Word: gemayels
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...major test comes this week, when Lebanon's multiple factions are due to begin their long-awaited national reconciliation talks in Geneva. President Gemayel, a scion of the Christian Phalange, has repeatedly pledged to give more power to the Muslim majority, but he remains dangerously squeezed between Muslim expectations and the reluctance of his own supporters to accept a smaller slice of national authority. Syria, as ever, remains the spoiler, poised to wreck any agreement that is not to its liking...
...signs last week were mixed. Gemayel telephoned Syrian President Assad and invited him to send a delegate to the conference; it was the first formal contact between the two countries since last spring, when Gemayel earned Assad's enmity by signing a troop withdrawal accord with Israel. On the other hand, the Progressive Socialist Party, led by Druze Chieftain Walid Jumblatt, issued a fresh set of conditions for the talks, including a complete halt to cease-fire violations and a lifting of the nightly curfew in Beirut. Jumblatt himself hinted that the talks might break up over a dispute...
Once it became clear that the Marines were no longer in Lebanon to facilitate a withdrawal, and once it became clear that the Lebanese government of President Amin Gemayel was far from consolidating its power beyond Beirut, there seemed to be no mission for the troops except as a symbolic presence. George Ball, who was Under Secretary of State under Kennedy and Johnson, expresses the dilemma that such a situation creates: "God knows we might have learned from our tragic Viet Nam fiasco that, as a great power, we should deploy our troops only where they are vitally needed...
Complicating the situation was the growing Soviet presence. Moscow steadily rearmed the Syrians, who became increasingly determined to assert their own military and political role in Lebanon. The symbolic role of the Marines thus shifted again. Now by propping up the Gemayel government they were standing firm against the encroachment of Soviet influence. Still, the Marines remained officially noncombatants in a very combative situation. The only military change was the arrival of a naval armada offshore to shell the high grounds where gunners took aim at the symbolic targets. "These forces right now don't have a mission," said...
...little to assure a stable central government in Lebanon. That task requires the U.S., along with its partners in the multinational force, to concentrate its efforts on the "national reconciliation" talks, which are scheduled to begin this week in Geneva, designed to broaden the composition of the Gemayel government...