Washington Report, July 15, 1985, Page 8

Special Report

Re-Enter Humphrey, Junior

In small offices it's impossible not to overhear every conversation. That's why we could follow every word when Humphrey, Jr. came by this week to pick up a copy of the newsletter for his dad from Miz, our mentally and physically precocious student intern. She's all business, but there's something about her that makes even fuzzy-cheeked boys like Junior want to be macho.

Jr: Hi, Miz. why do you work such long hours in this grim place for nothing?

Miz: I'm a compulsive do-gooder. And why, since you find it so grim, do you keep coming back?

Jr: I thought I'd lend you a hand and then I could take you out for some fresh air...

Miz: Too busy.

Jr: ... and chocolate ice cream cones.

Miz: Well, maybe I could use some fresh air. Take these clippings about the Lebanon hijacking and sort out the important ones for me.

Jr: Okay. I don't understand why we don't just take out Lebanon.

Miz: Which Lebanon?

Jr: The one on the map, here.

Miz: Look again. That's a map of the Ottoman empire at the beginning of the century and Lebanon's not there.

Jr: Golly, I thought it was supposed to be a really ancient country.

Miz: It's an ancient land, not country. The Phoenician city states 2,500 years ago were only about midway in its recorded history. Its present form dates from World War I. The British promised the Arabs freedom if they fought the Turks, but then broke their promise and the eastern Arabs were divided into British and French dependencies. The British took over Palestine, Jordan and Iraq and the French got Syria. The French knew that Syria, which was mostly Muslim, would be hard to hold so they broke off Mount Lebanon, which was mostly Maronite Christian.

Jr: If the French were responsible for Lebanon, they really messed up.

Miz: I guess so, but it was from trying to be too generous to what they thought would be their future client state. They added Beirut to it so that the Maronites would have a city and a port. Then they stuck on Tripoli and the rest of the coastal plain so that their Maronite state would be the only point of entry for the whole Arab hinterland. Then they slipped in the Shouf mountains and a lot of the Bekaa valley and some southern regions. The extra Druze and Sunni and Shiite Muslims outnumbered the Maronites.

Jr: So how did the French think the Maronites were going to control all those Sunnis, Shiites, Druze ...

Miz: ... and Kurds and Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Assyrian Christians and even a Jewish community in Beirut? Long before the French left Lebanon for good in World War II, just about every important government position was assigned to a religious group. The Maronites kept the key jobs: President, Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief, and Chief of Intelligence. The Sunnis got the Prime Ministership. The Speaker of Parliament was a Shiite, Chief of Staff a Druze, and all the other sects got something right down to mail carrier.

Jr: So what went wrong?

Miz: Demographics.

Jr: Well, a few air strikes would adjust their attitudes. I thought the kidnappers were Shiites, not demographics.

Miz: They're kind of the same thing. The Muslims, especially the Shiites, had large families, while the Maronites kept on emigrating to North and South America in droves. Pretty soon it was clear that all the Christians together weren't going to be a majority unless they counted Lebanese overseas. After 1932 Lebanon stopped taking censuses. In 1958 they had a small Civil War about it, although the issue that triggered it was a move by a hard-line Maronite, President Camille Chamoun, to ignore a one-term constitutional limitation and succeed himself in the Presidency.

Jr: So the Christians beat the Muslims?

Miz: No, Eisenhower sent in the Marines.

Jr: Good for him, We should have taken them all out then!

Miz: Taken out whom?

Jr: Whoever was causing the trouble.

Miz: We thought it was President Nasser of Egypt. He said Chamoun should step aside and the Lebanese would elect a new, moderate President—like the Lebanese Commander-in-Chief.

Jr: It's lucky we broke up that commie plot. What happened then?

Miz: We decided that Chamoun should step aside and allow the Lebanese to elect a new President. They elected a moderate: The Commander-in-Chief.

Jr: I'm glad we showed up Nasser! We should have taken him out then and there. What happened next?

Miz: Well, back in 1954 Moshe Dayan had come up with an idea about Lebanon. He proposed to the Israeli cabinet that they find a Maronite officer, bribe him to set up a Christian state along Israel's northern border, and then let Lebanon break up into a lot of mini-states, some of which Israel could use as allies against the other Arab countries.

Jr: Who says?

Miz: It was all recorded in the diary of Moshe Sharett, who was Israeli Prime Minister at the time. He said it was a crazy idea that would doom Lebanon and its neighbors to endless bloodshed. Don't you think we should have "taken out" the Israelis, Junior, for even talking about such a wicked idea?

Jr: Of course not, Miz. The Israelis are the only working democracy and our one reliable ally in the Middle East. That's why you can count on a sensible man like Sharett emerging to stop crazy ideas that would really mess up U.S. interests in the Middle East—especially in a friendly country like Lebanon which was practically a 51st state.

Miz: Also a working democracy, I might add.

Jr: Whatever. Anyway, since Sharrett stopped Dayan from carrying out his nasty plan, how did Lebanon get so messed up?

Miz: About 20 years later, Israel carried out Dayan's plan. They trained, paid and equipped a private army for Major Saad Haddad and through him got free access to South Lebanon. When he died they handed his fiefdom to Colonel Antoine Lahad, who runs the "South Lebanon Army" in the Lebanese territory along Israel's northern border. In the 1970s, they also started helping the two Maronite militias run by the Gemayel and Chamoun families. That was when Lebanon's current war began. It's continued off and on for 11 years now, and has killed about as many people in that tiny country as America lost in both the Korean and Viet-Nam wars.

Jr: I should have known that if I played straight man to you, you'd end up blaming Israel for all of Lebanon's troubles. How about the armed Palestinians who began taking over Lebanon after King Hussein kicked them out of Jordan in 1970? 1 know for a fact that Lebanese Muslims and Druze used them in their attempt to re-apportion the power with the Christians.

Miz: I won't argue with that. Most of the initial heavy fighting was between heavily-armed Maronite militias and heavily-armed Palestinian guerilla groups. Each blames the other, but it started and stopped so many times there's blame enough to go all around.

Jr: So what does Lebanese Arabs fighting Lebanese and Palestinian Arabs have to do with Israel?

Miz: I assume you're just playing straight man for me again.

Jr: Heck no. We should have told those Palestinians right then that if they didn't lay down their arms and go home, we'd take them out.

Miz: I've got to admit you're on to something there, Junior. And if anyone like the Israelis tried to stop the Palestinians from coming home, we'd take the Israelis out too?

Jr: You're trying to over-simplify, Miz. International terrorism is a complex issue.

Miz: Tell me about it. I assume you agree with our government that the worst is state-sponsored terrorism—where the killers operate under the protection of a sovereign country which trains them, provides weapons and ammunition, and gives them a safe-haven to return to?

Jr: That's right. Like Iran sending crazed suicide bombers to Kuwait and Lebanon.

Miz: Right, Junior. Or Israel, sending jets to bomb a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon every time a bomb goes off in a synagogue or kosher restaurant anywhere in the world—no matter who actually planted the bomb.

Jr: Miz, stick to the point. You know very well I'm talking about punishing Shiite kidnappers in Lebanon. If we can't get at them directly we ought to send the Sixth Fleet toward Lebanon but, as it sails by Libya, have it turn right and take out Qaddafi.

Miz: I guess that wouldn't set off much international mourning. And it certainly would be a nice present for Nabih Berri and all the Shiites in his Amal militia. They blame Qaddafi for the permanent disappearance of the Imam Musa Sadr, founder of Amal and Berri's predecessor. Berri's chief of military operations has already carried out five hi-jackings of Libyan planes. He'd eat his heart out when he saw how we beat him at his own anti-Qaddafi game.

Jr: If it's the wrong time to take out Qaddafi, let's take out Damascus.

Miz: Well, the first time we took on the Syrians, they shot down one of our planes. One pilot was killed and Jesse Jackson had to go get the other one back. Since then the Syrians have installed new ground-to-air missiles and even the Israelis have stopped overflying Syria. But maybe Americans are ready to lose some more pilots now. Wow, won't that confuse the Arabs! The Syrians are trying to get control over all those crazy Iranian-funded Shiites who blew up our embassies in Beirut and Kuwait, killed a whole barracks full of sleeping Marines, and then hi-jacked the TWA plane. But do we hit Iran like they expect us to? Heck no, we take out Damascus instead, and right after Assad has helped us. It will drive the Arabs crazy trying to figure out why we got a lot of our guys killed punishing Syria for helping our hijack victims.

Jr: Okay, you said it first. Let's go right to the source of all our troubles. We'll take out Teheran, Qum, and the Ayatollah!

