After U.S. Marines pull out: Syria props up Lebanese regime

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'The Gemayel government intended Moslem participation to be no more "The United States will never suffer in Lebanon a defeat such as was inflicted on the French in Dien Bien Phu, because the French had nothing like our New Jersey"

These words were spoken by Ronald Reagan in February 1983, only one year before the U.S. Marines were driven out of Lebanon. In recalling Dien Bien Phu, the debacle which effectively ended French rule in Vietnam, Reagan brought to mind Nixon's recommendation in 1954 that the United States supply nuclear weapons to prevent a French defeat. Indeed, as the Lebanese army of Amin Gemayel disintegrated, the devastating fire power of the New Jersey was brought into play.

On two occasions, a "Dien Bien Phu" at the strategic Shouf mountain town of Suk al Gharb was forestalled by the 16-inch gunnery of the battleship New Jersey. The U.S. government conPresident Amin Gemayel of Lebanon than one of appearances.' sidered that the fall of Suk al Gharb, which overlooks the presidential palace in Beirut, would cause the flight of Gemayel and the collapse of his regime.

CBS News reported that the New Jersey fired 33,000 tons of explosives on Suk al Gharb and the surrounding area. On Feb. 8, 1984, nine 406-mm cannons saturated the Lebanese mountains for 20 consecutive hours, firing over 400 shells. Each shell weighed 1.3 tons and destroyed an area of 100 square meters.

The Druse villages of Biteibat and Bzebdin, and the Maronite village of Shebanyeh were wiped from the face of the earth. Civilian casualties from the successive bombardments exceeded 5,000. Roads were turned into craters, and pinewoods and fertile fields were transformed into scorched earth.

U.S. Naval artillery and Marine shore batteries did not confine their devastation to the Shouf mountains. For an entire week preceding the bombardment of Feb. 8, artillery flooded the densely populated neighborhoods of South Beirut with phosphorus shells, causing casualties again in the thousands among the Shi'a women, children, and disabled.

The Phalangist shelling, as well, turned the Shi'ite neighborhoods of Chiyah, Ghaberi, and Tayuni into vast cemeteries of rubble and debris Ralph Schoenman is presently the director of the Committee in Defense of the Palestinian and Lebanese Peoples. He is the former executive director of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. This article is a condensed version of a piece which Socialist Action hopes to publish in its entirety in the near future. According to the March 21, 1984, issue of the journal, Al Fajr, 500 civilians were killed and 250,000 rendered homeless by this shelling.

Yet, despite all the firepower of the New Jersey and its sister ships, the Lebanese army crumbled, bringing the regime to the verge of collapse. The scenes and images in West Beirut after the entry of Druse and Shi'a partisan militia evoked memories not of Dien Bien Phu, but of the liberation of Saigon.

Livia Rokach depicted this scene in the Feb. 22 issue of Al Fajr: "The population descended into the streets to hug the T-shirted boys driving new American tanks willingly ceded by the collapsed army. And on the other hand, hundreds of Americans were hysterically assailing the helicopters sent to evacuate them at their embassy site?' Newsweek magazine described the Lebanese situation in its March 5 issue: "For Amin Gemayel, the political situation seemed simply impossible. His 0000000 Syrian President Hafez al-Assad army had collapsed, leaving his government in control of little territory beyond East Beirut. At least forty percent of the army's soldiers had deserted to the Muslim militias, in most cases taking their arms and equipment with them.?

Yet the regime, written off by everybody and abandoned as beyond salvaging, managed to survive. How could this happen?

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 led to the dispersal of the Palestinian fighters under a plan engineered by Bechtel Corporation's Phillip Habib. This greatly debilitated the leadership of the Palestinian movement. At the same time, the Lebanese nationalist movement was in disarray. (See Socialist Action, Vol.1, No.1, "Crisis of leadership in PLO"' by Ralph Schoenman)

The leadership of the National Salvation Front-made up by the Shi'a, Druse, and Sunni bourgeois leaderships-had made clear that it was opposed to any change in class relations or in the social composition of the Gemayel government. From the time of the initial installation of Amin Gemayel, these leaderships had informed the United States and the Phalange alike that they sought no more than a subordinate partnership in the Lebanese government.

The inclusion of the Moslem bourgeois political figures, both Sunni and Shi'a, was an important part of ruling class strategy for Lebanon. Sa'ab Salem, the venerable Sunni politician with longstanding ties to Saudi Arabia, led the way in providing support for the regime of Amin Gemayel. Nabih Berri of the Shi'a organization, Amal, sought as well to persuade Gemayel to share power. Walid Jumblatt of the Druse May 1984 expressed "hopefulness" about the Amin government of "national unity?' It soon became apparent, however, that the Gemayel government intended Moslem participation to be no more than one of appearances. The Lebanese army was dominated by the Phalange and its officers. The "Moslem privileged classes" would have to settle for crumbs. There was to be no power sharing.

