vasive than that of Israel. Damascus sent its army into Lebanon in 1976 to help quell
the violence. Later that year, Syria’s presence gained a semblance of international legit-
imacy when the Arab League endorsed the creation of a “deterrent force” to end the
civil war. Syria led that force and eventually became the sole contributor to it. Da-
mascus also claimed historic justification for its role in Lebanon based on the fact that
Lebanon was considered part of “Greater Syria’ before France split them into separate
countries in the 1920s.
Another political compromise—reached by Lebanese leaders in October 1989
under pressure from Saudi Arabia and other countries—redressed some of the politi-
cal imbalances that had fueled the civil war and helped bring the conflict to an end
in 1990. Even so, the agreement signed in Taif, Saudi Arabia, essentially ratified the
sectarian basis for the division of political power in Lebanon. Under the agreement,
Christians no longer had the greatest share of power, but they still held more power
than their proportion of the population would seem to warrant, and key government
posts, including representation in the parliament, continued to be assigned on the basis
of religious belief.
The war’s end generated a mild flurry of international interest in ending the Israeli
and Syrian occupations, but to little effect until 2000, when Israel withdrew its forces.
In 2001 Syrian president Bashar al-Assad redeployed troops from Beirut to the Bekaa
Valley (adjacent to the Lebanon-Syria border), but this symbolic gesture did nothing
to diminish Syria’s ultimate veto power over its neighbor. Once again, violence proved
to be the driving force in Lebanon: in February 2005 a massive bomb killed former
prime minister Rafiq Hariri, the most successful politician in the country’s recent his-
tory who was credited with the reconstruction of the country after the civil war.
Hariri’s murder shocked even the Lebanese—no strangers to political assassinations
and civil violence—ushering in a new era of national awareness. Huge demonstrations
against Syria, coupled with a new round of international diplomacy, finally forced
Damascus to withdraw its army and its omnipresent intelligence agency from Lebanon
in April 2005.
Parliamentary elections the following month produced Lebanon’s first government
in more than three decades not born of civil war or strictly beholden to a foreign
power. As always in Lebanon, however, there was a catch, as voters again cast their
ballots along sectarian lines: The historical power-sharing agreements left Shiite Mus-
lims—the country’s largest group—with fewer parliamentary seats (and thus less
power) than their numbers might otherwise have dictated. Moreover, by 2005 the
single most powerful military entity in Lebanon was a Shiite militia, Hizballah (Party
of God), which had formed largely in reaction to Israel’s 1982 invasion. With money
and arms from Iran, Hizballah set about building a disciplined fighting force and devel-
oping a network of schools, health clinics, and other social services for Shiites, who
rarely had received government services. Hizballah had created its own state-within-a-
state in southern Lebanon, but with the potential to influence events in the entire
country.
That potential developed into a painful reality in mid-2006, when Hizballah con-
ducted a cross-border raid into Israel that triggered another brief but severely damag-
ing war. Israel, responding more aggressively to this provocation than Hizballah’s lead-
ership assumed it would, began what would become a month-long bombing campaign
coupled with a short ground invasion intended to destroy Hizballah as a fighting force.
LEBANON AND SYRIA 329