Fifty years ago, an
American president successfully stood up against the Moslem tide in the
Middle East and won a victory. But the anniversary may pass completely
unnoticed by most of the media, and the lesson of that event remains
unlearned by most Americans.
On July 15, 1958, President
Eisenhower began what was called "Operation Blue Bat." President
Chamoun of Lebanon, a Maronite Christian, had refused to side with Arab
Moslem nations against the West. The result was that within Lebanon,
supported by Syria, Muslims pushed for the end of the Chamoun
administration (and, tacitly, for an end to the middle course of
democracy that Lebanon had long pursued.)
The
pro-Western government of Iraq had also just been toppled. The
pro-Soviet government that took its place would in time be overthrown
by the Baathist Party, establishing a direct link between the sort of
government we are trying to establish in Iraq today and the government
that had existed in Iraq until July 1958. Fifty years ago marked the
unraveling of much of what we are living with today in the Middle East.
Operation
Blue Bat largely worked. By October of that year, American troops were
withdrawn. Another Maronite Christian replaced Chamoun as President of
Lebanon and the Prime Minister of Lebanon continued to be a Sunni
Moslem (which had been the successful modus vivendi between the half-Christian and half-Moslem population of democratic Lebanon for years.)
During
the next Arab-Israeli War, the Six Day War in 1967, Lebanon was neutral
-- it had fought against the new Israeli state in 1948. The Lebanese
people enjoyed the benefits of neutrality and the blessings of peace.
We often talk today of Israel being "the only working democracy in the
Middle East," and, alas, it is now. But fifty years ago, when America
intervened directly with military forces, there were two working
democracies in the Middle East. Lebanon, in fact, was the first
working democracy in the Middle East. It achieved independence in
1943, under the Free French.
When
Lebanon worked, Christians and Moslems shared power in rough proportion
to their percentage of the population. Sunni and Shia, within the
Moslem community, also divided power, with the Prime Minister a Sunni
and the Speaker a Shia. Like so many political systems that ought not
to have worked, it did work for many decades. Mutual self-interest --
the profitability of the system to many power brokers -- quite frankly
helped Lebanon survive. It was not a perfectly pristine polity, but
rather a generally pro-Western, basically tolerant, essentially
democratic system that provided each confession within Lebanon with a
"piece of the pie."
In
looking at Iraq today, we should see some rough similarities that ought
to encourage us. Although Iraq lacks a Christian population of size,
and that Christian population is increasingly persecuted (a fair issue
for both presidential candidates to take President Bush to task over),
the Kurds are religiously diverse and ethnically non-Arabs, which
provides something vaguely comparable to the Maronite Christian
influence in Lebanon fifty years ago. Sunni and Shia in Lebanon made a
deal, just as Sunni and Shia in Iraq must.
American
troops proved indispensable to keeping Lebanon from collapsing into a
wretched situation which would spiral downward into chaos and violence.
This is just like American troops restoring democracy to Iraq, halting
the violence which came when Baathist state terrorism ended. The
vacuum of power in an inherently unstable state like Lebanon or Iraq
invites the bad guys to create mischief which bedevils generations.
If
a modest American military contingent stays in Iraq another fifty
years, and if Iraq remains a working democracy which suppresses
terrorism and sides with the West, then it will have been worth the
blood, time and treasure.
If
Eisenhower had kept troops in Lebanon -- if he had been invited fifty
years ago to do so -- what might Lebanon look like today? Syria, a
fifth rate military power, would never have tangled directly with the
American military. The Maronite population, once the majority of
Lebanon, would have retained at least a co-equal voice in Lebanese
affairs, thwarting Moslem extremists. And instead of just having to
explain why Israel was a prosperous, free, peaceful democracy, the
enemies of human joy would have been compelled to explain also why a
Christian-Moslem nation just to the north of Israel was also
prosperous, free and peaceful.
We
who resist the creep of totalitarianism and bloodlust around the globe
need to have hope. Lebanon was once a beacon of hope. Iraq may be
that beacon tomorrow. Fifty years ago, Lebanon was saved and Iraq was
lost. One by one, we must restore hope in freedom and in peace
everywhere. Our world is filled with men who dream nightmares and men
who dream hope. One dream will prevail. Which dream depends upon us,
who can overwhelm evil, if we have the willpower. Fifty years ago, in
Lebanon, we had that willpower. Today, in Iraq, we must have that
willpower again.