The struggle of Lebanon to preserve its
national identity and political independence has, in particular, faced the
hegemonic ambition of Syria. Since the 1970s, Damascus has succeeded to
implement an incremental yet systematic policy of occupation over Lebanon
that has transformed the political, social, and economic character of the
country. The Syrian occupation, calling it by its proper appellation, was
consummated in 1989 with the Taif Accord and in 1990 with the removal of
General (and Prime Minister) Michel Aoun from the Ba'abda presidential
palace and with the full conquest of Beirut the capital.
Syrian occupation employed a wide range of
policy means to transform Lebanon into a "client state" and a Syrian
political satellite. By means of military control and political
penetration, media repression and alien colonization, Lebanon has lost its
independence. Under foreign rule within the matrix of a
foreign-manipulated police state, the Lebanese suffer from Arabization and
Syrianization that deny the people, especially the Maronite Christians,
their freedom and dignity. Many have been forced into exile across the
countries and continents of the Lebanese diaspora.
Syria's occupation regime in Lebanon
suggests comparison with the Anschluss of 1936, the Munich capitulation of
1938, and the setting up of the Vichy regime of 1940. Stalinism as a
terror state model is also evocative of Lebanon's pitiful subjugation
about which, however, the international community shows hardly any
concern.
The collapse of a free Lebanon is part of
the expanding sweep of Islamic power and the decay of Christian
civilization in the Middle East. Perhaps, under circumstances of upheaval
in Syria, Israeli military policy, and revivalism among the Lebanese,
foreign occupation of Lebanon may come to an end.