Pomp and New Circumstances

By George Russell

Gemayel's visit to Damascus signals a Syrian fait accompli

Red carpets were rolled out lavishly in Damascus last week in a ceremony that marked both a welcome for the guest and a triumph for the host. On the tarmac of the city's international airport, Syrian President Hafez Assad waited patiently as a chartered executive jet glided to a halt and delivered his reluctant visitor, Lebanese President Amin Gemayel. The two men embraced, then repaired to a dais while ranks of Syrian troops passed in review and field guns barked out a 21-gun salute. The solicitous display spoke volumes about the intricacies of politics in the Middle East. Having achieved almost everything he desired in Lebanon, Assad was now making an exquisite show of courtesy and support for the Christian Maronite leader whose U.S.-backed government the Syrian President had demolished.

Assad could well afford the gesture. After months of chaos and bloodshed, Syria was in a position to exercise de facto suzerainty over much of Lebanon. In contrast, the Reagan Administration, its Marine contingent withdrawn to the safety of the U.S. flotilla off the shores of Beirut, was reduced to the role of passive spectator.

During Gemayel's two-day visit to Damascus--remarkably, his first since taking power 17 months ago--he and Assad worked out the conditions of the new Syrian hegemony. Chief among their topics was how best to abrogate the May 17 security agreement between Israel and Lebanon, a condition to which Gemayel had agreed in principle before leaving for Damascus. In return Assad was prepared to support Gemayel's continuation in office, albeit within a restructured Lebanese political system that would give more power to the Druze and Shi'ite Muslim opposition groups that have been wreaking havoc in the streets of Beirut.

After four meetings totaling more than seven hours, a Syrian spokesman described the sessions between Assad and Gemayel as "positive and fruitful." Tangible results, he said, would occur "within the next few days." The first fruit of the talks, however, was supposed to be a general cease-fire in Lebanon. At week's end that had not yet been achieved, even though Assad was exerting considerable pressure on Gemayel's chief opponents in Lebanon, Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt and Nabih Berri, head of the Shi'ite Amal militia. By Saturday, however, Jumblatt and Berri had dropped their demand for Gemayel's resignation.

The next result of the Assad-Gemayel talks will be the attempted resuscitation of the moribund Geneva negotiations among all Lebanese factions over the formation of a government of national unity. A spokesman for Gemayel predicted that the conference would begin by the end of this week, "if not sooner." Opposition Leaders Jumblatt and Berri would most likely be invited to join the new government, which Syria has promised to help by extending its rule to parts of Lebanon currently outside Gemayel's control.

Once--and if--a unity government is formed, the Syrians have promised to hold detailed discussions with it over the withdrawal of 62,000 Syrian troops from Lebanese territory. Assad remains insistent, however, that full Syrian withdrawal will not take place until Israel removes its 22,000 troops from southern Lebanon.

Nevertheless, on the sensitive issue of the Lebanese-Israeli accord, Assad showed a pragmatic sense of restraint.

Said a Lebanese spokesman: "No decision on abrogation was taken in Damascus."

Instead, Assad and Gemayel agreed on further consultations with both the U.S.

and Israel before resumption of the Geneva talks. That non-decision was taken to mean that before the Lebanese-Israeli agreement was declared null and void, Syria and Lebanon would offer Israel firm guarantees against the infiltration of southern Lebanon by guerrillas of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

There was little that the other actors involved in the Lebanese drama could do but watch and hope. In Jerusalem, officials unhappily accepted the fact that their agreement with the Gemayel government was a dead letter. They also paid an additional price for the continuing Israeli occupation: early in the week, two Israeli soldiers were killed near the Shi'ite Muslim village of Arab Salmi, bringing the total number of Israeli fatalities in Lebanon to 571. Within shattered Beirut, the 1,250 French troops who are all that remain of the four-nation Multi-National Force were told that their departure was probably imminent after the Soviet Union vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for their replacement by a U.N peace-keeping force. In an austere communique following the Soviet veto, the government of President Franc,ois Mitterrand declared that "France cannot alone bear the responsibility of the international community in Lebanon."

For its part, the U.S. was left literally bobbing at sea by the passage of events. Days after the last of the U.S. Marine contingent from Beirut International Airport had clambered aboard American vessels off shore, the frigate W.S. Sims lobbed a barrage of 20 naval shells onto Lebanese territory. The fire apparently was ordered to protect a small contingent of U.S. gunnery spotters working alongside Gemayel's Lebanese Army. Then the guns fell silent.

In Washington, Reagan Administration officials claimed to be turning their attention back to the broader issue of a comprehensive peace settlement in the Middle East, a course of action that conveniently justified a course of inaction in Lebanon. On Capitol Hill, Secretary of State George Shultz nonetheless assured a Senate committee that once political reconciliation was under way in the shattered country, "we will be prepared to provide appropriate advice and support for the Lebanese armed forces."

The last word on the Administration's ill-considered Lebanon policy seemed to come from Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. On a lightning visit to Lebanon, he commiserated with the frustrated Marines aboard their ships and declared that the U.S. troops had been given "one of the toughest and most miserable tasks that was ever assigned."

Without political and diplomatic agreement on a Lebanese settlement, Weinberger said, withdrawal was the only logical course of action. The Marines, no longer part of either the problem or the solution, could only agree . -- By George Russell.

Reported by John Borrell/Beirut, with other bureaus

With reporting by John Borrell