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As we watch current events unfold in Lebanon, I can't help but get a sense of coming full circle.
As we have discussed before on the question of when the war actually began, it depends on how you define the war. The war between modernism and anti-modern totalitarianisms (Fascism, Communism, Islamofascism, etc.) began in the wake of the Russian Civil War, and has been a shooting war at some place in the world since 1931.
The more relevant war with Islamofascism began in the wake of the Islamic Revolution (Inqilab-e Islami) in Iran, the rise of Islamist terrorist groups in Egypt to prominence with the killing of Anwar Sadat, and the rise of Islamist terrorist groups in Lebanon. Over the course of two decades, an earlier generation of Arab nationalist/socialist groups and nations - Ba'athist Syria, the PLO, Nabi Berri's Shi'ite Amal in Lebanon, etc. - lost influence to Islamists or accomodated to them. The fall of the Soviet Union weakened the nationalist/socialist elements even more.
Lebanese Shi'ites drifted away from Berri's Amal into the arms of Hizbullah, which, abetted by Syria and Iran, increased its military strength and provided a network of social services to co-opt the population. The traditional Christian vs. Muslim divide in Lebanon gave way to a complex web of Maronite Catholic and Greek Orthodox factions, Sunni Muslim factions, Druze, Shi'ite supporters of Amal and Hizbullah supporters, with a mishmash of terrorist group names mixed in (many just Hizbullah fronts).
After the Israeli invasion in 1982, and when US, French, Italian and British troops were in Lebanon in the early 1980s, people like Nabi Berri and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt were household names (at least among us foreign affairs geeks). For two decades since, they hardly came up. Now, they are in the news again.
It has been commented elsewhere that until September 11, 2001, Lebanon's Hizbullah had killed more Americans than any other terrorist group. More importantly, Hizbullah was al-Qa'ida before al-Qa'ida. Its specialty was the suicide bombing aimed at maximum casualties - the April 1983 US Embassy suicide bombing, the November 1983 suicide bombing of an Israeli HQ in Tyre. Even al-Qa'ida's signature, the simultaneous attack on multiple targets, was pioneered by Hizbullah, with the October 1983 simultaneous truck bombings that killed 241 US Marines, soldiers and sailors and 60 French paratroopers.
Although the Cedar Revolution shows promise, I think Lebanon may be headed toward civil war. Every Lebanese Army officer I served with was itching to fight Hizbullah and reassert control over their country, with Syrian control being the only reason they haven't already. Hizbullah is certainly ready to fight, and the Syrians and Iranians have made sure they have the means. If the Syrians do pull out, they will make sure their proxies remain to do their dirty work.
But Lebanon is just that - a proxy for Syrian and Iranian machinations. They are trying to do the same in Iraq. In winning this war, Damascus and Tehran are just as important as Beirut and Baghdad, if not more so.
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