In July while on his first official visit to the United States, the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, raised with President Bill Clinton the possibility that Israel might withdraw from southern Lebanon in exchange for security guarantees on the Lebanese-Israeli border. The option, which became known as "Lebanon first," was publicly debated in the press in the weeks before Mr. Netanyahu's trip. In many ways, it was little different than past Israeli statements to the effect that a solution to the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon could be found once Hizballah was disarmed.

The proposal appeared clear-cut on the surface, which was, in part, its purpose. By revealing his initiative in Washington, Mr. Netanyahu intended to show to his American counterparts that he remained serious about peace. He understood that any initiative which sought to curb the power of Hizballah would have some measure of U.S. support. Before the National Press Club Mr. Netanyahu accused Syria of mounting a campaign of terror by proxy in Lebanon against Israel. By shifting the debate to terrorism, the Israeli prime minister subtly avoided being forced to address the more central issues in the Arab-Israeli negotiations, namely the talks with the Palestinians on Hebron and Israel's unwillingness to give up the Golan Heights.

"Lebanon first" was much more than a maneuver to win support in the U.S., however. Mr. Netanyahu's proposal sought to dismantle the link between the Lebanese-Israeli and Syrian-Israeli negotiating tracks. By calling for security arrangements in southern Lebanon, Israel effectively suggested that Syria should be their guarantor. Only the Syrian army has the power in Lebanon to disarm, or permit the disarmament, of Hizballah. By accepting to do so, Syria would expand its area of influence in Lebanon, something Israel is keen to encourage. The implicit Israeli reasoning is that once Syria controls Lebanon and disarms Hizballah, it will have far less political and military leverage to negotiate an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan. Lebanon will become Syrian; the Golan will remain Israeli.

Syria had little choice but to reject the proposal, which it did most notably on July 25 through the secretary-general of the Ba'th party, Abdallah al-Ahmar. However, "Lebanon first" put the Syrians in a serious dilemma: by accepting to disarm Hizballah, the Syrians would have deprived themselves of the one military instrument they had against Israel; by refusing to do so, they appeared to be uncompromising and, in the eyes of many in the U.S., to be backing a terrorist organization. In presenting "Lebanon first," the Israelis clearly intended to create this dilemma and to push it to its logical conclusion. Whichever option Syria selects, Israel will either see Hizballah disarmed or will create a situation politically favorable for a military confrontation with Syria.

While the objective of the Netanyahu government is to avoid an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan, it also has a more long-term goal, namely to weaken Syria regionally and eventually force it into a peace settlement with Israel that would be to the advantage of the Israelis. In the past months, both in the U.S. and Israel, there has developed a school of thought that has argued in favor of a more forceful policy towards Syria. Supporters of this view have held that instead of giving up land for peace to arrive at a peace agreement with Syria, Israel should impose a settlement that essentially exchanges "peace for peace."[2] Among the central features of this strategy is the neutralization of Syria's ability to harm Israel in Lebanon. This can be achieved, supporters of this approach argue, by targeting Syrian forces in Lebanon, and even Syrian territory, in retaliation for Hizballah attacks in the south. Syria would effectively be made hostage to the uncertainty it encourages in southern Lebanon.[3]

Within this context, one can explain the "Lebanon first" option as an Israeli effort to provoke a Syrian rejection and create a political justification for a future large-scale military attack in Lebanon. There is today a widespread belief in Lebanon that Israel intends to mount a major military operation within the coming year. Moreover, for the first time there appears to be a consensus that Syrian forces will be caught up in it. The immediate objective would be to arrive at new security arrangements in the south which would protect Israeli soldiers within the occupied 'security zone' and insure that Israeli territory remains off limits to bombardment.[4] From the Israeli perspective, a setback for Syria in Lebanon would weaken Damascus regionally and encourage other Arab states to negotiate independent agreements with Israel.

Syria took the threats seriously enough to redeploy troops in mid-August in apparently defensive positions on the Anti-Lebanon mountain range on the eastern ridges of the Biqa' Valley.[5] The redeployment also appeared to have been planned at least partly in response to domestic developments in Lebanon.[6] The impact of the deployment was particularly noticeable in Beirut.[7] The Syrian move prompted both Israeli and U.S. officials to play down the likelihood of an armed confrontation in Lebanon. However, Syria's message appeared to go beyond merely showing its preparedness for war. It was also apparently designed to raise the ante on Israel at a time of growing Arab dissatisfaction with the Netanyahu government. By showing that war is a possibility, the Syrians were in part playing to Arab solidarity. Indeed, at an Arab League conference in mid-September, Arab foreign ministers threatened that the Arab states would reconsider the positive steps taken on Israel's behalf if the Netanyahu government challenged the principles on which the Arab-Israeli negotiations were based.

