Fatal Attraction: 50 Years Since Syria’s Intervention In Lebanon

Peloni:  The time for Lebanon to be free of its foreign control is long past, but it has been long past for several decades.  The question is who will free Lebanon from being chained as human chattel.  Certainly, the Lebanese have shown no such capability to make is so and are instead intent upon waiting for some outside force to set them free.  America could play such a role in affecting the freedom of Lebanon from the Iranian suzerainty held over it, but the possibility of this coming to fruition is uncertain.  So we will see.

Amb. Alberto M. Fernandez | MEMRI | May 28, 2026

Syrian army military trucks enter Lebanon, marking beginning of the Syrian intervention in the Lebanese civil war and occupation of Lebanon by Syria,1976. Photo by Unknown author – j-spacetime.com, Public Domain, Wikipedia [Cropped]

Small places are often at the mercy of powerful neighbors. So it was for centuries in the area which today belongs to the Lebanese Republic. The state itself and its borders were fashioned by the French in 1920 out of territory that the Ottoman Turks had themselves conquered three centuries earlier.

Since then, Lebanon has seen many wars, many foreign interventions – direct or indirect – from the likes of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Israel, the PLO, the United States (1958 and 1983), Iraq, and Iran. But by far the longest, most painful and sustained was the occupation by the Syrian forces of the Al-Assad regime next door which lasted 29 years, from May 1976 to April 2005.[1] The Al-Assad regime controlled almost all of Lebanon, especially after October 1990, when the last of the independent Christian enclave fell into their hands, until the end of their occupation.[2]

The result of this cruel and bitter Syrian occupation would be tens of thousands of “disappeared” Lebanese, institutionalized corruption, mass emigration, war, terror, and the destruction and looting of much of the country. Syria had its proconsuls – Ghazi Kanaan, Rustum Ghazaleh – but they ruled mostly through willing local puppets, “positions from the Presidency of the Republic down to the smallest doorman in the Lebanese state came under the hegemony of the Syrian tutelage.”[3]

But the Al-Assad regime’s reasons for the intervention were complicated. There was, no doubt, the lust to dominate existing in all dictators. But he was invited in by the Lebanese government at the time, by President Suleiman Frangieh, an Al-Assad family friend.[4] And according to diplomatic records, the Syrians seemed to have been initially more encouraged by the Americans than by the Soviet Union in this misadventure.

Al-Assad was faced with two outcomes from the Lebanese Civil War, neither of which he wanted. One was the creation of a pro-Western and pro-Israel Christian-dominated statelet (as indeed existed for 15 years from 1975 to 1990), the other was the emergence of an unreliable, radical Palestinian/Lebanese revolutionary state not controlled by Al-Assad but answering to Yasser Arafat and Lebanese Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt. It was the latter who reportedly told a doubting Hafez Al-Assad that “I want weapons to kill some Christians and displace others, leaving us with a minority to rule as the Christians ruled us for 140 years.”[5]

Al-Assad would favor one side then the other as long as he could enhance his control. He entered to “save the Christians” (not really) but within a year would ally with the Palestinian/Lebanese Leftist Camp led by Jumblatt (who Al-Assad would have killed) against the Christians. Syrian troops would initially enter under the cover of Syrian-controlled Palestinian factions in 1976, but by 1985, Al-Assad would use Lebanese Shia fighters to attack Palestinian militias in the “War of the Camps.” Al-Assad would later employ Lebanese Christian warlord Elie Hobeika, who once had ties with the Israeli Mossad and the American CIA, as a tool of control against the recalcitrant Christian community.

Lebanon was extremely profitable for the Syrian regime, both as a financial milk cow and as a proxy for all sort of sanctions-busting and illegal activity. It also became a military tool for Syria (and Syria’s allies) to use against Israel. The Syrian border with Israel would remain calm, while the Lebanese border was the entry point for wars and terror that could be waged at arms’ length by Damascus. If anyone got bombed in return, it would be in Lebanon, not Syria.

Even after the Syrian Army withdrew in 2005, Syria’s baleful influence would continue to be massive inside Lebanon.[6] In time, and especially after the Syrian Civil War erupted in 2011, Syrian hegemony in Lebanon would be replaced by that of its closest Lebanese ally, Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

Fifty years after that Syrian military intervention in the guise of an Arab peacekeeping force, Lebanon is at a true crossroads. Syria’s influence – the country being under new management now – is at a relative low.[7] Hezbollah has been battered as never before as a result of it intervening disastrously in Iran’s wars against Israel in 2023 and 2026.[8] Iran is, for now, short on cash. Lebanese and Israeli government officials are in peace talks under the aegis of the Trump Administration in Washington.[9] While Iran feverishly seeks to maintain its influence in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia (and Turkey) seek to prevent a separate Lebanon-Israel peace.[10] Despite their efforts, Lebanon seems to have a chance, vague and inchoate it may be, for a new beginning where it becomes truly neutral from the region’s constant destructive wars and has a chance to rebuild a state and society in relative calm and stability.[11]

While much is made of Iran’s supposed “wins” in the 2026 war with the United States and Israel, such as trying to control the Strait of Hormuz, Lebanon is a place where Iran clearly lost and where it is trying to use peace talks with the Americans to regain what Hezbollah has lost on the battlefield to the IDF.

Lebanon does not necessarily need a warm peace or full diplomatic relations with the Jewish State (both would be good). But it does need to exit the region’s wars although to do so could be extremely painful given Hezbollah’s utter rejection of such a possibility. It is clear that Hezbollah is preparing for some sort of coup or offensive against the Lebanese government, something that must be prevented, which the Lebanese Armed Forces cannot do alone.[12] Hezbollah wants to stop change and, like Al-Assad for decades, preserve its hegemony over Lebanon. A chance at a real reordering of power in Lebanon is not a frequent occurrence.[13] Maybe it comes once every fifty years.

*Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI.