Syrian Soldiers, Go Home

One foreign army of occupation has left Lebanon. Now it’s time for the second to do the same. Since 1990 Syria has kept up to 40,000 troops in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, a threatening presence that has enforced the dominance of Damascus over Lebanese internal affairs while enriching its own military and political elite through opium and hashish cultivation and smuggling. An earlier Syrian intervention in Lebanon, during the initial phase of the Lebanese civil war, ended in 1982 with Syrian forces being expelled by an invading Israeli army.

Syria’s return to Lebanon a decade ago, about the time that the United States persuaded the Damascus regime to join the coalition mobilized to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation, came with tacit U.S. concurrence. Washington now is eager to see the Beirut government regain sovereignty over the whole of the country, not just the southern zone vacated by Israel.

Some brave Lebanese voices have begun calling for Syria’s withdrawal, now that the ostensible strategic reason for its occupation--Israeli control of the south--no longer exists. The Beirut government itself has kept silent; it largely takes orders from Syria, which besides having a formidable on-the-ground presence also exerts influence over the Hezbollah militia and several radical Palestinian groups in Lebanon that oppose the peace process with Israel. In short, Syria is in a position to make serious trouble for Lebanon if it chooses.

Syria had always expected to use its role in Lebanon as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s unilateral decision to pull the Israeli army out of Lebanon neutralized that ploy, and Damascus has been warned by Israel that if there is trouble along the Lebanon-Israel border Syrian forces in Lebanon could come under attack.

A special U.N. observer group is close to verifying that Israeli forces have fully withdrawn from Lebanon. That would open the way for the 4,500-man multinational U.N. force long stationed in Lebanon to take up positions along the border and for Beirut to send its army into the south, something it refuses to do until the U.N. peacekeepers are in place. Even that would leave the Beirut government in only partial control of its own country. Not until Syria’s army, like Israel’s, returns home will Lebanon be able to claim that its independence and sovereignty have been fully restored.