The High Cost of Friendship

By Thomas A. Sancton

Israel's attack poses new problems for the Reagan Administration

Once again, U.S. foreign policy was on the defensive. Israel's bold strike into Lebanon last week broadcast an embarrassing message to the world: Washington was either powerless to restrain its headstrong Middle East client or tacitly approved of the military operation. It was a no-win diplomatic situation that raised serious questions about U.S. policy and leadership at the very moment when President Ronald Reagan and Secretary of State Alexander Haig were on a European tour that was intended to burnish the Administration's image abroad. Even the cease-fire that took effect at week's end, with the help of considerable U.S. prodding, did little to dispel doubts about U.S. effectiveness in an important and volatile area.

As with previous surprises by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin--the destruction of Iraq's nuclear reactor in June 1981, the bombardment of Beirut one month later, the annexation of the Golan Heights last December--the Reagan Administration was presented with a distasteful decision and left to piece together a hasty solution to the regional turmoil. This time, the invading Israelis had simply swept aside one of Washington's most valiant efforts at Middle East peace keeping to date: the fragile, unwritten cease-fire between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, crafted just eleven months earlier by U.S. Special Envoy Philip Habib. Its collapse confronted Washington with one of the more awkward dilemmas it has faced in the explosive Middle East.

The risks for U.S. policy were high. On the face of it, the attack on Lebanon dealt another blow to hopes for peace in the region. U.S. relations with the Arab world, particularly with such moderate states as Saudi Arabia and Jordan, could be severely damaged. Most unsettling of all, despite the cease-fire that took effect on Friday, was the possibility that an all-out clash between Israel and Syria could spark a broader regional war and might even prompt the Soviets to intervene on behalf of Syria.

Publicly, Washington reacted to the invasion with a number of carefully nuanced statements that deplored the new "outburst of violence" but stopped short of condemning Israel. Early in the week, the U.S. went along with two Security Council resolutions that called for a cease-fire by all parties. But then it cast its veto, against 14 yes votes, on a third text that threatened sanctions unless the Israelis withdrew from Lebanon. The vetoed resolution, explained U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Jeane Kirkpatrick, was "not sufficiently balanced." Summing up the U.S. attempt at evenhandedness, a State Department spokesman declared: "Israel will have to withdraw its forces from Lebanon, and the Palestinians will have to stop using Lebanon as a launching pad for attacks on Israel."

But, as the President learned during his swing through Europe last week, Washington's allies took a harsher view of the Israeli action. Speaking with Reagan in Rome on Monday, Italian President Alessandro Pertini declared, with some hyperbole, that "Israel is behaving like the Soviet Union in Afghanistan." On the eve of the NATO summit in Bonn on Wednesday, the foreign ministers of the ten European Community countries issued a strongly worded declaration condemning the Israeli invasion; they threatened to take further "action," a probable reference to economic sanctions and an arms embargo, unless the Israelis withdrew.

British diplomats expressed the fear that Israel's action would ultimately prove counterproductive. Said one: "In the longer term, [Israel] is simply storing up hate among her Arab neighbors and acting as recruiter in chief for the P.L.O." Perhaps most disappointed among the Europeans was French President Francois Mitterrand, who had broken with 15 years of Gaullist policy by improving relations with Israel. He forcefully condemned Jerusalem's "aggression" in southern Lebanon and pointedly canceled upcoming meetings between French and Israeli officials.

Many Arab countries, surprisingly, were slow to respond to the Israeli action. One reason may be their preoccupation with Iran's recent victories over Iraq in the 20-month border war between the two countries, a development that threatens the stability of the entire gulf area. Also, for all their rhetoric in favor of the Palestinian cause, many moderate Arab countries maintain only lukewarm relations with the P.L.O. and may not have been unhappy to see the organization take a military beating.

Some of the harshest criticisms came from states friendly to Washington. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the only Arab leader whose country has diplomatic relations with Israel, condemned the invasion as "a flagrant departure from the spirit of peace, a grave escalation of tension, a blatant violation of international law and legitimacy." Ambassador Kirkpatrick's U.N. veto was particularly enraging to the Egyptians. One Cairo editor called it "a catastrophe, an insult to all Arabs. Whatever Israel does, the United States supports it." Said Mustafa Khalil, a Mubarak foreign policy adviser: "It is about time that the U.S. stands firm." Genuine as the Egyptian reaction may have been, Mubarak is determined to maintain his country's relationship with Israel. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia sent Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal to Bonn, where he met with Reagan and West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, to demand swift Western sanctions against Israel.

The Soviets issued a predictable condemnation of "Israel's aggression against the Lebanese and Palestinian people" and demanded an immediate Israeli withdrawal. Throughout the week the Soviet press blasted the U.S. for its "consent and support" of the invasion. On Tuesday, Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev dispatched to President Reagan in Bonn a letter that U.S. aides described as "tough, but not surprising." Reagan's reply was, as Haig put it, "responsive to the tone of the letter that came in." In fact, the Soviet reaction was relatively restrained: Haig characterized the exchange as "frank" but not "threatening." Although the big U.S. worry was that Moscow would use its 1980 friendship treaty with Syria as a pretext to intervene in the crisis, the Soviet Union showed no signs of rushing to Syria's aid.

