nation.Journalists took pains to spot the implicit contradictions of the Lebanese state, but theytoo often ignored the explicit proclamations of being Lebanese, with linguistic and

cultural ties existing across sects The paradox lies in the fact that there was indeed aLebanese state, Lebanese entity, Lebanese culture At the same time that the NationalPact may have been built on shaky eompromises, to many it was "an impressive andunique attempt in the Middle East to develop a pluralistic polity, a state able to contain aheterogeneous population against difficult odds.,,64 The National Pact was, for manyLebanese-Maronite, Sunni, Shiite or Druze-an object of national pride

Perhaps anthropologist Michael Gilsenan offers the best portrait ofthe Lebaneseparadox when discussing attempts by the post-First Civil War government to analyze theState "The very reason for the success of 'Beirut' as a regional and even world pole ofeconomic affairs, its total liberalism and untrammeled financial activity, is the obstacle tofurther, qualitative development into another kind of progress," Gilsenan writes,

"Precisely those elements identified as the characteristics of 'being Lebanese,' namelyintense individualism and religious communalism, are also identified as the sources ofpotential breakdown ,,65 The chaos and fractured society was nevertheless a society; thesplit Lebanese identity was nevertheless an identity This is perhaps why so many

Lebanese are quick to refer to the seeds of conflict as resulting from "the Plan" of outsideforces, as Makdisi puts it.66 As wewill see in later chapters, a consistent attempt hasbeen made to argue that the civil wars were not in fact "civil" at all In some cases, theLebanese have had legitimate reasons for seeing outsiders as central to their instability

63 Randal, Going All the Way, 54.

64 Rabinovich, The War For Lebanon, 17.

65 Michael Gilsenan,Lords ofthe Lebanese Marches: Violence &Narrative in an Arab Society (Berkeley:

University of Califomia Press, 1996),96.

66 Makdisi,Beirut Fragments, 61 Robert Fisk also refers to "the Plot." Fisk, Pity the Nation, 78.

But it is nevertheless important to recognize that this identity did little to preventcivil war, for that is what these wars were The National Pact created a compromise, but

at best an ill-defined one, susceptible to fracture "In good times [communal] orientationswere submerged, but in the inevitable crisis periods, they were like mines, which wouldeventually explode under enough pressure," writes Michael Hudson.67 William Harris isright to point out that "Greater Lebanon, despite its initial artificiality, did eventuallycorne to mean something-not necessarily the same thing-to all its communities.,,68

Understanding, or at least examining, the paradoxes of the Lebanese state is

critically important in reviewing the history of U.S intervention in Lebanon

Interventions, for a variety of reasons, often fed the instability, rather than calming it,especially when internal balances were ignored The following chapters will attempt toillustrate the chaotic history of Lebanon that Fisk describes as "one of both implosion andexplosion, of internal conflict and external pressure.,,69 Randal is probably right when hereports that "in the final analysis, the Lebanese themselves were at fault" for the horrors

of the Civil War.70 But the notion that any breakdown in American policy can be

attributed to the lack of a real state or to the crazy infighting of a chaotic and irrationalpeople ignores the ways in which intervention without an understanding of domesticpolitical considerations can do more harm than good for all parties involved Thus, U.S.leaders have no more right to abdicate their responsibility in the Lebanese crisis than dothe Lebanese themselves The next chapter will review the intervention ordered by theEisenhower Administration in 1958, attempting to highlight both the ways in whichPresident Dwight Eisenhower contributed to the instability he eventually combated and torecognize that Eisenhower may have stymied conflict temporarily at the expense of along term solution that may have prevented crisis in the future

67Hudson, Arab Politics, 294.

68Harris, Faces ofLebanon , 14.

69Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation, 52.

70Randal, Going All the Way, 56.