Miz: I might want to enlist for that war myself, Junior. The only problem, of course, is that since the Iraqis are already wearing down Khomeini, if we press him much harder, he might call in the Russians to help him against us. Russian planes and tanks could be in Teheran in hours, and when the Russians roll into a country with which they have common borders, they don't leave. Remember Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and all the rest right up to Afghanistan? What a weird ending to our attempt to stand tall, with the Russians, after three centuries of setbacks, at last on the warm waters of the Indian ocean, with a lot of the world's oil reserves thrown in.

Jr: That objection's a non-starter, Miz. Khomeini calls the Soviet Union the other Great Satan.

Miz: Since you remember that, perhaps you'll also remember Winston Churchill saying he would make a pact with the devil himself if it would help defeat his enemy, Hitler. Do you think Khomeini is more statesmanlike than Churchill was?

Jr: Okay. Do you think we should just stand by and let terrorists defy international law and push around Americans all over the world?

Miz: No. I think we should resolutely—no, fiercely—oppose violations of international law all over the world—with economic sanctions at a minimum and military force where our own people are endangered.

Jr: Oh, oh. I can see where this is leading. You want us to stop subsidizing our ally, Israel, so long as it's in violation of international law by holding Lebanese as hostages, confiscating Palestinian land for West Bank settlements, holding on to Gaza, the Golan Heights, the Muslim and Christian Holy places in Jerusalem ...

Miz: Bingo! Withholding economic support from Israel whenever it violates international law will end those violations pronto. It will be more effective at restoring American dignity and credibility than all the battleships, all the bombers, and all the Marines we have. When the Palestinians get the right to their own state in their own country—alongside the Israeli state—and every Muslim, Christian and Jew has a right to go to his own holy places anywhere in the world, the terrorists will lose 90 percent of their troops and most of their real grievances against the U.S. Oh, Junior, if we would just put some space between ourselves and Israel and treat it just like any other foreign country, I guarantee you that our "enemies" would suddenly dwindle to those we can understand and deal with—the ones funded by the Soviet Union.

Jr: All just as simple as that, Miz?

Miz: Almost. We'll still be up against anti-NATO crazies in Europe and lots of people with genuine grievances in Central and Latin America who have turned to Marxism. But we won't be dealing with desperate kids who have seen their families blown to smithereens. Even Khomeini will have lost half of his case for whipping up the Shiites against us. He can go on blaming us for propping up the Shah for 25 years too long, but he can't go on blaming us for denying Jerusalem to Muslim worshippers or sponsoring the expulsion of Muslims from the West Bank

Jr: And what about Israel, which has depended on us for nearly 40 years?

Miz: The reasonable Israelis will thank us, Junior, and that is a fact. They don't want to be led by crazies like Sharon, but he's the one who brings back the American bucks. Believe me, in the Middle East honesty really would be the best policy. If we stop making an exception of Israel when we talk about a world-wide war against terrorism, you'll see us start to win that war before the other side knows what hit them.

Jr: If it's that simple, how come Republican leaders like Jack Kemp in the House or Democratic leaders like Teddy Kennedy in the Senate go on protecting Israel from the State Department, the Pentagon, or the President when we try to apply economic pressure?

Miz: They are absolutely obsessed by their pursuit of the Presidency. The word is out that the Israel lobby is one of the richest and by far the best organized lobby in the U.S. The Congressmen believe that if you support it, it provides big bucks at election time, and if you oppose it, it subsidizes a candidate to beat you. The lobby brags openly that it got Findley in 1980, got McCloskey in 1982, got Percy in 1984, and will get Mathias in 1986. No one wants to find out personally whether or not it's true that, if you want to be President, or just stay in Congress, you don't mess up with the Jewish lobby or Israel's friends in the media.

Jr: You actually are trying to tell me that Kennedy and Kemp would sell out their country's best interests and get our soldiers, diplomats, businessmen and even tourists killed for some press puffs and some lousy campaign contributions.?

Miz: Oh, of course they psych themselves up with all that "Israel is a strategic asset" stuff that any lieutenant in the reserves can tell you is the exact reverse of the truth. And then, when the lobby rings the bell, they come running for their supper like a pack of Pavlovian pigs.

Jr: You mean Pavlovian rats.

Miz: I guess you're right, Junior. They really are a pack of rats. We ought to take them out—of Congress, that is.

Jr: I didn't call them rats, Miz. Stop putting words in my mouth! Can't we go outside now? I need some air.

Miz: Okay. Hey, gang, I'm leaving now. I've decided the best way to deal with the Middle East is to take out Junior!

Richard Curtiss was Chief Inspector of the U.S. Information Agency when he retired in 1980 after 31 years of service with the US Army, Department of State, and U.S.I.A.