Word: syriana
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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After months of fruitless effort to bring peace to strife-ridden Lebanon, Syria last week upped the ante with a massive military intervention in an all-out attempt to enforce a long-elusive Pax Syriana. Instead of calming the situation, the move at first brought Damascus into bloody conflict with its erstwhile ally, the Palestinian guerrilla movement, and forced it into an unwanted, possibly only temporary, compromise in which other Arab states are sending token forces into Lebanon...
...desperate attempt to help end the 14-month-old fratricidal bloodletting that has already claimed more than 20,000 lives. It was also a high-risk gamble that could embroil the Syrians in a major confrontation with most of the Palestinian movement. Yet this new attempt at a Pax Syriana may just force the Lebanese to discuss their differences long enough to permit a political compromise to take root. At week's end talks were under way, fueling hopes for an eventual peaceful solution...
...Backfire. The 13-month Lebanese civil war, in fact, is at the root of Assad's troubles. Worried over the impact on Syria's national security of continuing fighting between Moslems and Christians, Assad earlier this year sought to end the bloodshed with a Pax Syriana imposed by Damascus. But he did it in a way that has since backfired: Syria's government, which is predominantly Moslem, withdrew its support from Lebanese Moslems and the Palestinians fighting alongside them and gave it instead to Maronite Christian President Suleiman Franjieh. The move was meant to allow the controversial...
Although Assad regained some lost prestige by arranging the freeze, his credibility as claimant to leadership of the Arab world suffered when the Pax Syriana collapsed. For one thing, it appeared that Damascus had far less sway over the Lebanese Moslems, leftists and Palestinians than it had claimed. For another, Syria's frantic efforts to gain another cease-fire were backed primarily by Jordan's King Hussein and Saudi Arabia's King Khalid, two conservative monarchs who are anathema to radical Arabs. The U.S. also endorsed Syria's peace efforts, as did Moscow, although the Russians played no perceptible role...
...disparate leftist coalition known as the National Movement, whose forces until the ceasefire were locked in battle with Christian militiamen. More than any other Lebanese leader, Jumblatt was responsible for the collapse of Syrian President Hafez Assad's plan to end the civil war through a Pax Syriana. Jumblatt's reason: such a settlement would only perpetuate the sectarian bitterness dividing the nation...