After the departure of the U.S. Marines, the bourgeois leaderships of the Lebanese National Salvation Front continued to pursue their policies of class collaboration. The collapse of the army in the face of the sustained mass struggle of the oppressed had opened a door to revolutionary power, but there was no one available to close it. Amal leader Nabih Berri told ABC News after the fall of West Beirut: "We are the natural allies of the United States in Lebanon, the natural and best-placed guarantor of U.S. interests.' On March 5, 1984, as the Marines were fleeing Beirut, Newsweek reported that a ceasefire had been agreed to by the Gemayel government and the Shi'ite and Druse militias who controlled West Beirut. The ceasefire had been brokered by Saudi Arabia and Syria. It took hold just as the militias were on the verge of capturing Suk al Gharb and were threatening Ba'abda, site of the presidential palace.

"The ceasefire gave Gemayel a chance to get his house in order and discuss with the various Maronite leaders the peace plan advanced by Saudi Arabia and Syria" Newsweek reported. "The green light flashed in Damascus just in time to save what little was left of the Reagan administration's policy in Lebanon?"

This was not the first time that the Syrian regime of Hafez al Assad had snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory. During the civil war of 1975-76, Syria sent troops in support of the Phalange when the fascist militia of the Gemayels had no more than 24 hours of ammunition remaining to it.

It was a betrayal worked out between Syrian Foreign Minister Khaddam and Israeli Minister of Defense Shimon Peres, culminating in the Israeli-Syrian siege of Tal al Zataar. The troops of Assad protected the militia of Bashir Gemayel and the Tiger Brigade of Camille Chamoun as they slaughtered Palestinian civilians in a brutal prelude to Sabra and Shatila.

American decision makers knew all along that Syrian support for the popular struggle was designed solely to provide leverage with which to exact concessions from the United States. The meager advantage sought by Hafez al Assad was to be included in the alignment of class forces securing Lebanon for the United States. If Assad could make himself necessary to this process, then the United States would be obliged to restrain Israeli ambition.

If Israel, like the United States, could not risk the revival of the antiwar movement and mass opposition at home, the Syrians were the card to play while Israel consolidated its control over Southern Lebanon. This is what actually took place at the cynically framed "Inter-Lebanese Conference of National Reconciljation" held in Lausanne.

The conference was first convened and then prolonged under Syrian Vice President Ab'd al-Halim Khaddam's pressure. Khaddam was the man who, in his capacity as foreign minister, had overseen the alliance between the Israelis, the Phalange, and the Syrian regime in 1976.

What unfolded in Lausanne was the effective liquidation of the National Salvation Front and the dismantling of the movement that had overcome the U.S.-backed Lebanese army. Any residual illusions about the leadership of these forces were soon dispelled at this conference. Syria and Saudi Arabia came to the rescue of the Gemayel regime, and their Lebanese allies followed suit.

Damascus signaled to Washington and Israel that the tacit collaboration with the Israeli occupation by the Gemayel regime presented no obstacle to Syrian support. Thus, on the one hand, the Syrians were allowing the Gemayel regime to stabilize without even conceding those nominal reforms which the Sunni bourgeoisie had pressured for. On the other hand, the Israeli connection went unopposed.

Hafez al Assad made this position explicit in a statement quoted in the April 2, 1984, issue of Time magazine:

"Lebanese reconciliation is the only way. We emphasized this in 1976. We reemphasize it now. Our attitude recently in Lausanne is quite clear. We cooperated fully with President Gemayel. The Syrian representative made hectic efforts at the bilateral and trilateral level. Our position with regard to a government of national unity is one of full support. More than anyone else, we want to see Lebanon united, stable, and strong"

Indeed, at the very moment when the powerful armada of the U.S. Sixth Fleet has been defeated at a great human cost by a popular militia in a national uprising, the bourgeois leaders in the region seem to be in great haste to deliver that struggle once again to the imperialist enemy.

A new generation of Lebanese working poor has fought against huge odds to apparent victory, but at the moment of potential triumph these fighters have once again been betrayed by their leaders. The crisis in Lebanon, as in many parts of the world, is one of revolutionary leadership. In the absence of a genuine revolutionary leadership, the collapse of the imperial leviathan which continues to stalk the planet is needlessly deferred at a cost of untold human suffering.

BEIRUT Deja

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ACTION Stephanie Coontz