ABSTRACT
On October 22, 1989, following 23 days of mediated negotiations, the vast majority of the surviving members of the 1972 Lebanese parliament signed an agreement in the Saudi city of Taif that built the foundation for the termination of 15 years of civil war in Lebanon. The final agreement was largely identical with the draft prepared by a tripartite committee consisting of the heads of state of Algeria, Morocco, and the host Saudi Arabia and handed to the Lebanese lawmakers at the beginning of the conference. To this day, Saudi government officials take pride in the Taif Agreement, the showpiece of their mediation policy. Saudi mediation efforts in context of the Lebanese civil war began long before the May 1989 Arab League Casablanca Summit tasked the AlgerianMoroccan-Saudi committee to work towards a conflict settlement. As a matter of fact, the Saudi political leadership had made repeated attempts to effect a settlement of the Lebanese civil war ever since the outbreak of the conflict in the spring of 1975. Saudi Arabia’s Lebanon policy during these one and a half decades has to be seen within the wider context of inter-Arab and regional relations. Riyadh’s position towards the conflict was greatly influenced by regional developments such as wars, changing interstate alliances and conflicts as well as shifts in the regional balance of power. During the entire period, the Saudi leadership formulated its policies towards the developing situation in Lebanon in such a way as to realize several basic interests: the preservation of Lebanese unity; the prevention of another Arab-Israeli War; the restoration of Arab consensus; and the creation of a stable intra-Arab balance of power dominated by moderate forces. Established by the French mandatory power in September 1920, the Lebanese state gained full political independence on November 22, 1943. The political system of the newly independent state “was based on a genuine attempt to build a pluralistic polity that would accommodate the needs of an extremely heterogeneous society.”1 In the summer of 1943, Bishara Al Khuri, a Maronite Catholic and president of Lebanon, and Riad Al Sulh, a Sunni Muslim and the country’s prime minister, worked out an unwritten National Pact, a compromise meant to respect the interests of the different segments of Lebanon’s society. The National Pact provided that Lebanon would neither become a Western country closely aligned with France, as large parts of the Maronite community
had wished for, nor pursue unification with Syria, as many Muslim Lebanese had desired. Instead, Lebanon was to be a sovereign, independent, and neutral Arab state. The agreement further introduced a formula for the distribution of political power along sectarian lines. Accordingly, the office of the president should always be held by a Maronite, that of the prime minister by a Sunni, that of the president of the National Assembly by a Shiite, those of both the deputy speaker of the National Assembly and the deputy prime minister by a Greek Orthodox, and that of the chief of the general staff by a Druze. As Lebanon was a presidential republic with far-reaching political authority vested in the head of state, the National Pact assigned to the Maronites by far the most influential political position. The president was given ultimate executive authority and immunity from parliamentary questioning. The Maronites’ dominant position within the political system was further manifested in the reservation of other key governmental positions for Maronites. These positions included that of the commander-in-chief of the Lebanese army, the highest position in the judiciary branch, the heads of internal security and intelligence, and the governor of the country’s central bank. Overall Christian dominance in the political system was additionally established in the form of a six-to-five ratio of Christian to Muslim parliament members.2 Originally intended to balance the interests of Lebanon’s manifold religious groupings, the National Pact established a political system that split the society along sectarian lines and eventually provoked a lengthy and bloody civil war. The distribution of political positions and the representation ratio in the Lebanese parliament was based on a census conducted in 1932. At that time, the Maronites were the largest sectarian group encompassing roughly 33.5 percent of Lebanese citizens. All Christian sects together, including Greek Orthodox (12.8 percent), Greek Catholics (7.3 percent), and Armenians (3.3 percent), made up 58.5 percent of Lebanon’s citizens. With 18.6 percent, Sunni Muslims were the largest non-Christian group and the second largest sectarian group among Lebanese. Shiites made up 15.9 percent of all Lebanese and Druze 5.9 percent. Not factoring in Lebanese emigrants, the sectarian figures showed a parity between Christian and non-Christian Lebanese residents. According to that calculation, the Maronites were still the largest sectarian group making up for 28.7 percent of Lebanon’s residents followed by Sunni Muslims (22.5 percent), Shiites (19.5 percent), Greek Orthodox (9.7 percent), Druze (6.7 percent), Greek Catholics (5.9 percent), and Armenians (4.0 percent).3 The National Pact’s strong pro-Maronite bias was only partially justified by the census figures. If only considering Lebanese citizens living in the country, the numerical dominance of the Maronites was not as clear as the distribution of political power suggests. Also obvious is the National Pact’s disadvantaging of Shiite Muslims. The figures show that the Shiite grouping was only roughly 15 percent smaller than the Sunni community. At the same time, the political system granted the Shiite speaker of the parliament far less political power than the Sunni prime minister. In the years and decades following the 1932 census, Lebanon underwent demographic change in the course of which the Lebanese
