BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 26 — In April 1975, gunmen fired on a church in East Beirut in what appeared to be an attempt to kill Pierre Gemayel, founder of the main right-wing Lebanese Christian militia. He was not killed, but the shooting set off a cycle of revenge that became a 15-year civil war.
Lebanon A gunfight in this Christian neighborhood of Beirut was one of the smaller confrontations that eventually led to civil war in 1975.
Syria A poster of the last two presidents and the leader of Hezbollah hangs from a car. Syria does not want to lose influence in Lebanon.
Last week, three gunmen assassinated Mr. Gemayel’s grandson and namesake, a government minister and symbol of Lebanon’s besieged Christian, pro-Western community. Now an unnerving question is emerging here: as the battle between the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah and the Western-backed governing coalition reaches a crescendo, is it in fact the prelude to a civil war?
Lebanon’s seeming slide toward civil conflict is not just a symbol of unfortunate historic symmetry. This country is a barometer for the region, serving as a measure of tensions and rivalries.
It is no coincidence that Lebanon is suffering its worst political crisis in decades at a time when Iraq has descended into sectarian war, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the past few months reached new heights and power seems to be shifting away from the Western-allied Sunni Muslim countries of Egypt and Saudi Arabia to the Shiite state of Iran.
“Generally, the regional situation at the time was very much what it is today,” said Kamal Salibi, a historian and author from Beirut, speaking of the start of the 1975-90 civil war.
Then as now, a major Arab military humiliation prompted radicalism, hostility and questions of legitimacy for Arab governments from Morocco to Bahrain. Then it was the 1967 war in which Israel defeated four armies, and the spreading ideology was secular nationalism. Today, it is the American military presence in Iraq and the ideology is Islamism. In both cases, rising oil prices and terrorism serve as fuel and tool for the conflicts.
In May 2003, with Baghdad occupied by American forces, Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, visited Damascus and warned Syrian and Lebanese leaders that there was a “new strategic situation” in the Middle East. He said they had to end support for groups the West considered terrorist, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
Today, events in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian areas have demonstrated the diminished status of the United States and its allies. In Iraq, the powerful Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr has threatened to stop supporting the government if the prime minister meets with President Bush, as he is scheduled to do Wednesday in Jordan. In Gaza, mediation by Egypt has failed to stem the rising tide of violence or negotiate the release of an Israeli solider despite its intense efforts. In Lebanon, the American-backed government is hanging on by a thread as Hezbollah and its allies push for more power.
“The army will first protect us, but if we find ourselves obliged we will take to the streets, and a peaceful confrontation will be faced with a peaceful confrontation, and clashes will be faced with clashes,” said Walid Eido, a judge and member of Lebanon’s Parliament in the governing coalition, speaking of the challenge from Hezbollah. “We will sell our blood to buy weapons and confront them. We will never let them control the country.”
The Bush administration is worried about Lebanon as well as the other flashpoints, and it suddenly appears to be considering opening a dialogue with Iran and Syria to win help in stabilizing Iraq. In Gaza, Arab and Western diplomats said, Syria has used its relationship with Hamas to block Egypt’s efforts to mediate talks on the return of the Israeli solider captured by Hamas.
These forces have come to bear on Lebanon, a weak state with weak institutions unable to shield itself from the volley of disruptions jolting the region. Lebanon is in crisis because of its unique brand of power sharing, divided largely along sectarian lines, but also arranged by geography and political needs of individual players.
Lebanon is also in crisis because of regional uncertainty, which has spawned an intense flurry of geopoliticking between adversaries looking for a leg up. While Saudi Arabia and Egypt struggle to maintain the status quo, Iran presses to rewrite it, defying the West with its nuclear program.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been trying to defuse the crisis in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia has tried to protect its financial holdings here and to safeguard Lebanon’s Sunni population. Saudi officials in Lebanon have met with Hezbollah’s general secretary, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, hoping to orchestrate a compromise, officials here said. Egypt’s interest in Lebanon is aimed at preserving its national dignity and a role as a regional power broker.
“Part of this is purely made in Lebanon,” said Mr. Salibi, the historian. “But it draws in the anti-Syrian and the pro-Syrian dichotomy, the Sunni-Shia dichotomy, the pro-Iranian-pro-Western dichotomy. All of this is drawn into Lebanon.”
The specific Lebanese crisis is about who will control the government — and so hold the power to direct the country’s interests toward the West, or Iran and Syria. Right now, the government is in the hands of what is called the March 14th coalition, a mix of Sunni, Druse and some Christian political parties aligned with the United States and France. Six pro-Syrian ministers recently resigned from the cabinet after talks aimed at building a so-called national unity government collapsed.
While the government was already on the verge of collapse, Mr. Gemayel was assassinated in broad daylight in an attack that left even hardened political leaders shaken.
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