There appeared to be another explanation for the Syrian deployment. The geographic distribution of the deployments so close to the Syrian-Lebanese border was designed to indicate both that Syria's military presence in Lebanon is primarily defensive and that in times of crisis Syria will make a priority of defending its territory over that of Lebanon. In sending these messages the Syrian regime sought to underline that "Lebanon first," which promises Syria a larger role in Lebanese affairs, simply missed the point. Syria was in Lebanon for reasons of security. At the same time, the Syrian information minister, Muhammad Salman, stressed that the Lebanese security services were increasingly able to maintain stability in the country.

It is unrealistic to assume, on the basis of troop redeployments away from Beirut, that Syria has loosened its tight grip on Lebanon. The Syrians almost certainly sought to exaggerate the defensive nature of their presence in Lebanon to defuse any consensus which may build around an Israeli attack against their forces. However, the nature of Syrian control over Lebanon appears to have somewhat changed. With a strong government and a pliant parliament in power in Beirut, the Syrians appear to have decided to delegate a certain amount of symbolic power to the Lebanese and allow certain leaders, principally the prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri, and the speaker of parliament, Nabih Birri, to run affairs in the country virtually like a cartel. This will serve the principle purpose of both making the Lebanese appear increasingly autonomous and further reinforce the image that the Syrian and Lebanese positions in the regional peace talks are distinct.

In mid-September, the commander of the pro-Israeli South Lebanon Army (SLA), General Antoine Lahd, declared that unless the Lebanese accepted the proposal, they would face one of two alternatives: continued tension and violence in the south or a new Israeli military operation which would undermine the government's reconstruction efforts. The threat showed that "Lebanon first" remains a viable tool in the hands of the Israelis. In September, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, Robert Pelletreau, declared that the proposal, in his opinion, was not a serious proposal, but rather that it aimed to isolate Syria.[8] Mr. Pelletreau's statement, though correct, seemed to miss the fact that, by demanding the disarmament of Hizballah, the Israelis were taking a position that Washington has long supported. "Lebanon first" was never designed to provoke a resumption of the Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations; it was, and remains, a proposal to justify future military action.

The fighting between Israel and Palestinian forces in the West Bank and Gaza should be a further cause of alarm for Syrian and Lebanese leaders. As the resolution of Palestinian-Israeli differences becomes more of a priority in the Arab world, Israel, and the United States, Syria and Lebanon will find themselves increasingly isolated. If the Netanyahu government had any chance to make territorial concessions on the Golan, they surely must have dissipated when the Palestinians and Israelis began firing at each other. In an interview with the Cable News Network in late September, the Syrian president Hafiz al-Asad, all but admitted that the former Israeli prime minister, Shimon Peres, had agreed to a full withdrawal from the Golan. What was remarkable was that the Syrians should not have immediately accepted the proposal. The fact that they did not must have been a clear sign to the Israelis that Mr. Asad is profoundly reluctant to come to a settlement. It is highly improbable that Mr. Netanyahu, realizing this, will seek to show flexibility towards Syria in the future.

The option of a unilateral Israeli withdrawal, while unlikely, should not entirely be ruled out. Such a move could represent a nightmare scenario for Syria. By announcing prior to their departure that Syria would be held responsible for any attacks against Israeli territory, the Israelis would force Damascus into guaranteeing security in the south, with all that this entails. Syria would then be in the uncomfortable position of holding cards in a game which the opponent has chosen to abandon. A game, incidentally, which appears very far from a peaceful resolution.

Footnotes: [2] Not surprisingly, the formula was first proposed by the former Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir.

[3] See, for example, "The Middle East: No More Treaties," by Richard N. Haass, a former National Security Council official and adviser on Middle East affairs to President George Bush, in Foreign Affairs, September-October, 1996, pp. 53-63.

[4] It should be noted that since April, Israeli territory has not been bombed.

[5] On September 18, amid reports that Syrian troops had been deployed on the northern end of Mount Hermon, an Israeli military spokesman declared that the redeployments were not solely defensive. The magnitude of the redeployment remains unclear. According to Lebanese security sources cited by United Press International and cited in the daily al-Nahar (September 14, 1996), half the Syrian troops in Lebanon were redeployed to Syria, while 20,000 were deployed on the Anti-Lebanon range. The figure seems particularly high given that there are an estimated 35,000-40,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon; if 20,000 were redeployed to the Anti-Lebanon range, that would mean that Syria has no forces deployed anywhere else in the country, which is absurd. According to "foreign military experts" cited by the daily L'Orient-Le Jour (September 18, 1996), between 5,000 and 7,000 Syrian troops "at the most" were redeployed to the Biqa', with a portion of this group taking up positions in the southern BiqaΠValley.

[6] The Syrians appear to have calculated that a partial redeployment outside of Beirut and parts of Mount Lebanon would be useful to build up the credibility of the Lebanese government and army following the parliamentary elections. Most observers noted, however, that in domestic Lebanese terms the deployments were primarily symbolic.

[7] From several high profile locations which, incidentally, are scheduled to be rehabilitated or built up in the government's reconstruction effort.

[8] See al-Safir, September 27, 1996, pp. 1 and 13.