1983: A Bad, Sad Year

Is the U.S. better off in the Middle East today than it was at the beginning of the year?

To find someone in Washington today who believes the answer is "yes" is about as easy as finding an empty White House driveway to race into with your delivery truck.

In fact, there is general agreement that things have deteriorated badly for the U.S. during 1983—particularly in Lebanon, of course, but also in the West Bank, where month after month new nails were driven into the coffin of the "Reagan Plan."

The deterioration in the West Bank was to be expected, since the Administration had never shown any stomach for trying to stop the Israeli government from pursuing its relentless drive to colonize that territory—and proved it again early in the year by failing to follow up on a commitment to King Hussein to get the Israelis to freeze, at least, the building of new settlements. But whose fault was it that things turned out so bad in Lebanon? To this question you can find a diversity of answers.

But there is no shortage of Middle East watchers who put most of the blame on the Administration's clumsy pursuit of ill-conceived policy goals.

At the beginning of the year, the marines in Lebanon were still carrying out the role they had been assigned upon their arrival three months earlier—acting as a neutral "presence" to provide psychological reassurance to civilians of the Beirut area, until the Lebanese army could take over control from the Israeli army and assorted Lebanese militia groups. In addition to guarding the airport, they conducted patrols—some on foot—in a number of residential districts of the Lebanese capital, where they were greeted with friendly waves by the citizens. They carried unloaded weapons, in line with their designation as "non-combatants." White House spokesman Larry Speakes, asked on January 15 if they were in any danger, said they were "not in conflict, nor in contact with anybody that could produce a major incident."

The Vanishing Presence

At the end of the year, they were still being called non-combatants" by the Administration, but numerous major incidents had occurred—including the catastrophic truck-bombing which killed 241 marines—and there had been a drastic change in the marine role. Their "presence" had become virtually invisible to the Lebanese citizenry, as the patrols were abandoned and the marines hunkered down into deeper and deeper trenches at Beirut airport. Their main activity had become what was being called "aggressive self-defense—shooting back with heavy weapons at Shiite and Druze militiamen from whom they were coming under fire.

At the same time, during the course of the year, the U.S. began playing a wider military role—supposedly, according to the Administration, in support of the safety of the marines. In September, five-inch guns from the steadily growing U.S. naval fleet offshore shelled a ridge above Beirut airport in support of the Lebanese army. Later, these guns began firing their shells, almost routinely, against artillery positions deep within Syrian-controlled territory. As part of the support effort, naval reconnaissance planes were sent to reconnoiter such positions, but had to be protected, in turn. By December, retaliation against Syrian batteries which fired at them brought naval aircraft into action—resulting in the downing of two of them and the death of a pilot—and led the battleship New Jersey to open up with its devastating 16-inch guns for the first time since Vietnam.

Politically, too, the dangers escalated dramatically in Lebanon over the course of the year. In January, Syria's Assad was being looked upon by the Administration as an unfriendly but not very credible actor who would "come into line" and withdraw his troops from Lebanon just as soon as the U.S. had mediated a deal to get the Israelis to agree to leave. By December, however, Assad was being looked upon as U.S. enemy number one in the region, while U.S. ships and artillery continued to carry out their shelling against troops of an Arab country for the first time in the modern era. At the same time, the U.S. military men who were firing the guns were less than fifty miles away from Soviet military advisors manning antiaircraft batteries within Syria. On December 5, the Soviet Union, through its official press agency Tass, charged that "the aggressive actions of the U.S.A. against Syria constitute a serious threat to peace in the Middle East, and not only in that region."

What happened in Lebanon to make things reach this point? For one thing, the Administration badly misread Syria, from the point of view of both substance and tactics. It did not appear to understand Syria's long-held, fundamental attitudes towards Lebanon and towards Israel's presence there—despite the fact that Syria made no secret of them, and despite the fact that many of the Administration's own specialists, including its embassy staff in Damascus, passed these views along to those at the top. Nor did the Administration appear to realize that Syria's recovery from its military losses incurred during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and the political support it was getting from the Soviet Union, had made it confident that it would not allow itself to be taken for granted—and was certainly in no mood to be ignored.

