Background Report the Situation in Lebanon

Three developments preceded the shaky cease-fire in Beirut: Israeli gunboats shelling the Moslem part of the city, the United Nations Security Council’s call for a cease-fire, and the actual intensification of the fighting.

All three developments contributed to the agreement between President Hafez Assad of Syria and Lebanese President Elias Sarkis reached Saturday in Damascus, which resulted in a relative calm in the Lebanese capital. It is hard to tell which influenced this development most–the Israeli warning, the international pressures, or the military balance of power in the city.

One, of course, depends upon the other. The international pressures to achieve a ceasefire agreement were intensified following Israel’s naval attack last Thursday. In fact, according to reports from Washington, it was this operation that led President Carter to use the hot line to Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev to prepare the Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire.

The battles in the city intensified as each party tried to gain as much as possible before outside developments could limit them. There was fierce fighting between the Christian militia and the Syrian army on the Quarantina bridges in the northern part of the city. The bridges provide the only access for the Christians to the part of Junia some 13 miles north of Beirut. Had the Syrians succeeded in controlling them, they would have encircled the Christians and cut them off from any outside help.

The Christians should be interested in the cease-fire exactly for this reason. Furthermore, the hundreds of wounded inside the city were reportedly deprived of minimum medical care, with the Red Cross unable to enter the Christian quarters under the heavy Syrian shelling. Essential supplies such as food, water and electricity were running low.

MAIN AIM OF SYRIA

The Syrians are able to afford the cease-fire because it did not affect their main aim in Lebanon: to keep the country as a Syrian protectorate, part of a long-term Syrian plan to secure a banana-shaped front against Israel extending from Lebanon in the northwest to the part of Aqaba in Jordan in the southeast.

This strategic aim has guided them over the last three years of the fighting in Lebanon. Syria was always a strong supporter of the local Palestinian-Moslem coalition in Lebanon. But the Syrian army entered Lebanon last year at the invitation of the Christians, and at first it even helped the Christians in their tough fighting against the Moslems.

The Christian President, Sarkis, elected two years ago, is actually a Syrian protege and as such he went to Damascus over the weekend to discuss the situation with Assad rather than negotiate with him as head of an independent government.

Syria legitimized its presence in Lebanon after it won the approval of the Arab League for the “inter-Arab deterrent force” in Lebanon. For the sake of formalities, the nearly 40,000-strong Syrian army was enlarged by several Arab units from other countries, such as Sudan and Saudi Arabia.

As soon as the Syrians established their hold over Lebanon, they demanded that all parties–the Palestinians, the local Moslems and the Christians give up their arms. The Christians knew this meant the end of Lebanon as an independent state and worse–their possible end as an influential community in Lebanon. They chose to fight the Syrians, a fight that reached its climax last week.

For a time Assad did not object to the escalation of the fighting. In fact, the Camp David agreements probably gave him the feeling that his hands were freer than in the past, with both Israel and the U.S. too absorbed in the delicate process of the peace negotiations.

But the developments late last week forced Assad to do some rethinking. He cut short his trip to the Soviet Union and summoned Sarkis to Damascus. At the end of that meeting the Syrians announced the cease-fire. It is not known what convinced Assad to order a cease-fire. One can assume safely that Sarkis promised his host-patron that the mandate of the inter-Arab deterrent force, due to expire by the end of this month, will be renewed. This, after all, is the main target of Assad at present.

But it takes two to keep the cease-fire going. Spokesmen for the Christian militia said over the weekend the Security Council’s call would not necessarily be respected by them. In other words, if the Christians feel-as some of them surely do–that it was in their interest to continue the fighting with the hope of compelling the Syrians to withdraw from their country, a new, even more bitter round of fighting may ensue.