Chapter TwoMarines to the Rescue: Eisenhower and Lebanon

"President Chamoun of Lebanon s€mt me an urgent plea that the United States station

some military units in Lebanon to evidence our concern for the independence of

Lebanon, that little country, which itself has for about two months been subjected to civil strife This has been actively fomented by Soviet and Cairo broadcasts and abetted and aided by substantial amounts of arms, money and personnel infiltrated into Lebanon across the Syrian border "

-President Dwight D Eisenhower in a broadcast to the American people following thelanding of the U.S Marines in Beirut]

On January 5, 1957, President Dwight D Eisenhower addressed a joint session ofCongress with what could be described as a sense of "extreme urgency.,,2 He warned of

a "special situation" of instability in the Middle East that he blamed on the Soviet Union,and he set forth a planned response that would become known as the Eisenhower

Doctrine.3 Eisenhower outlined Russia's desires in sinister and frightening terms,

claiming her plans were those of evil "power politics" and explaining to Congress that,

"considering her announced purpose of Communizing the world, it is easy to understandher hope of dominating the Middle East.,,4 These assertions were in many ways

overblown and not a complete reflection of reality Soviet interest in the Middle East was

as natural as U.S interest in Latin America.s Still, Eisenhower was convinced that

Russia was up to something new, that it involved Communism, and that America shouldbeware On the basis of this assessment, within a year and a half, the United Stateswould send 15,000 troops to the beaches of Beirut in its first intervention in Lebanon.6

] Dwight D Eisenhower, "Broadcast to the American People Following the Landing of United States Marines at Beirut," (White House, Washington, D.C., July 15, 1958),

http://www.eisenhower.archives govispeeches/Eisenhower speeches.html.

2 Leila Meo,Lebanon: Improbable Nation, A Study In Political Development (Bloomington: Indiana

While this intervention was by some standards "effective," reviewing its context revealsthat the U.S ignored some important parameters of the Lebanese situation and that themission's success was predicated on the will of the Lebanese as much as the value of theU.S policy.

Eisenhower's policy was intended to combat a perceived threat in the form ofSoviet ally, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian president who had recently stood up theWest by nationalizing the Suez Canal Nasser's charismahad helped to popularize

notions of Pan-Arabism, which stressed the similarities of all Arab peoples.7AlthoughNasser was in fact no Communist, his ties to the Soviets persuaded Washington that thethreat of Pan-Arabism went hand in hand with the threat of Communism Many at thetime believed that Communism was on the rise in the Middle East, directly supported byMoscow.8 There was also evidence, however, that Communism as an ideology remainedweak, even in countries that had accepted Soviet aid.9

If governmentswereworried about Communism, however, Eisenhower provided

an interesting option When the Eisenhower Doctrine became law as the Middle EastResolution on March 9, 1957, it formally proffered protection to any country from,

"amled aggression from any country controlled by International Communism,"]O andfrom "Communist aggression, direct and indirect."]] Anamendment to the Doctrineproposed by Democratic Senator Mike Mansfield stated, "the preservation of the

7Salim Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine and the Middle East (Chapel Hill:

The University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 31-32.

8Qubain, Crisis in Lebanon, 129.

9 Even President Camille Chamoun, the leader ofthe capitalist oasis of Lebanon, who would eventually receive aid against the threat of communism, would say with little apparent alarm in 1957, "No doubt communism has made some progress here But with appropriate measures its advance can be halted." Qtd.

in Meo, Lebanon: Improbable Nation, 111.

10Qtd in Irene L Gendzier, Notes From The Minefield: United States Intervention in Lebanon and the

Middle East 1945-1958 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997),246.

