Lebanon: Light in the Tunnel?

As we now go to press, on Friday, July 6, the news out of Beirut is more encouraging than at any time within recent memory. In fact, it is hard to believe it is all really happening—the tearing down of the ugly barriers separating "Christian" East Beirut from the "Muslim" West; the successful deployment, so far, of army units to displace the militias; the withdrawal by the militias of their heavy weapons from the city; the re-opening of Beirut's seaport and airport.

Experience tells us, of course, that the new situation could unravel entirely over the weekend, even as this editorial is speeding through the postal system on its way to your mailbox—thereby making us look as though we've jumped the gun. But we'll take the risk, because there are some things that we want to say, whatever happens.

Firstly, a word of caution. The establishment of a peaceful, functioning Beirut would be an enormous breakthrough for the people who live there, and would have enormous psychological and symbolic importance beyond the limits of the city. But in terms of achieving a settlement for the problems of Lebanon as a whole, it would represent a walk of only a few yards along a one-mile road.

Even if the peaceful unity of Beirut is achieved, it will still be the only part of the country where the central government holds sway. The militias have not been disbanded; the heavy weapons they have removed from the city have simply been redeployed to the fiefdoms which they control in the countryside: the Druze in the Shouf mountains, the Maronites in the Upper Metn, and so forth. Syria still dominates large swaths of northern and eastern Lebanon; and Israel occupies part of the eastern Bekaa and all of south Lebanon up to the Awwali River.

The people in the various factions who have been fighting one another over the past nine years cannot easily return to the relationships which they had in 1974, however ingenious the political formulas may be. Too much blood has gone over the dam. Hatreds have been built up far beyond those that existed ten years ago. The supply of mutual trust, never at a high level, is at an all-time low.

Despite the progress on the streets of Beirut, the factions have differing views not only on how to share the powers in the Lebanon of the future, but on what its structure should be. In general, the Muslims, who form a majority of the population, would like it to go back to being the unitary, centralized nation that it was before. On the other hand, the Christian Maronites, who liked the unitary form of government in the days when they had the predominant power, have now lost interest in that system. The buzz-word among the Maronites has become "federalization"—which its criticssay would end up by becoming partition. It doesn't help that Shimon Peres, who might become the next Prime Minister of Lebanon, has taken sides on this issue, saying that he thinks partition would be the best solution for Lebanon's problems. In the meantime, the Likud government carries out such destabilizing operations as the bombing of small islands off Lebanon's coast, and the hijacking of Lebanon-bound ferries in international waters.

Since we usually write about U.S.-Middle East relations, you might well ask: what does any of this have to do with the U.S.? Only this: if by some chance, Syria succeeds in pulling off a miracle by engineering a peaceful and viable settlement that all Lebanese—and the rest of us—can live with, let us hope that the Administration will have the grace and wisdom to tip its hat and to help Lebanon get on its feet. Even the black hats should be given credit when credit is due.