Despite the widespread charges of U.S. collusion, Washington had actually been trying hard to prevent an Israeli invasion of Lebanon. On June 4 and again on June 6, the day the invasion began, Reagan sent Begin urgent letters expressing warm sympathy for Israel but opposing any push into Lebanon. The Prime Minister responded with a message informing Reagan that the invasion was already under way. "Mr. President," Begin said, "the bloodthirsty aggressor against us is on our doorstep. Do we not have the inherent right to self-defense?" The letter informed Reagan that Israel sought only to push the P.L.O. forces back 25 miles from the border to prevent the shelling of the northern settlements. Israel, Begin assured the U.S. President, "did not covet one inch of Lebanese territory" and was ready to "sign a peace treaty with a free, independent Lebanon that will preserve its territorial integrity."

U.S. diplomatic efforts first focused on the immediate goal of ending the fighting, without addressing the thornier issues involved in seeking a long-term solution in Lebanon. Special Envoy Habib, summoned to Paris to confer with Reagan and Haig, was then sent to Jerusalem, where he met with Begin on Monday. The U.S. representative found Begin in an extremely truculent, uncompromising mood. The Prime Minister not only refused to set a time limit on Israel's occupation of Lebanon, he offered no assurances about restraining the scope of the military drive. He sent Habib off to Damascus with a message for Syrian President Hafez Assad saying in effect that Israel had no quarrel with the Syrians and that it would not attack them unless fired upon first. Before Habib even got to see Hafez Assad, Israeli and Syrian forces were skirmishing, and Israeli jets had attacked Syrian missile batteries in the Bekaa Valley.

Meanwhile, the Middle East crisis was increasingly dominating the attention of the U.S. presidential party as it made its way through Europe. "This was meant to be a shakedown cruise, the first presidential trip abroad," said one Administration aide. "Instead, we are managing a crisis, and the glitches get magnified."

Not only did the crisis undercut Reagan's impact overseas, it also robbed him and his entourage of sleep and rubbed tempers raw. After a late-night briefing in Paris on Sunday, the President nodded off in public the next morning in Rome. At 7:45 on Thursday morning, Haig and three top advisers were in Reagan's bedroom at Schloss Gymnich, near Bonn, to review the situation, while their boss was still pulling on his trousers. "Maybe," said Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver, interrupting the briefing, "we should let the President finish getting his clothes on."

Having believed Begin's initial assurances about Israel's limited military objective, Administration officials were privately horrified when Israeli troops penetrated far beyond the 25-mile zone that the Prime Minister had originally proclaimed. Complained a top White House official: "We thought the Israelis would keep their word, but it turns out that what Begin told us was a lie."

Brezhnev's letter to Reagan heightened the Administration's sense of urgency. Reagan informed Begin of the Soviet note in a letter drafted on Wednesday afternoon and personally delivered to the Israeli leader's home by U.S. Ambassador Samuel Lewis at 2 a.m. Thursday. Reagan's letter politely but firmly demanded a cease-fire within hours. While the letter did not specifically threaten an arms cutoff, it did suggest that Begin might not be welcome in Washington for a scheduled June 21 visit.

Begin immediately convened an emergency Cabinet meeting to discuss the U.S. request. When the session ended at 6 a.m., Haig telephoned Begin, encouraging him to respond positively to Reagan's message. Begin replied that he would agree to a cease-fire if the Syrians also did, and invited Haig to come to the Middle East to help work out an agreement. Shortly thereafter, in what appeared to be a blatant attempt to force the Secretary's hand, Begin's aides leaked word that Haig was coming.

In Damascus, Habib had met with Hafez Assad twice on Wednesday and once on Thursday morning. Although Hafez Assad angrily accused the Israelis of using the Habib trip as a cover for their Bekaa Valley air raid, he told Habib that Syria was ready to accept a cease-fire even if it was not accompanied by an immediate Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. Habib wired President Reagan that the Syrians had made a substantial concession and that it was now up to Israel to show flexibility.

But Begin reportedly informed the U.S. that he needed more time to "complete military objectives." Instead of stopping their advance, the Israelis spent most of Thursday bombing P.L.O. offices and civilian targets in Beirut.

At that point, U.S. patience began to wear thin. In Congress, Republican Senator Mark Hatfield called on the Administration to suspend military aid to Israel. Said he: "I am very much afraid that Israel's leaders of today have taken violence as their birthright." In the House of Representatives, eight members introduced a resolution demanding an investigation into a possible Israeli violation of American laws prohibiting foreign countries from using arms purchased from the U.S. for offensive purposes. In Bonn, Haig announced early Thursday evening that he would not accept Begin's invitation to go to Jerusalem, because the Israelis had "not evidenced sufficient flexibility."

