ABSTRACT
Almost to the eve of the Civil War, there was a paradox about this 'improbable' country, as one writer defined Lebanon. Students with access to the same data, and with equal talents, viewed Lebanon's stability and viability in almost diametrically opposite ways. Among students to see Lebanon as basically stable, in spite of its flaws and short-comings, were Kamal Salibi, David and Audrey Smock, Elie Salem, and Michael Suleiman. On 14 November 1974, addressing the UN General Assembly, President Faranjiyya called his nation 'Land of tolerance, of human synthesis, fraternal and peaceful'. Fuad Ajami, of Princeton University, might say of those who defend the Lebanese myth what Thomas Paine said of Edmund Burke: 'He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird'. In his testimony to a Senate sub-Committee in 1976, Ajami ridiculed the pretension of many Lebanese to think of themselves as Occidentals and of their country as another Switzerland.
