ABSTRACT
A survey of Soviet-Middle Eastern relations would be incomplete without at least some brief reference to recent events. Widespread demonstrations turned into riots and, eventually, into guerrilla warfare. The Soviet press noted with gratification the successes of the opposition’s forces, and reported the emergence of quasi-Soviets all over northern Lebanon. The civil war in Lebanon was the result of a deep internal division, not of the traditional kind between Left and Right, but between attitudes of approval and dissent towards Arab nationalism as personified by Colonel Nasser, and what this meant for the country’s orientation in world politics. The Lebanese government had been democratically elected, in contrast to the governments of most other countries in the Middle East. The subsequent wrangle over a “summit” conference is of no direct interest in the present context. The Iraqi revolution can be assigned to no single cause; it was produced by events upon several different levels.