IIQtd in George Lenczowiski, American Presidents and the Middle East (Durham: Duke University Press,

1990),63.

independence and integrity of the nations ofthe Middle East [is] vital to thenational

interestsand world peace" (emphasis added).12

This offer of aid might have been broadly accepted and embraced if the MiddleEastern countries had actually feared Communism However, as Leila Mao writes, "Arabpublic opinion felt strongly that they were in imminent danger of expansionist Zionism,not from any nonevident troops of international Communism.,,13 Moreover, recent

history, such as the carving up ofthe Middle East by France and the United Kingdom andcontinuing efforts by Western powers to dominate Middle Eastern regimes, supported thenotion that Western imperialism, in contrast to Communism, was a threat to

independence and stability.14 Eisenhower had designated Communism asthe threat to

stability, couching intervention invoking the Doctrine in language that appealed to all thepeople in the region; but, more accurately, Communism was a threat to U.S control

The success of the Doctrine depended upon Middle Eastern leaders, especiallyArab leaders, supporting its premise and calling on the United States to help in whatwould inevitably be a showdown with Nasser Embarrassingly for the U.S., few Arableaders could even think about accepting it Instead these leaders were unified in

opposition to Israel and in their desire for a solution to the Palestinian problem, aboutwhich the U.S appeared to care little.15 Only one Arab leader feared the Nasser problemmore than Israel: Maronite Christian Lebanese president Camille Chamoun, who becamethe first, last and only Arab leader to accept the Doctrine.16 A Maronite who sought toassociate his country more with the West than the East, Chamoun embraced the doctrinewholeheartedly as a means of protecting himself from Nasser and Arab imperialism, not

12 Qtd in Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism, 212.

13 Meo,Lebanon: Improbable Nation, 105.

14 U.S Ambassador Donald Heath pointed to these realities, noting that the Middle East Resolution

"insure[s] against overt Communist aggression but fails to provide against Zionist or colonialist aggression from non-Communist countries and does not go to the heart of the problems causing instability in the area." Qtd in Gendzier,Notes From the Minefield, 217.

15 Meo,Lebanon: Improbable Nation, 113.

16 Qubain,Crisis in Lebanon, 46.

intemational Communism "Nobody could think that Lebanon was threatened by

Communism," explains David Gilmour, "Its own Communist Party was the oldest party

in the country but also one of the weakest and of little political importance.,,17

Chamoun's anti-Nasser stance drew criticism from many of his Lebanese

constituents, especially among Muslims, but to be fair, it did not create a strictly

Muslim/Christian divide.18 There were, in fact, three kinds of nationalists in Lebanon,each with a different reaction to Chamoun's new policy: Lebanese Nationalists, SyrianNationalists, and Arab Nationalists.19 As in the debates from the first days of Lebaneseindependence, these nationalists were concemed more with the orientation and character

of the Lebanese state than its fundamental existence and independence Lebanese

nationalists supported Lebanese sovereignty above an else For those, mainly MaroniteChristians, who feared Nasser, Lebanon's sovereignty and independence had to be

protected by the Americans at all cost At the same time, some Lebanese nationalistsbelieved that Chamoun's declaration had clearly subverted Lebanese sovereignty byplacing it in the hands of America.2° Syrian nationalists were both Christian and Muslim,and they wished for Lebanon to maintain close ties to Syria, as Lebanon was a part of

"Greater SYJia." Syria had recently allied with Nasser's Egypt, so it is understandablethat some Syrian nationalists saw tuming away from Nasser as tuming away from Syria.Others, however, including the Syrian National Party, allied with Chamoun because theyfeared that Nasser's Pan-Arabism would destroy Syrian nationalism.21 Arab nationalistswere predominantly Muslim and most fell in love with the charismatic Nasser TheseArab nationalists did not all seek immediate union with the rest of the Arab world, butwere instead disappointed with the way in which Chamoun had diplomatically moved

17David Gilmour, Lebanon: The Fractured Country (New York:: St Martin's Press, Inc., 1983),31.

18Sandra Mackey, Lebanon: A House Divided (New York: W W Norton & Company, 2006), first

published as Lebanon: Death ofa Nation (New York: Congdon & Weed, Inc., 1989), 123.

19Meo, Lebanon: Improbable Nation, 64.

20Gilmour, Lebanon: The Fractured Country, 38.

21WiHiam Hanis, Faces ofLebanon: Sects, Wars, and Global Extensions (Princeton: Markus Wiener

Publishers, 1997) 143.

