Lebanon Facts III

Well to continue our exploration of Lebanon we will now discuss the “threats” to Lebanon. We have covered the Economics of Lebanon and the Civil Society to this point.

Lebanon occupies an important place in a strategically vital corner of the world. Regional harmony demands that Lebanon’s heterogeneous religious communities maintain a stable relationship with one another. Lebanon’s historical status as a sanctuary for persecuted minorities is reflected in her eighteen officially recognized religious denominations-nearly all of which connect to significant populations outside Lebanon’s borders. The Sunnis have ties mainly to the Arabian peninsula and Egypt; the Shi’a to their communities in Iran and Iraq; the Druze to theirs in Syria and Israel; the Greek Orthodox Christians to the Greek and Slavic worlds as well as to their communities in Syria and other Arabic-speaking countries; the Maronites to Cyprus and Syria; and the Catholic world at large; the small Coptic community to Egypt; the Chaldaeans and Assyrians to Iraq; the Syriacs to northern Syria and southern Turkey; the Melchites (Greek Catholics) to Egypt, Syria, and among the Palestinians. In addition, all these communities have ties to Lebanon’s ?migr? communities in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Australia, and beyond. Only if the members of each of these eighteen denominations are free to remain true to their deepest values and maintain creative interaction with the others will Lebanon cease to be a flash point for conflict which easily generates repercussions beyond its borders.

For Lebanon to be sub-contracted to Syria, with American and Israeli acquiescence, is to bask in the illusion of stability. As custodian of Lebanon, Damascus gains a vast array of cards to use at will to bolster its prestige or derail regional settlements. The Syrians have repeatedly shown a propensity to practice divide-and-rule tactics by playing one Lebanese faction off against another to suit their foreign policy objectives. Thus, when the Syrians wish for greater attention from Saudi Arabia, they engineer a squeeze on Lebanon’s Sunni leadership. If Syrian relations with Iran are souring, they pressure Iran’s Shi’a clients in Lebanon. Through their influence on Hizbullah and their ability to stop the flow of Iranian arms to the group through the Damascus airport, they ultimately control the temperature of the last active frontier with Israel. Depriving Syria of this undeserved power in Lebanon is a primary American strategic interest.

Lebanon has unwittingly became a breeding ground for terrorist organizations aiming to undermine American and Western interests in the Middle East since the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) set up shop in the country in the mid-1960s. When large parts of the country fell under Syrian aegis after 1976, this pattern accelerated. Lebanon’s agriculturally fertile Bekaa Valley, for example, was transformed into a notorious training ground for terrorists and a place to plan their operations. Many leading terrorist groups at one point had a base of operations in Lebanon, including Abu Nidal, Carlos, the Japanese Red Army, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, and the Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan (PKK). The principal beneficiaries of this controlled anarchy over the years have been the PLO, Syria, and Iran, all of which have used terrorism to try to pressure the United States, other Western powers, and Israel.

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