Sunni, Shiite, and Druze communities grew significantly faster than the Maronite and general Christian segments of the society. The sectarian balance among Lebanese residents tilted further following the 1948/49 Arab-Israeli War when roughly 180,000 Palestinians, most of them Muslims, fled to Lebanon where they henceforth lived in numerous refugee camps.4 In the second half of the 1950s, sectarian conflict between Christians and Muslims escalated into violence. In 1956, Lebanese President Camille Chamoun did not abrogate bilateral relations with France and the United Kingdom following their attack against Egypt in the course of the Suez War. Chamoun’s proWestern stance put him at odds with Egypt’s Nasser, the Nasser-allied Syrian regime, pro-Nasserite Lebanese Muslim leaders including Prime Minister Abdullah Yafi and Minister of State Saeb Salam who resigned in protest, and significant parts of the Lebanese population. Chamoun’s support for the pro-Western, anti-Nasserite Baghdad Pact deepened the conflict between the largely proWestern Maronites and Arab nationalist Muslims. Electoral reforms prior to the parliamentary elections in May 1957 further intensified political and sectarian conflict with the opposition accusing the president of gerrymandering. Indeed, the election resulted in a landslide victory for the government and displaced prominent oppositional politicians such as former Prime Ministers Saeb Salam and Abdullah Al Yafi, Shiite Ahmad Asad, and Druze leader Kamal Jumblat. In consequence, the opposition accused President Chamoun of electoral fraud.5 The election result escalated multi-layered societal conflicts that had gradually developed in the preceding years: “socioeconomic disparities, the grievances of neglected groups and regions, factional rivalries, sectarian hostility, and the heated polemics over Lebanon’s national identity and foreign policy orientation.”6 Following the parliamentary election violence escalated: “Clan feuds, sabotage, bombings, arms smuggling, as well as clashes between armed bands and security forces became virtually daily occurrences. Slowly, but perceptibly, Lebanon was descending into anarchy and anomie.”7 The regimes of Egypt and Syria gave significant political, financial, tactical, and arms support to the opposition. Particularly Palestinian refugees as well as Egyptian and Syrian nationals residing in Lebanon were active in subversive activities, sabotage, and acts of terrorism against the Chamoun regime. The fusion of Egypt and Syria into the United Arab Republic (UAR) in February 1958 intensified widespread support among the Lebanese people for the notion of Arab nationalism and increased opposition against the anti-Nasserite president. In early May 1958, violence between government and oppositional forces escalated inter alia in reaction to Chamoun’s declared intention to amend the Lebanese constitution creating the legal conditions for his re-election as president. In the ensuing fighting, Chamoun gained the support of the Maronite Phalange and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. When the commander-in-chief of the Lebanese army, Fuad Chehab, refused to take sides in the conflict, Chamoun deployed the gendarmerie against the opposition. Nonetheless, the latter, led inter alia by Salam and Jumblat and supported by the UAR, quickly took control over large parts of the country. On May 22, the Chamoun
government complained to the UN Security Council about UAR intervention in the Lebanese civil war; meanwhile the opposition accused Chamoun of acquiring foreign assistance. Under the impression of an Arab nationalist military coup against the Hashemite Iraqi monarchy on July 14, President Chamoun requested urgent U.S. military support to prevent a toppling of his regime and to preserve Lebanon’s independence and territorial integrity. Fearing another pro-Soviet, Arab nationalist revolution, the Eisenhower administration immediately dispatched Marine units to Lebanon. U.S. forces stayed in the country until October. The civil war that had increasingly split the Lebanese society along sectarian lines was eventually settled after a vast majority in the Lebanese parliament elected Maronite Army chief Chehab as new president. Chehab’s neutrality during the conflict won him the respect of many parliamentarians beyond sectarian lines.8 However, Chehab’s attempts in the