near-impossibility of achieving that goal in the immediate future, Reagan said the inter-
national troops would begin by deploying to Beirut, with the goal of “enabling the
Lebanese Government to resume full sovereignty over its capital, the essential precon-
dition for extending its control over the entire country.” The first U.S. troops arrived
in Lebanon one week after Reagan’s announcement. By the end of 1982 nearly 1,600
marines had taken up positions at the Beirut airport, along with an equivalent num-
ber of soldiers from France, Italy, and Great Britain.
Some Muslim leaders denounced the presence of U.S. and European troops, which
they viewed as an extension of Israel’s invasion earlier in the year. The first sign of
verbal opposition being turned into action appeared in March 1983, when apparently
coordinated attacks left five U.S. marines and six Italian soldiers wounded. A more
ominous sign arrived on April 18, when a suicide bomber blew up the U.S. embassy
in Beirut, killing sixty-three people, among them seventeen U.S. citizens, including
CIA station chief Robert Ames. More than 100 others were wounded.
Opponents of the deployment struck double blows to the international peace-
keeping effort on the morning of October 23, 1983. First, a suicide bomber drove a
van laden with several tons of explosives into the barracks at the Beirut airport hous-
ing U.S. Marines: 220 marines, 18 sailors, and 3 soldiers were killed, and some 60
were wounded. Seconds later, a truck bomb destroyed the nearby French military com-
pound nearby, killing 59 soldiers. A group calling itself Islamic Jihad claimed respon-
sibility for both attacks, but some U.S. officials subsequently charged that Hizballah,
at the time a new Shiite militia, had carried out the attacks. Less than two weeks later,
a similar suicide truck bomb destroyed a building housing Israeli intelligence head-
quarters in Tyre, on the coast south of Beirut, killing 28 Israelis, along with 32 Arabs
jailed there.
The bombing of the marine barracks represented at the time the biggest and bold-
est attack against a U.S. target in the Middle East. It appeared initially that the
bombers had failed to achieve their goal of driving the multinational force from
Lebanon. Reagan vowed to keep the marines there, and both houses of Congress
rejected attempts to force the president to bring the troops home. Even so, uncertainty
about the value of the international presence in Lebanon continued to grow. Slightly
more than three months later, on February 7, 1984, Reagan announced that he had
ordered U.S. troops redeployed to warships on the Lebanese coast, adding that they
would return if needed. Britain, France, and Italy withdrew their forces in subsequent
weeks. Sectarian violence continued in Lebanon at a relatively modest level until the
next big explosion, in 1988 (Taif Accord, p. 344).
Following are two speeches that President Ronald Reagan made to the nation on
September 20, 1982, and February 7, 1984, concerning the situation in Lebanon.340 LEBANON AND SYRIA