Withdrawal from Lebanon
President Gemayel's political and per- sonal demise may very soon be an accomplished fact. The Druze and Shi'ite militia seem poised to seize Souk al Gharb, the last position of the Lebanese army before the presidential palace itself. Of the multinational peacekeeping force only the French effectively remain — for no clearly discernible purpose. The fall of Gemayel will signify the final collapse of the hopeless attempt to rebuild Lebanon along the lines of the 1926 confessional constitution. Syria seems about to achieve its irredentist aims. Israel, doubtless, will take what steps it con- siders necessary to ensure the security of its northern border. What fate awaits the Christian minority is as yet unknown.
The US withdrawal, which precipitated the collapse of the multinational peace- keeping force, is a demonstration of serious incompetence and confusion within the administration. The ostensible goal of US policy was the reconstruction of an independent Lebanon. The condition for this could only be the departure of all foreign forces from the country. But, as should have been obvious from the start, Syria had no intention of withdrawing. The Israelis would not leave 'unless they could ensure that the PLO would not return to Lebanon under Syrian auspices. So long as Syria remained, Israeli hopes of having an independent and neutral Lebanon on their border were impossible to realise.
The multinational peacekeeping force set itself the task of securing a mutual disengagement of forces from Lebanon, attainment of which was the necessary con- diction for the sovereignty of the Lebanese government. The United States rejection of the option of using the Israel military capability and knowledge of local condi- tions to force Syria to leave meant that the Israelis could not but continue to justify their military presence in Lebanon as being necessitated by the need to prevent the reintroduction of the PLO by the Syrians. What the US government, sought, how- ever, was to put pressure on the Syrians to leave by eliminating the grounds for any possible justification for their continued military presence. This they tried to achieve through their sponsorship of the 7 May agreement between Lebanon and Israel which provided for the disengagement of Israeli forces. An Israeli withdrawal to south of the Awali River was somehow ex- pected to lead to a corresponding Syrian withdrawal. But there was never any likelihood of this happening. And Syria, which had so vehemently rejected the Camp David accords, was bound to seek ways of sabotaging this agreement. Using its Moslem allies in Lebanon, it was not too difficult to undermine President Gemayel's authority and thus undermine the founda- tion of his right, as head of state, to commit Lebanon to any binding treaties. The 17 May accords, to which the United States bound its prestige, became the subject of acrimonious dispute and the focal point for the assault on Gemayel's authority.
As the traditional hostility between the Druze Moslems and the Maronite Chris- tians became further complicated by the radicalism of the Shi'ite Moslems, the US found itself supporting the vain attempts of a beleaguered government to assert its sovereignty. To get embroiled in a war with Syria was out of the question: not only did the United States not have the will or the military capability on the ground for this but there always lurked the threat of Soviet intervention to deter such enterprises. Syria could apply the pressure and wait. There now took place a confrontation between their claims to a suzerainty over the Lebanon and the US policy of supervising the creation of an independent Lebanon. Nothing could be better calculated to achieve a collapse of American morale than the terrorist attack that killed 270 marines. That America refused to launch reprisal attacks could not but reassure Syria that Gemayel's military support lacked any real foundation.
Antagonism towards the idea of forming a government under Gemayel's terms of reference was bound to grow among the Moslems. The Christians are in a minority; to maintain their position in Lebanon they have always had to look to foreign backers. The Druze and Shi'ite Moslems, armed by Syria and the Soviet Union, could afford to raise the stakes. The long-standing coalition between the Christians and the Moslems might just have been reconstituted if it had been possible successfully to eclipse the power and influence of Syria. The workability of a constitution requires the endorsement of a number of powers. A countervailing power to Moslem Syria was necessary. Whatever concessions Gemayel could or should have made to the various Moslem factions in his country he would, nevertheless, have remained reliant on American power. At this moment, Gemayel, no longer even commanding the support of his fellow Christians, is compell- ed to seek some agreement with Damascus.
For the West the outcome is rather grim. It is not that Lebanon is strategically vital, or that Greater Syria ought to be prevented from coming into being, or that Israel is today facing a threat it is no longer capable of coping with by itself; it is rather that American power has once again shown itself to be ineffective. The aims were always obscure and resources and prestige were squandered. Whereas there may be a feeling of relief in the US that the Marines, who seemed to be serving no useful purpose in Beirut, are now out of the firing line, the more lasting impression will be that the American use of power is erratic and unreliable.
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