www.juancole.com/2005/03/lebanon-realignment-and-syria-it-is.html
Informed Comment Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan Tuesday, March 01, 2005 Lebanon Realignment and Syria It is often pointed out that presidents get too much praise and blame for the economy, since the domestic economy has its own rhythms. We are now going to see everything that happens in the Middle East attributed to G eorge W Bush, whether he had much to do with it or not (usually not). What is now Lebanon consists of relatively hilly territory along the east ern Mediterranean coast. The mountains allowed small and often heterodox religious groups to survive, since the mountain inhabitants were relati vely isolated and central governments had a difficult time getting hold of them. On the broad plains of Syria, governments could encourage conve rsion to Islam, then to Shiism, then to Sunnism, and most of the populat ion went along. In the mountains near the coast, the population stuck to its guns. Thus, the Maronite Christians resisted conversion to Islam, a s did many Eastern Orthodox Christains. The success the Ismaili governme nt of medieval Egypt had in converting Muslims to Shiite Islam was long- lived, though most of these Shiites went over to the rival "Twelver" bra nch of Shiism that is now practiced in Iraq and Iran.
the Druze, who survive in the S houf Mountains and elsewhere in Lebanon. In the coastal cities and in th e Biqaa valley near Syria, the population adopted Sunni Islam with the S unni revival of Saladin and his successors in the medieval period in Egy pt, which continued under the Sunni Ottoman Empire (1516-1918 in Syria). In the 1600s and 1700s, the Druze were the most powerful community on the Levantine coast. But in the 1800s the Druze were eclipsed by the Maroni te Christians, both because the latter had a population boom and because they grew wealthy off their commercial ties to France and their early a doption of silk growing and modern commerce. When the French conquered Syria in 1920, they decided to make it easier t o rule by dividing it. They carved off what is now Lebanon and gerrymand ered it so that it had a Christian majority. In 1920, Maronite Catholics were probably 40 percent of the population, and with Greek Orthodox and others the Christian population came to 51 percent. The Shiites were pr obably only about 18 percent of the population then. Both under the Fren ch Mandate (1920-1946) and in the early years of the Lebanese Republic, the Maronites were the dominant political force. When Lebanon became ind ependent in 1943, the system was set up so that Christians always had a 6 to 5 majority in parliament. Lebanon had a relatively free parliamentary democracy 1943-1956.
In order to be reelected, the p resident needed to have the Constitution amended to permit a president to succeed himself. A constitutional amendment required a two-thirds vo te by the Chamber of Deputies, so Shamun and his followers had to obtai n a majority in the May-June 1957 elections. Shamun's followers did obt ain a solid majority in the elections, which the opposition considered "rigged," with the result that some non-Christian leaders with pan-Arab sympathies were not elected. Deprived of a legal platform from which t o voice their political opinions, they sought to express them by extral egal means. This account agrees with what I was told in every particular except that it does not explicitly mention the CIA engineering of the election. Cham oun was unacceptable to the Druze and to the Sunni nationalists newly un der the influence of Gamal Abdul Nasser in Egypt. Chamoun lied to Eisenhower and told him that the Druze goatherds were Communists, and Ike dutifully sent in the Marines to save Chamoun i n 1958. Thereafter the Maronites erected a police state, with much power in the Dueuxieme Bureau or secret police. Since Washington had already overthrown the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953, and is said to have helped install the Baath in power in Iraq, it may well be that the Illiberal Age in the Middle East of the second half of the 20th century was in important part the doing of Washington and was for Cold War purposes. The Christian-dominated system of Lebanon fell apart for a number of reas ons. The Israelis expelled 100,000 or so Palestinians north to Lebanon i n 1948. The Christians of Lebanon refused to give the Palestinians Leban ese citizenship, since the Palestinians were 80 to 85 percent Muslim and their becoming Lebanese would have endangered Christian dominance. Maronites emigrated on a large scale (it is said that there are 6 million Lebanese outside Lebanon and only 3 million inside), to North America (think Danny Thomas and Salma Hayek) and to South America (think Carlos Saul Menem of Argentina and Sh akira of Colombia). By 1975 the Maronites were no longer the dominant force in Lebanon. Of a 3 million population, the Shiites had grown to be 35 percent (and may no w be 40 percent), and the Maronites had shrunk to a quarter, and are pro bably now 20 percent. The Shiites were mobilizing both politically and m ilitarily. The Maronite elite found the newly assertive Muslims of the south intoler able, and a war broke out between the Maronite party-militia, the Phalan ge (modeled on Franco's and Mussolini's Brown Shirts) and the PLO. The w ar raged through 1975 and into 1976 (I saw some of it with my own eyes). The prospect of a PLO-dominated Lebanon scared the Syrians. Yasser Arafat would have been able to provoke battles with Israel at will, into which Syria might be drawn. First he sought a green light from the Israelis through Kissinger. In spring of 1976 the Syrians sent 40,000 troops into Lebanon and massacr ed the Palestinian fighters, saving the Maronites, with Israeli and US a pproval. Since the Baathists in Syria should theoretically have been all ies of the Palestinians, it was the damnedest thing. Syria felt that its national interests were threatened by developments in Lebanon and that it was in mortal danger i f it did not occupy its neighbor. The Druze never forgave the Syrians for the intervention, or for killing their leader, Kamal Jumblatt. Although the Palestinians were sullen and crushed, they declined as a factor in Lebanese politics once they were l argely disarmed, since they still lack citizenship and face employment a nd other restrictions. The UN statistics show almost 400,000 Palestinian s in Lebanon, half of them in squalid camps. But some social scientists believe that because of massive out-migration to Europe, there are actua lly less than 200,000 in the country now. In 1982 the Israelis mounted an unprovoked invasion of Lebanon as Ariel S haron sought to destroy the remnants of the weakened PLO in Beirut. He f ailed, but the war killed nearly 20,000 persons, about half of them inno cent civilians. The Israe lis militarily occupied southern Lebanon, refusing to relinquish soverei gn Lebanese territory. The Shiites of the south were radicalized by the Israeli occupation and t hrew up the Hizbullah party-militia, which pioneered suicide bombs and r oadside bombs, and forced the Israeli occupiers out in 2000. One foreign occupation had been ended, but the Syrians retained about 14, 000 troops in the Biqa Valley. The Israeli withdrawal weakened the Syria ns in Lebanon, since many Lebanese had seen the Syrians as a bulwark aga inst Israeli expansionism, but now Damascus appeared less needed. Over time the Maronites came to feel that the Syrians had outstayed their welcome. So both they and the Druze wanted a complete Syrian withdrawal by the early zeroes. In the meantime, Syria gradually had gained a new client in Lebanon, the Shiites, and especially Hizbullah. The Syrians made a big mistake in growing attached to Gen. When his 6-year term was about to exp ire last fall, the Syrians intervened to have the Lebanese constitution amended to allow him to remain for another 3 years. Across the board, th e Lebanese public was angered and appalled at this foreign tinkering wit h their constitution. Rafiq al-Hariri resigned over the constitutional change. He was replaced as prime minister by anoth...
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