Fateful Triangle

Aftermath582power,” as revealed by its passive acquiescence in the Israeli conquest;in fact, Rabin’s Labor government had “somewhat reluctantly”encouraged Syrian occupation of parts of Lebanon and “encouragedSyria to come close to Israel’s northern border” so as to “pacify theIsraeli-Lebanese border in the same way that the Israeli-Syrian borderhad been pacified after 1973.” As for Sharon, he ousted the Israelisettlers from the Sinai “because, pragmatically, a quiescent Egypt wasneeded for any future course of action in Lebanon”; and by the time hetook over the Defense Ministry, “Israeli generals were already busyplanning a large-scale invasion of Lebanon,” planning to reach Beirutfrom the first moment of the war. As for “the scope of Sharon’s NewOrder in Lebanon and for the Middle East,” Perlmutter believes that itvirtually excludes a stable Lebanese central government (an unlikelyprospect at best because of Lebanon’s internal strife), and “the so-calledNew Order, when looked at imaginatively and correctly, provides someleverage for the United States” to turn Syria towards the Western campand to “reassert…some U.S. control over events in the Middle East.”The U.S. should not, however, act “as the PLO’s Salvation Army in WestBeirut,” he wrote in the summer of 1982. Saunders looked forward toU.S. efforts to bring about “an Israeli-Palestinian peace process,” butwith little hope, it seems.So matters stood in late August. In summary, the government ofIsrael had good reason, in its own terms, to feel satisfied with itsachievements, at home, in Lebanon, and also in the United Statesdespite some residual problems. The euphoria was not to last very long,however, and the events of the subsequent weeks were to impose atleast a change of timetable, if not of longer-term plans for the “NewOrder for Lebanon and for the Middle East.” We turn to these longertermquestions in the next chapter.Classics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky