He achieved prominence in the early 1980s as the commander of the Army's powerful Eighth Brigade. This Brigade was rushed to the mountains east of Beirut in 1983 to control the area following fighting between the Christian Lebanese Forces militia (LF) and the Druze Progressive Socialist Party militia (PSP). This fighting had left the Christian militia routed, many Christian mountain villages overrun, and threatened the seat of the Presidency in nearby Ba`abda. It was the Eighth Brigade's defense of the mountain town of Suk al-Gharb that preserved the constitutional government. Looking down on the Presidential Palace from Suk al-Gharb, Awn must have felt that the officers and soldiers who had put their lives on the line in defense of the state had a right to a substantial say in its affairs.

Appointed Commander of the Army in 1984 to succeed General Ibarhim Tannous, who had overseen the American re-equipping and re-training of the Army, Awn consolidated his position within the military. Popular with the troops since his days in Suk al-Gharb as a front-line general who mixed freely with them and shared their risks, he gained widening support in the officer outside interference from politicians or the militias in Army affairs. Politically, he kept a low profile, trying to avoid any premature exposure that might jeopardize his strategic but appointive position as head of the Army.

As President Amin Gemayel's term approached its end, jockeying began among the many Maronite contenders for the powerful six-year elective post of President. As a prominent Maronite and head of the Army, which remained at least nominally united and included soldiers and officers from all confessional communities. Awn's name was frequently bandied about as a candidate. As a military man with no political-family background, he stood apart from the majority of candidates who represented the traditional Lebanese political class.

Awn's public position was that he would not run for the Presidency, but if elected, he would serve. It soon became clear, however, that Awn was working quite actively for his candidacy. He had assembled a working team and had begun putting out feelers of support to the U.S., Syria, and other players on the Lebanese political scene. Both the Syrian and the U.S. response was negative; Syria wanted a President over whom it would be sure to have some influence, and so it took a dim view of Awn who had fought some of its militia allies in Lebanon, like the Druze PSP and the Shi`ite Amal movement. The U.S., on the other hand, was flatly opposed to a military man who, it feared, would exacerbate a crisis the U.S. was trying to keep out of the news and off its agenda.

The first attempt at electing a President took place on August 18, 1988 when the Speaker of Parliament, Husayn al-Husayni, scheduled a Parliamentary session which, had it secured a quorum, would have elected Former President Sulayman Franjiyyeh, the candidate that Syria openly favored and campaigned for. Franjiyyeh's election was opposed by the U.S., the powerful Lebanese Forces militia, and Awn. Most of the Christian Deputies stayed home or were kept home by the LF, and the election did not take place. Subsequently, intensive rounds of negotiations between the U.S. and Syria ended in agreement on the Maronite Deputy From Akkar, Mikhail Daher, as compromise candidate. The Lebanese Forces and Awn, together, prevented a quorum and undermined Daher's election. The country was left on September 22, 1988, the last day of Gemayel's term, facing a constitutional vacuum.

Thursday, the 22nd of September, was taken up with desperate attempts to form a caretaker government. They proved fruitless, however, as Gemayel insisted on a Maronite Prime Minister to lead the caretaker government, while Prime Minister Salim al-Hoss and other Muslims with Syrian backing insisted that the Prime Minister should be, as is customary, a Muslim. As day turned into night and the constitutional deadline approached, the mood in the Presidential Palace, where many Christian leaders had assembled, grew darker. Finally, in the wake of the failure to come to any compromise allowing for a broad-based cabinet of politicians, and with only minutes to spare, Gemayel turned reluctantly to Awn and exercised his last prerogative as President by appointing Awn Prime Minister heading a military cabinet made up of the members of the confessionally-balanced Military Council. Upon the announcement of the new cabinet, the three Muslim officers of the Military Council promptly declined to participate, and Awn was left heading a cabinet composed of himself and two other Christian ministers, Generals Isam Abu Jamra and Edgar Ma`louf.

Salim al-Hoss, who had become Prime Minister after Prime Minister Rashid Karami was assassinated in 1987, refused to recognize Awn's government and, with wide Muslim and Syrian backing, continued to head his government in West Beirut. For the next year, there were, in effect, two rival governments -- one in Ba`abda headed by Awn and the other in West Beirut headed by Hoss.

Initially, the division was expected to be short-lived as both Awn and Hoss were ostensibly committed to arranging for early presidential elections. Indeed, necessary government business continued to be transacted through tacit cooperation between the two cabinets. It soon became clear, however, that Awn had greater ambitions. He denied the legitimacy of the Hoss cabinet and considered his cabinet to enjoy not only the usual authority of the Council of Ministers, but also the authorities of the President; for, according to the Lebanese Constitution, if the post of the President falls vacant, the powers of the Presidency are entrusted to the Council of Ministers. He saw no urgency in holding presidential elections and embarked instead on an independent political course.

With strong Iraqi support and in alliance with the Lebanese Forces, Awn fought for over six months, neither gaining nor losing ground. The cost of the war was massive, with over 1,000 dead, 5,000 wounded, and $1.2 billion of damages to homes, businesses, and the country's infrastructure. The war, however, did generate intense international and regional attention and focused efforts on the need for some resolution to the Lebanese crisis. The diplomatic exit came in the form of an American-backed Arab League initiative in which the Lebanese Parliament, meeting in Saudi Arabia, would discuss and approve an agreement providing an acceptable middle-ground for all. Awn would call of his 'war of liberation', Syria would provide a timetable for the withdrawal of its forces from Lebanon, and the Lebanese would agree on a new formula for equitable power-sharing among themselves. This formula gained the support of the Arab states led by Saudi Arabia and of the Western powers led by the United States.

Agreement was reached in Taif, Saudi Arabia, in September 1988 on political reform, the ending of the war in Lebanon, the establishment of special relations between Lebanon and Syria, and a framework for the beginning of Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. Awn, however, rejected the Agreement. His main objection to it was that Syria had committed itself neither to rapid nor complete withdrawal. To the contrary, he complained, Syrian forces were to stay in place for a full two years, ostensibly "assisting the Lebanese government extend its authority." After that, Syrian forces were to be redeployed only as far as the Biqa` valley. The Agreement gave no timetable for any further Syrian withdrawal, merely stipulating that "such withdrawals would be negotiated at the appropriate time by the governments of Lebanon and Syria." Furthermore, Awn charged that the political reforms were unacceptable because they simply shifted power from the office of the President to that of the Prime Minister without solving any fundamental political problems. He tried to block the Agreement and set out to undermine it by issuing a Decree dissolving Parliament before the Parliament could meet, elect a new President, and enact the Agreement into law.

The beginning of his downfall came in the fall of 1989 when the Lebanese Forces broke their alliance with him and supported the Taif Agreement. LF Leader Samir Ja`ja` was aware that this move might split the Christian community and divide the Christian enclave, but he preferred to take this risk than to continue to support Awn's policies which, after the ignominious end of the 'war of liberation,' Ja`ja` openly criticized as suicidal. The split erupted into open warfare between Awn's Army units and those of the Lebanese Forces in late January of 1990.

Like the previous war with Syrian forces in 1989, this war, which lasted for four months, also took a dreadful human and material toll and ended inconclusively, with Awn neither victorious nor defeated. However, by the end of it, Awn was more isolated than ever. He had already lost much of the sympathy of the Arab and international community. Now he had also lost his main internal ally, as well as the support of Iraq, France, and the Vatican. He seemed to be squandering the political backing and sympathy he had won earlier on an internal battle that few outsiders could understand or stomach. He still commanded enthusiastic popular support in the area he controlled, but he was unable to translate this popular support into concrete political gains. Checked at every turn, he continued to resist Taif, albeit lamely, while the Hrawi-Hoss government, with cooperation from Syria and the Lebanese Forces, began to prepare for his demise. The coup de grace came on October 13 in the form of a joint Lebanese-Syrian military assault on Ba`abda and the entire Metn region under Awn's control, Awn sought political asylum at the French Embassy where he has been ever since.

To be sure, the period of Awn's tenure in the Presidential Palace in Ba`abda between September 1988 and October 1990 was a volatile and dangerous one. This period, however, was also one of great popular enthusiasm and activism. In the largest mass demonstrations of Lebanon's recent history, hundreds of thousands of civilian, albeit mostly from, the Christian Eastern Region, took to the streets in support of Awn. How is one to understand this phenomenon in light of the losses suffered by this same population during Awn's administration?

The essence of his popularity was that he presented himself as a revolutionary figure who would sweep aside occupying powers, militias, and the traditional ruling groups and establish a strong state under the protection of the Army. To a population suffering from a decade and a half of conflict and chaos, these were exciting promises.

Second, Awn was perceived by many as a man of the people. For the middle class who has become poor, and the lower classes which had become destitute, he was someone they could reach out to and put their hopes in. He was not wealthy; he had not inherited political power; he was not from the traditional political class that had become identified with the chaos, corruption, and destruction of the war. He was a man of modest background who had lived a disciplined and frugal life in the Army and had, they imagined, come to put things right. In that sense, he appeared to many a revolutionary and messianic figure; a savior from oppression, deprivation, corruption, and evil.

His popularity was heightened as he appeared to allow the people a say in their own affairs. By encouraging the people to take to the streets and make their feelings known, he gave them an unprecedented feeling of power and mastery over their own fate. This was achieved quite explicitly in the Winter of 1989-90 when Awn was facing a threat from the newly-elected President Hrawi, backed by Syria, to take Ba`abda and overthrow him by force. Awn called on the people to take a stand: if they supported him, they should come to Ba`abda and stand as human shields against any military attack. This elicited an enthusiastic response and there followed a three-month period of festivities, sit-ins, and demonstrations on the grounds of the Ba`abda palace. The spirit of the demonstrations was not so much support for one political figure over another as it was a heady celebration of the common citizen's involvement in politics and his ability to take a stand and change events previously under the control of militias, politicians, and outside powers. Power, as Kissinger noted, is a strong aphrodisiac, and it was this sense of empowerment that gave the demonstrations elicited by Awn much of their wild energy. By entering directly into politics, the people gave themselves hope and encouragement at a time when they were still recovering from the ravages of recent battles and facing a very uncertain political future.

Finally, his charisma was enhanced by the fact that he came from the ranks of the Army which had not been centrally involved in the war and had thus maintained a relatively clean image. Wearing his battle fatigues and surrounded by officers and regular soldiers, he gave the impression that he had the power and the dedicated troops to carry out the promises he was making. He presented a simple solution to Lebanon's complex political problems: the Army would impose the authority of the state by force and any remaining social or political conflicts would be dealt with within the laws and democratic institutions of the state.

His major failure was his inability to appreciate the subtleties and complexities of politics in and around Lebanon. By adopting extreme positions, he made himself popular with a large portion of the population but in so doing he alienated himself from leaders of his own and other Lebanese communities and drew the hostility of foreign powers having influence in Lebanon. His eventual downfall came about as a result of almost complete political isolation at the end of two years in office.

First, by refusing to hold presidential elections and instead embarking on his own political program, Awn alienated the Parliamentary Deputies and a large section of the traditional ruling class in Lebanon whose position depended on the election of a new President and a perpetuation of the constitutional order. They feared a military takeover which would jeopardize, if not eliminate, their role. They had seen this happen in many Arab and other Third World countries, and they were anxious to prevent any such takeover on their own turf.

Most of these political leaders had survived the collapse of state power in 1975 and had long since become integrated into the power structure defined by confessional militias, foreign armies, and a nominal constitutional order. They retained a formalistic role in the governing process and enjoyed working relationships with the forces on the ground. Awn threatened their power; indeed, he openly distrusted civilian politicians, especially the Deputies. He denounced them as corrupt and treasonous and effectively ran them out of the areas he controlled. While this rebellious attitude was popular with the masses, it ignored the fact that this class, and the Deputies themselves, still enjoyed the constitutional power to elect Presidents, approve cabinets, and amend the Constitution. By openly breaking with the Deputies, Awn provided them with the incentive for bypassing him in the Taif Agreement and later in the election of a new President.

Awn expressed the same hostility toward the militias in Lebanon as he did toward the traditional political class. He charged them with corruption, usurpation of power, extortion, and sundry other transgressions. Again, this attitude was popular with the people, but it gained him strong and well-entrenched enemies.

Having alienated the traditional politicians and the militias, Awn also made an enemy of the Maronite Patriarch and a large segment of the Maronite clergy, the third pillar in the Christian power structure of war-time Lebanon. He stood alone within the Christian community with his large popular following. Eliminating his rivals was probably intentional, but when his ambition for sole leadership was not matched by real political and military successes, his isolation turned into weakness, immobility, and finally, defeat.

He also became gradually isolated outside the Christian community. In the first months of his term as Prime Minister, he was quite popular with all segments of the population. He was an officer from the still relatively neutral Lebanese Army, and he had the reputation of being a good soldier and a fair and accessible leader. Most importantly, although he was a Maronite, he did not come from the ranks of the Kata`ib Party or the Lebanese Forces, both of which evoked dark associations in the minds of Muslims from the earliest days of the civil war through the Israeli invasion of 1982, the War of the Mountain in 1983, and beyond.

In his first months in office, Awn had focused on corruption and governmental inefficiency, issues appreciated in Muslim circles. They also applauded his clash, albeit brief, with the Lebanese Forces in February of 1989. The catastrophic results of Awn's 'war of liberation,' however, soon overshadowed all other considerations, even though his declaration of war on Syria, however ill-advised, was not without its sympathizers in Muslim circles. As the 'war of liberation' stretched on, it turned into a military slugging match between Awn's Army and the Lebanese Forces on the one hand and the Syrian Army and its allied militias on the other. In the end, the brunt of the firepower of Awn's Army and the Lebanese Forces did not fall surgically on isolated Syrian Army positions but rather on neighborhoods, towns, and villages with mostly Muslim populations. This, of course, produced deep resentment and spelled the political end of Michel Awn as a potential man of the middle ground.

Furthermore, Awn proved insensitive to Muslim demands for reform and to their dissatisfaction with having an unfair share of political authority in the state. This insensitivity appeared early on when Awn conducted 'business-as-usual' after the three Muslim officers appointed to his cabinet resigned. He attributed their resignation to external pressures and proceeded blithely in the assumption that his cabinet was fully legitimate and required no expansion or reorganization.

Although he spoke in non-confessional terms (some of his most bitter enemies were from his own Maronite community), he failed to make a successful appeal to the Muslim community. The main problem was that he virtually ignored the issue of internal reform in favor of the twin goals of eliminating foreign occupation and getting rid of the militias. While almost all Muslims supported those goals, they worried that without constitutional and political guarantees, a victory by Awn could mean simply the return of Maronite hegemony, something they had rejected finally and irrevocably at the beginning of the Lebanese war. Although Awn proposed a strong and independent state, something which virtually all Lebanese could support, he still presented himself as the ruler of that state; and he, for better of for worse, was a Maronite Christian. As such, and failing to present any convincing evidence that he had fully overcome confessional boundaries, he represented only another unacceptable alternative to the intolerable status quo.

Beyond Lebanon, Awn made a mortal enemy of President Hafiz al-Asad in March of 1989 when he declared war on Syria and on Asad's regime. This burnt any bridges that he might have needed later on and made it certain that Asad would be his lifelong enemy. In Lebanon, where Syria is the main power broker, this alone could have brought about Awn's eventual defeat.

Not stopping at that, Awn also made a sworn enemy of the United States. The U.S. never favored him, but neither had it played a vigorous role in opposing him. Awn accused the United States of responsibility for Lebanon's demise and of conspiring with militias and occupying powers to oversee the final dismemberment of the country. He looked the other way when his supporters staged aggressive demonstrations in front of the U.S. Embassy and spread anti-American slogans in the area he controlled. This confirmed American suspicions that they could not do business with him, and it provided them with an excuse to vacate the Embassy on September 7, 1989, and lend their full weight to his removal. While in 1982-84 the U.S. was backing the government of another Maronite leader, Amine Gemayel, against extrernal threats, in 1989-90 Awn had succeeded in getting the U.S. to take the opposite stand of more or less supporting Syria against his government and eventually giving a green light for a Syrian-Lebanese military entry into Ba`abda and the Metn district. That the final step was closely linked to the Gulf crisis which had emerged as late as August of 1990 does not minimize the effect of the atmosphere of hostility that Awn had allowed to develop between himself and the Americans.

The war in 1990 between Awn and the Lebanese Forces exasperated those few influential friends he still had left. As long as he was considered the leader of a strong and united Christian community, he drew support from Iraq as a counterbalance to Syrian power, and from France and the Vatican as a protector of Christian, French, and Western power. After the war with the Lebanese Forces, however, he seemed unable either to oppose Syrian power or to promote the interests of the Christians. His attempts to establish working relations with Damascus triggered the final break with Iraq while the massive emigration of Lebanese Christians (estimated at over 100,000) finally convinced the Vatican and France that Awn's presence was more of a liability than an asset.

By the summer of 1990, he was almost completely isolated politically. Although he still commanded massive popular support within the Christian community, he found himself with no viable political options. The Taif Agreement had been approved, a new President and cabinet had been chosen, and the government he refused to recognize enjoyed universal Arab and international backing. He hoped that the loyalty of his troops and his popular support would see him through this period of isolation and that he could survive in his Ba`abda stronghold as he had done through the 'war of liberation' and the subsequent war with the powerful Lebanese Forces. And indeed, he may have survived, had the Gulf crisis not precipitated an unlikely American-Syrian alliance which strengthened the Syrians' hand in Lebanon and allowed them to conduct a military sweep of his forces.

The establishment of this 'Greater Lebanon' in 1920 was opposed by the Syrian political leadership of the time as well as by a large segment of the Sunni community in the new Lebanon. The National Pact of 1943 between the Maronite politician Bishara al-Khoury and the Sunni leader Riad al-Solh was a power-sharing arrangement in which the Sunni community agreed to support the new state and forego its unionist demands with Syria in exchange for the Maronites' promise to relinquish French protection. The Pact also set up a political formula for governing the country. The formula enabled the successful launching of the newly independent state and provided it with three decades of relative stability and prosperity despite a temporary breakdown in 1958.

The Maronite-Sunni partnership defined in the National Pact, however, was not fully even. The Maronite President still enjoyed wide executive powers, and Maronites headed the Army, the Bureau of General Security, Army Intelligence, the Central Bank, and other key posts. Also, Christian representation outnumbered Muslim in Parliament and in the civil service by a six-to-five ratio (the ratio in the civil service was adjusted to equality in 1958). As demographic realities changed, however, the Maronites lost their status as the largest minority in the country to the Shi`a, while the Christians as a whole lost their status as a majority to the Muslims. This provided a large portion of the Muslim population with the justification for rejecting the political status quo. Their rejection was expressed in various ideological forms and ultimately caused the weakening of the political system just when the state had to face its first serious challenge since independence: the growth of the heavily armed and politically radical Palestinian movement in Lebanon in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The state apparatus finally collapsed in 1975 as Palestinian and Christian militias took to the streets, and the polity divided into warring camps with the majority of Christians on one side and Druze, Sunni, Shi`a, and Palestinian groups on the other.

The strong Palestinian element precluded an effective settlement based on intra-Lebanese political reform, as such a settlement would not provide a solution to the Palestinian problem in Lebanon. Indeed, the reform process only started in earnest after the Palestinian factor was virtually eliminated by the Israeli invasion of 1982. The dialogue on reform began at the Geneva and Lausanne Conferences of 1983 and 1984 in which basic principles were agreed upon. These principles were later elaborated in the abortive Tripartite Agreement of December 1985 and then, more successfully, in the Taif Agreement of 1989. What Awn failed to grasp was that Muslim demands for reform and wider power-sharing were genuine and of first priority, and no progress could be made on other issues before addressing them. He offered the reassertion and reform of the state within its traditional power-sharing formula; most Muslims, however, wanted change in the power-sharing formula itself and were uninterested in other reforms if they did not begin with changes in that fundamental formula.