The Historical Setting

Abstract

Considering that the Syrian decision to intervene militarily in Lebanon was an infringement of the sovereignty of a fully independent neighbouring state, the wide-ranging support accorded to the Syrian action was indeed surprising. Approval was voiced by a substantial segment of Lebanese society, the international community at large, and particularly the United States, with the muted acquiescence of Syria’s bitterest antagonist, Israel—all of whom perceived the Syrian intervention as the only remaining alternative which could save Lebanon from anarchy and the inevitable disintegration of the country’s social and political systems. Yet Syria’s intervention was also deeply rooted in the history of the region. This was so not only because the religious and communal tensions and cleavages which lay at the heart of the recent Lebanese civil war had been operative for over a hundred years, but also because these tensions in Lebanon invariably induced similar eruptions in other parts of Syria, for until recently that area was perceived to be a single geographical and social entitity.¹ Thus, a civil war in 1860 between the Christian Maronites and the Druzes in Lebanon, which ended in a series of defeats for the Christians, sparked off a massacre of Christians by Moslems in neighbouring Damascus.