Lebanon away from its Arab character Discounting the Arabs, the Maronites argued thatthe Muslim masses had not totally embraced Lebanese Nationalism in the early years ofthe Republic.22 To make things simple, all Arab nationalists would eventually become

"Communists" according to Chamoun

Because the U.S saw few of these inconsistencies within Chamoun's new West stance, he became "the best possible president" from the American perspective.Chamoun's ambition to succeed hirnse1f-one of many aspects of his unpopularity thatled to the outbreak of violence in 1958-was fed directly by U.S support?3

pro-This violence eventually prompted a complex invocation of the Eisenhower

Doctrine with a mission of Marines to aid the Lebanese Government of President

Chamoun and stabilize a civil war The U.S intervention at the request of Lebanon'sembattled president was intended to support a pro-Western status-quo politician as well

as a stable and peaceful Lebanon.~Whi1ethe Marines came not to fight but to keep thepeace, just as they would 24 years later, they were clearly attached to the side of theestablished Lebanese Government.24 The intervention successfully quelled the CivilWar-which would be remembered by many Lebanese as "The Events" rather than

"war"-that claimed the lives of2,400 Lebanese.25 But while the Marines' success inrestoring the peace was followed by 17 years of economic and cultural vibrancy in

Beirut, the status quo maintained by their actions perpetuated the shaky system built onsand that eventually would fall victim to chaos in 1975?6 Moreover, the ease with whichthe Marines achieved their goals suggests that while the conflict of 1958 had roots similar

22Meo, Lebanon: Improbable Nation, 86.

23Gendzier, Notes From the Minefield, 202 The Americans undertook to see that Chamoun succeeded,

providing financial and later military support In 1957, American CIA agent Wilbur Eveland gave

Chamoun thousands of Lebanese pounds supplied by the U.S government to ensure the election of a parliament and cabinet that supported him and his policies, and that would be likely to reelect Chamoun, after amending the Constitution, in 1958 Ibid., 222.

24Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism, 206.

25Mackey, Lebanon: A House Divided, 125.

26Itamar Rabinovich, The War For Lebanon: 1970-1985 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985),28.

to those of the conflagration that would erupt later, the major players were not yet ready

to tackle some of the larger issues underlying the temporary strife.27

The Civil War of 1958 provides a useful parallel to the later Civil War that

embroiled Reagan, and the earlier mistakes of U.S policy helped to set a precedent for

u.s. involvement from 1982-1984 While the seeds of the Lebanese Civil War wereplanted and in some ways beginning to germinate in 1958, Eisenhower's considerationsoverlooked the fundamental concerns within the Lebanese political system in order tofocus firmly on preserving the strength of pro-Western sentiments, an action that actuallycontributed to internal dissention.28

In addition to being out of touch with broader Middle East realities, the U.S.government's imposition ofthe Eisenhower Doctrine to prop up Chamoun disregardedinternal Lebanese realities Chamoun's tipping of the Lebanese scale in favor of theWest, had greatly upset the internal balance ofthe Lebanese state?9 Because it violatedterms of the National Pact, which had stipulated Lebanon's orientation to the outsideworld, this foreign policy shift was a controversial domestic issue.3o Even the MaronitePatriarch Bulus Butrus al Maushi would side with the predominantly Muslim rebels,recognizing the fragility ofthe compromised state.3!

At the same time, Chamoun's reasoning behind accepting U.S aid was not whollyunjustified, nor was it, in Lebanon's president-dominated system, unconstitutiona1.32 InFebruary of 1958 Egypt and Syria united into an Arab Republic, which was clearly

"Communist backed." As Sunnis danced in the street in reaction to this development,opponents of pan-Arabism were concerned that Lebanon would be next, because ofthereputation of the Chamoun regime in the Arab street.33 In fact, Chamoun's unpopularity

27Mackey, Lebanon: A House Divided, 126.

28Gendzier, Notes From the Minefield, 242.

29Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism, 206.

30Meo, Lebanon: Improbable Nation, 200 See discussion of the National Pact in Chapter One.