subsequent years to better include the under-represented Muslim Lebanese population in the country’s parliament and civil service failed in producing more than a temporary reduction of sectarian tensions. Despite all reform efforts, the basic system of governance greatly privileging the Maronites and under-representing Muslims, particularly Shiites, stayed in place. From the late 1960s onwards, several developments contributed to an escalation of intra-Lebanese tensions, paving the way for another civil war. For one thing, the PLO became increasingly active in Lebanon and gradually developed quasi-autonomy within the country. This directly challenged the authority and sovereignty of the Lebanese state. This fact and Christian fears of Israeli retaliations against Lebanese territory in response to PLO attacks intensified Christian-PLO and general Christian-Muslim tensions. These tensions further intensified when Lebanon became the PLO’s main base of operations following their forceful expulsion from Jordan in 1970. In the meantime, the developments of the 1973 October War and the subsequent oil crisis intensified significantly existing feelings of Arab and Islamic solidarity in the Arab world. In Lebanon, this increased sense of transnational Islamic identity enhanced Muslim opposition to Christian political dominance. This was further intensified by demographic changes in Lebanon towards a continuously growing Muslim majority. Furthermore, economic developments deepened the divide between rich and poor, which largely overlapped with the Christian-Muslim divide. Meanwhile, the politically and socioeconomically underprivileged Shiites in southern Lebanon became increasingly aware of and malcontent with their situation. Under the active religious leader Musa Al Sadr the disadvantaged Lebanese Shiites became more and more determined to change the political status quo to their advantage. Al Sadr enjoyed the support of the Syrian regime, which intended to increase its political influence over Lebanon, an entity it considered to be part of greater Syria. The trigger for the second Lebanese civil war was a clash between the Maronite Phalanges and PLO forces on April 13, 1975. The ensuing fight between these groups soon escalated into a full-fledged civil war with highly complex conflict lines. Broadly speaking, in its initial phase, the Lebanese civil
war featured two camps: the Lebanese Front, a pro-status quo coalition led by the Maronite Phalange that intended to preserve the sectarian power division favoring the Maronites, and the Lebanese National Movement (LNM), a leftist, Arab nationalist, Muslim-dominated but largely secularist anti-status quo coalition that sought to abolish political confessionalism. Meanwhile, the civil war quickly developed a pronounced sectarian dimension with massacres committed both by Maronites and Muslims. The situation was further complicated by Syrian intervention. By January 1976, having lost control over large parts of the country, the Christian pro status quo forces were on the point of establishing their own state encompassing Mount Lebanon and Lebanon’s northern coastal strip and having access to the port of Beirut. To prevent the partition of the country, Syria intervened in the civil war by sending Palestinian units of its army to support the Lebanese anti-status quo forces. Following their successful intervention, the Syrian regime attempted to impose a political solution to the civil war. However, while the Christians accepted Damascus’ call for political reforms increasing Muslim political representation and share in power, Syria’s allies did not. Concerned about the consequences of a Christian defeat – particularly the establishment of a radical Lebanese state and the strengthening of the PLO, both outside of Syria’s control – Damascus switched sides and henceforth granted support to the Christians. In May and June and again in October 1976, Syria intervened militarily in the civil war in support of the Phalanges.9 Shortly after Syria’s military intervention in Lebanon, Kamal Jumblat, the head of the LNM, called on Saudi King Khaled to send his Crown Prince to mediate between Syria and the PLO. Instead of acting unilaterally as a mediator, the Saudi leadership sought a united Arab approach. In early June 1976, the Arab League convened an emergency meeting of foreign ministers, which called for a ceasefire, a political reconciliation process led by Lebanese President-elect Sarkis, and the establishment of a peacekeeping Arab Security Force (ASF ) under the guidance of Arab League Secretary General Mahmoud Riyadh. It was subsequently decided that the ASF was to consist of contingents from Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Syria. By making Syrian troops part of the ASF, the Arab League and the Lebanese President who had to agree to the peacekeeping force’s dispatch, granted the Assad regime partial authority to maintain a military presence in Lebanon. However, Syria kept additional troops in Lebanon, exceeding its ASF contingent. Over the summer, several ceasefires between the conflict factions were established and broken again.10
