Washington Report, June 28, 1982, Page 5

U.S. Encouragement and Acquiescence

On the eve of the invasion, Israel had every reason to believe that it could go ahead without fear of any meaningful opposition from the United States. Ever since the evacuation of Sinai, the Reagan Administration had been downplaying its earlier irritation over Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights and hardline attitudes on West Bank "autonomy," and had been acting as though it wanted bygones to be bygones. In token of this attitude, Administration officials were talking of reviving the "strategic cooperation" agreement with Israel which had been revoked in protest over Golan. Beyond that, it had announced that it would sell Israel another 75 F-16 fighter bombers for $2.7 billion—the biggest single U.S. arms sale ever made to that country. In Congress, too, pro-Israel sentiment, always warm, was getting warmer. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved an amendment to increase the grant portion of U.S. military aid to Israel for 1983 by $350 million. Even if there had been no secret "green light" signals from the U.S.—and it's not yet clear that there were none—these developments alone would have been enough to convince Mr. Begin that his invasion would be greeted with handwringing, at the most. So when he received a belated message from Mr. Reagan on the morning of the invasion, asking him to show "restraint" —it was the first such message since Israel had begun pounding Lebanon with heavy air strikes two days before—he probably had no problems in deciding to ignore it.

As it turned out, even the handwringing was half hearted and lasted only a short while. The U.S. did go on record at the U.N. calling on Israel to make an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of its forces. But when Israel did not comply, the U.S. vetoed another resolution calling for sanctions. In Europe, where President Reagan and Secretary of State Haig were travelling, both men deplored the "violence" but pointedly refrained from making any criticism of the Israeli attack, and the President's Counsellor, Edwin Meese III, confirmed that the U.S. has no intention of either imposing sanctions or cutting off the arms flow to Israel.

Soon, as Israeli troops raced towards Beirut, Administration spokesmen also began whittling away at the notion that Israeli withdrawal ought to be unconditional. A State Department spokesman declared: "We think the issue of not having Lebanon be a launching pad for attacks against Israel is linked to Israeli withdrawal." By the time the Israelis reached Beirut and announced war aims that were much broader than they had originally revealed, Secretary of State Haig had adopted them as the U.S.'s own: he called publicly, as Israel had, for the withdrawal of all foreign (including PLO) troops from Lebanon, the establishment of a strong national government there, and the need for "security arrangements" along the Israeli border with Lebanon. U.S. officials began arguing that the Administration would be remiss in not taking advantage of the "new opportunities" that had been opened up by the "new realities" of the situation in Lebanon. They even harked back to Secretary Haig's Chicago speech of May 26—less than two weeks before the invasion began—in which he said: "the time has come to take concerted action in support of both Lebanon's territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders and a strong central government capable of promoting a free, open, democratic and traditionally pluralistic society."

Everything dovetailed so neatly, in fact, that many observers found it hard to escape the conclusion that the U.S.'s role has not been simply one of encouragement and acquiescence, but of collusion as well. However no hard evidence has come to light to back this theory.