Insult and Injury

But the U.S. virtually ignored Syria, nonetheless, as it went ahead and mediated an Israeli-Lebanon withdrawal agreement which it should have known would be unacceptable to Syria. The accord, signed on May 17, would permit Israeli troops to participate in round-the-clock security operations in south Lebanon even after the withdrawal, and also provided for eventual "normalization" of commercial and diplomatic relations between Lebanon and Israel. When the agreement was signed, Syria was annoyed at not having been consulted, angered by the postwithdrawal "residual" Israeli presence in south Lebanon (which it said would endanger its own security) and outraged at the "normalization" clauses of the agreement, which it said would reward Israel for its invasion of Lebanon. The Administration appeared to be not only shocked at the Syrian response, but genuinely surprised.

Adding insult to injury, from the Syrian point of view, was a side-letter to the agreement in which the U.S. told Israel that it would not actually have to withdraw from Lebanon until Syria agreed to do so at the same time. The Syrians believe that their presence in Lebanon should not be equated with Israel's—since Syrian troops were invited to Lebanon by the Lebanese government, whereas the Israelis came as invaders.

The Syrians, as a result, said they would not leave Lebanon as long as the May 17 agreement was not abrogated. The Administration's response was to brand Syria as the principal "obstacle to peace" in Lebanon, and to condemn its "refusal" to leave—although this allegation was misleading, since Syria had gone on record to say that it would withdraw from Lebanon unconditionally if Israel, too, withdrew unconditionally. From then on, until December, it was mostly down hill. Although a U.S.-Syria dialogue was kept open—just barely—Syria began stepping up its military assistance to Lebanese factions opposed to the government of Amin Gemayel. The U.S., in turn, decided that the best way to make the Syrians back off was to step up the military pressure—a prime reason for bringing naval aircraft and the New Jersey's 16-inchers into action. But as the year drew to a close, there was no sign that the Syrians were ready to give in—or even to stop firing at U.S. reconnaissance planes. In fact, their rhetoric became more militant. As one critic of Administration policy put it: "Syria is not Grenada."

Another development that opened up a Pandora's box was that the U.S., despite its professed role as a mediator and its stress on the "non -combatant" posture of the marines, became widely perceived among Lebanese factions as a party to the dispute—that is, as part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Some of this perception was probably unavoidable, but the Administration did a lot of things to aggravate it. In various public statements, it made it quite clear that it was dedicated to supporting the Gemayel government against its enemies—and was, in fact, building the Lebanese army for this purpose. Many who had doubts found them dispelled in September, when U.S. navy gunships fired into the Lebanese hills to prevent the Lebanese army from being overrun by the Druze militia at Suq al Gharb, a ridgeline which was being treated in Administration rhetoric as though it were the Alamo. The shelling turned many Druze villagers, previously sympathetic to the Americans, into enemies.

Also unfortunate, from the point of view of the image of the marines as neutral peacemakers, was the decision to place their positions at Beirut airport cheek by jowl with Lebanese army units. Time and again, during fighting between Druze and the army and between Shiite militia and the army, shells intended for the Lebanese landed on the marine encampment nearby. This was recognized by Marine Commandant General Paul X. Kelley, who said on September 18: "Whoever is shooting at us ... is shooting more at where we are than who we are. There is no indication anybody is purposefully taking the marines under fire." Yet marines and naval warships were nonetheless drawn into shooting back in "self defense," and presumably making more enemies among those who had not—at first, anyway—been trying to pick a fight with the U.S.

Another problem which aggravated the situation in Lebanon during the year was the confusion caused by conflicting statements of the Administration on the mission of the marines. Although the Administration never abandoned the official theme that the marines were there as non-combatant peacekeepers, the President himself frequently made comments which seemed to specify quite a different mission. As recently as October 24, he told reporters that the U.S. has "vital interests" in Lebanon, because "if Lebanon ends up under the tyranny of forces hostile to the West, not only will our strategic position in the eastern Mediterranean be threatened but also the stability of the entire Middle East." Surely this would mean that the U.S. might have to beef up its forces in Lebanon at some point to protect these vital interests? But no—the President has reiterated that the force would not be expanded. And on December 14 he said that if there was a "collapse of order" in Lebanon this would be a reason for the marines to leave. A week later, in attempting to clarify his earlier statement, he said that if a new government should emerge in Lebanon and began moving "in a different direction", "then I suppose that would be a reason for bringing them (the marines) out."