31Kamal Salibi, Crossroads to Civil War: Lebanon 1968-1976 (Delmar, New York: Caravan,1976),21.

32Qubain, Crisis in Lebanon, 122.

33Meo, Lebanon: Improbable Nation, 130.

within his own country had a lot to do with his reelection ambition, which violated theNational Pact, and with Lebanese history After Chamoun had ousted his political rivalswith the help of American dollars, those rivals were not happy to see him trying to seizemore power for himself and future Maronite presidents.34

The Eisenhower Administration and the Christians, who for the most part backedtheir leader, were convinced, or at least chose to believe, that opposition to Chamoun wasdirectly related to Nasser and, by proxy, Soviet influence.35 Chamoun, too, insisted thathis opposition was directly tied to Nasser's UAR, and that ifhe lost, Lebanon would fallunder Nasser's power Even years later, Christians remained sure that tension and

dissention had been aroused solely by a Nasserist plot to destroy Lebanese sovereignty.36The United States was frustrated by having little tangible evidence for measuring thisrisk,3? There was some indication that Nasser had used infiltrators in Lebanon when hepromised that "nofurther supply of men or material should be made or permitted to be

given to the Lebanese rebels" (emphasis added).38 Nevertheless, without clear evidence

of "Communist aggression," Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was forced to tellChamoun that his pleas for help did not exactly fit with the Eisenhower Doctrine 39

The decision to intervene in the end involved a complex bending of the Doctrineand a subtle interpretation of international law, and it is widely believed that its trueimpetus had little to do with Lebanon itself On July 14, 1958, a coup deposed KingFaysal and Prime Minister Nuri al-Said-the pro-Western leaders of Iraq and stalwaJis ofthe West's answer to Nasser's Pan-Arabism, the Baghdad Pact-in a display of

nationalism that took Washington by surprise.40 The American government was shocked

34 Mackey,Lebanon: A House Divided, 125.

35 Harris,Faces o/Lebanon, 143.

36 Salibi,Crossroads, 2.

37 Yaqub, Containing Arab Nationalism, 214.

38 Qtd in Ibid., 218.

39 Gendzier,Notes From the Minefield, 246.

40 Mea,Lebanon: Improbable Nation, 188.

and responded accordingly.41 As Sandra Mackey writes, "The Lebanese would haveprobably been left alone to settle their quarrels had revolution not struck in Iraq.,,42

Wanting to prove that the U S would stand up for alIi es and would never cower to theSoviets, Eisenhower decided to assist Chamoun, despite concerns over the negativeresponse of the Arab world.43 He believed that this step was critical to maintaining

"credibility.,,44 He would insist that the intervention did not constitute invasion andmerely offered the "station[ing]" oftroops for supporL,,45 Little thought was paid towhether the Americans were supporting what the Lebanese wanted

The questions raised by Eisenhower's decision involve the implications of

intemationallaw in foreign interventions An analysis of intervention highlights some ofthe mistakes made in Lebanon in the 1950s, and later in the 1980s Article 51 of the UNCharter offers guidance to U.N members on the justification for foreign intervention:

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective

self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the

Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and

security.46

The U.S could not base its intervention in Lebanon exclusively on a claim of individualself-defense Thus, Eisenhower hedged his bets by millouncing that he had sent theMarines "to protect American livesandby their presence to assist the Government ofLebanon to preserve its territorial integrity and political independence" (emphasis

added).47 Because Lebanon had invited the United States, they could assist in collectiveself-defense The intervention was in the name ofbothU.S and Lebanese interests Buttwo important questions remained in terms of both international law and the EisenhowerDoctrine itself Was there the realistic possibility of an armed attack or aggression from

41 Qubain,Crisis in Lebanon, 128.

42 Mackey,Lebanon: A House Divided, 124.

43 Yaqub,Containing Arab Nationalism, 212.

44 Ibid., 224.

45 Lenczowski,American Presidents and the Middle East, 61.

46 Charter of the United Nations, June 26, 1945, http://vv"ww.un.org/aboutun/charter/, Article 51.

47 Qtcl in Quincy Wright, "United States Intervention in the Lebanon,"The American Journal of

International Law 53, NO.1 (Jan 1959): 112.

another country, specifically one infiltrated by Communism? Was the invitation at thebehest of a legitimate government representing the state of Lebanon?