On Thursday night, presumably after meeting with Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and other key Cabinet members, Begin called Haig in Bonn to assure him that the Cabinet would approve a unilateral decision the next morning. It did, and the cease-fire took effect at noon on Friday. But Israeli officials made it clear that it applied only to the Syrians, who also agreed to halt their fighting. The Israelis said they would continue cleanup operations against the P.L.O. in Lebanon. Only on Saturday did Jerusalem announce that it would observe a similar cease-fire toward the Palestinians.

Despite the first cease-fire's timing, U.S. officials could hardly take full credit for it. "The cease-fire would have come with or without the letter from President Reagan," said an Israeli official. Jerusalem, apparently, was also influenced by the rising number of Israeli casualties, the mounting tide of negative world opinion and, most important, the fact that its army had achieved many of its military objectives. The PL.O.'s military capacity had been reduced, the Bekaa Valley missiles were destroyed, and Syria had been shown to have a weak army and few Arab friends willing to defend it. With little more for Israel to gain on the battlefield, it was clearly to its advantage to stop fighting and begin the diplomatic struggle to achieve its broader political objectives in Lebanon.

Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Yehuda Blum told the Security Council last week that his country's forces would not withdraw from Lebanon until "concrete arrangements" were made to "permanently and reliably preclude all hostile action against Israel's citizens." In practice, that would mean the establishment of an effective buffer zone in southern Lebanon to prevent the return of P.L.O. forces capable of shelling settlements in northern Israel. But Israel's stated intentions concealed some far more ambitious goals. Ideally, Jerusalem would like to restore sovereignty to an independent--and friendly--Lebanese central government. That, in turn, would require a total withdrawal of the 30,000 Syrian troops that have been stationed in Lebanon since 1976 as the main element in an Arab peace-keeping force. Said Sharon: "Only in these conditions will Lebanon be ruled by the Lebanese."

Just how stability could be returned to Lebanon is far from clear. The first step might be a mutual Syrian-Israeli withdrawal with a neutral peace-keeping force moving in to fill the vacuum. The Israelis will probably pressure the U.S. to provide soldiers, since a renewal of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which proved completely ineffective, is likely to be vetoed by the Soviets when its mandate runs out on June 19. A pivotal peace-keeping role may be played by the French in some new international peace-keeping force. Both President Mitterrand and Premier Pierre Mauroy have publicly been stressing France's historic role in Lebanon.

But the chances of peace in Lebanon, and throughout the Middle East, may ultimately depend on the future of the P.L.O. Israel's avowed aim in last week's invasion was not simply to push the P.L.O. forces back from the border but, as one Israeli official put it, "to break their military might. We would like to reduce them to a completely marginal influence on the Arab world." Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir was more blunt: "We must strive for [the P.L.O.'s] ultimate destruction."

Despite the P.L.O. military setbacks in Lebanon, many analysts feel that the organization will not be crippled. One immediate danger: the relatively moderate policies of P.L.O. Leader Yasser Arafat may be rejected in favor of the more ruthless tactics long advocated by leaders of radical P.L.O. factions. Said one senior Western diplomat in Damascus: "The Israeli action only delays a political settlement and returns us to the situation of the early 1970s, when there was a lot of political terrorism. At what point does Israel's perception of Palestinian nationalism change from military force to negotiation?" That view was echoed by Abu Jihad, the P.L.O.'s senior military commander, who said that if the Palestinians were driven from Lebanon, "we would be forced to go back to the tactics of a decade ago." Translation: hijackings, hostage taking and assassinations.

That sort of Palestinian movement may prove to be a far greater security threat to Israel than the fairly disciplined guerrilla force in southern Lebanon that had largely observed the July 1981 ceasefire. Since that date, according to U.N. sources, there was not one instance of P.L.O. cross-border shelling, except in response to Israeli bombings like those that took place on June 4 in retaliation for the shooting of Israeli Ambassador Shlomo Argov in London--a fact that seriously challenges Israel's publicly stated justification for last week's invasion.

One result of the Israeli invasion may be to prompt a re-evaluation of Middle East policy within the Reagan Administration. On this subject, Reagan's staff has long been divided between those who, like Haig, urge accommodation toward the Begin government and those who favor a tougher attitude, including Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, Vice President George Bush and White House Chief of Staff James Baker. The hard-liners may now push for a reduction of future U.S. arms sales to Israel. But other officials feel that retribution would be pointless. Said one top U.S. diplomat: "There is nothing to be gamed from taking such measures now. While no one wanted the invasion in the first place, having had it, let's get the best we can from it." Indeed, a number of U.S. experts, including Henry Kissinger, saw merit in the restoration of an inde pendent Lebanon free of P.L.O. and Syrian influence.

Whatever the White House decides, the President seems to have grasped the necessity of attempting to exercise tighter control over his headstrong ally. One positive result of the war, says a Washington analyst, "may be that it jolts Reagan into realizing how high the stakes are, and that it is up to him to make Begin listen to us." Of all the audiences the veteran actor has ever played to, that one might prove the tough est to persuade. est to persuade. -- By Thomas A. Sancton. Reported by David Aikman/ Jerusalem and Johanna McGeary/ Washington

With reporting by DAVID AIKMAN, Johanna McGeary

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