The United States answered the first question easily It completely ignored thesecond Although there was little evidence of direct Syrian infiltration, the U.S couldassert that its actions were necessary due to "indirect aggression," which the U.N hadaccepted as a justifiable cause.48 This aggression was occurring over the radio airwaysand through Syrian arms deals with members of the opposition.49 Itwas not a perfect fit,but it was enough to claim that the indirect aggression "fomented civil strife" to "put intodomestic control those whose real loyalty is to the aggressor.,,50

The second question is eminently more important when considering U.S

intervention in Lebanon Ifwe understand "the Events" of 1958 to be a civil war, thenthe U.S may have indeed broken international law, and may as well have acted againstits own professed opinions "When it is a question only of external aggression, the

capacity of thede jure government is presumed," Quincy Wright explains inThe

internal revolt, the capacity of that government has been denied by most writers, if theresults of the revolt are uncertain.,,51 This interpretation of international law concerningthe right to self-determination was formulated largely by the U.S., which has asserted onits own behalf the right of the overthrow of tyrannical governments, and which assertedduring its own Civil War that international powers would not be allowed to intervene 52For this reason, Eisenhower in the '50s and Reagan in the '80s both tried to declare thatthey were not involving the United States in a civil war, but rather conducting

peacekeeping operations to support a legitimate government If, as Irene Gendzier

insists, "Itwas not Lebanese sovereignty or statehood that Dulles was protecting but a

48 Wright, "United States Intervention in the Lebanon," 113.

49 Qubain,Crisis in Lebanon, 129.

50 Wright, "The United States Intervention in the Lebanon," 113.

5! Ibid., 119.

52 Ibid., 122.

regime that Eisenhower was committed to upholding in the midst of a civil war whoseoutcome both U.S officials and the Lebanese regime feared," then the action may havebeen illegal 53

There is debate over the effect of the intervention Many witnesses of the secondCivil War have concluded hypothetically that the intervention perpetuated a system

bound to fail, even going so far as to link the second Civil War to the imposed resolution

of the first As Journalist Larry Pintak wrote, "lfthe Eisenhower administration had notintervened in 1958 and had allowed events to take their natural course, a more equitablepower-sharing arrangement is likely to have evolved and the debacle that would befallthe U.S two and a half decades later would probably never occurred.,,54

But others have noted that in fact the Civil War had almost resolved itself, andthat the major impetus for U.S involvement lay outside Lebanon By early July, twomonths after the fighting had broken out, Chamoun had renounced his plans to run asecond time for office and had endorsed as his successor Fuad Shihab, the commander ofthe army who had kept the Lebanese Armed Forces out of a "political fight.,,55 Theintervention had not led to reelection for Chamoun, and instead had been a success forLebanese democracy under the guise of "no victor, no vanquished.,,56 The ease withwhich the Marines brought calm, losing only three men in three months, suggested thattheir presence was more ceremonial than anything else This could be because of thevery nature of the civil strife Although it followed sectarian lines, pitting mostly

Muslims against Christians, it was more than anything a result of the deposition of keypolitical bosses, with the help ofD.S money, namely Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt, andSunni leaders Saeb Salam and Rashid Karami.57 The National Front, as the opposition

53 Gendzier,Notes From the Minefield, 242.

54 Lanry Pintak,Beirut Outtakes: A TV Correspondent's Portrait ofAmerica's Encounter with Terror

(Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988), 85.

55 Yaqub,Containing Arab Nationalism, 218-219.

56 Harris,Faces ofLebanon , 144-145.

57 Mackey,Lebanon: A House Divided, 122-123, 126.