Time for Talk

Arguing Lebanon's future

Peace and quiet, Lebanese-style, descended on the shattered remnants of Beirut last week. On most days, only occasional bursts of machine-gun fire flew across the "green line" separating the Christian eastern part of the city from the predominantly Muslim west. Late in the week, heavier machine-gun and rocket duels erupted between Christian and Muslim militiamen, killing two people and wounding at least 27 others. But in the early stages of the uneasy Pax Syriana imposed two weeks ago by Syrian President Hafez Assad, the main participants in the Lebanese tragedy were trying to shift most of their efforts from shooting to squabbling over the political future of their battered nation. Even under Assad's tutelage, the question was whether the Lebanese could reach any sort of agreement that will not result in further fragmentation of the country.

A meeting of the various Lebanese factions is scheduled to take up that issue this week in Lausanne, Switzerland. As a prelude to the conference, the rump government of Lebanese President Amin Gemayel last week did the expected by formally canceling its May 17 security agreement with Israel. But Gemayel's Druze and Muslim opponents in Lebanon will be asking for far more than that in Lausanne. They intend to demand a fundamental restructuring of the Christian-dominated power-sharing arrangement on which Lebanese politics have been based since 1943.

Gemayel's chief military opponents, Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt and Nabih Berri, the head of the Shi'ite Amal militia, plan to seek a new electoral system for Lebanon's moribund 99-member parliament, involving nationwide proportional representation. If accepted, the arrangement would strongly favor the country's Muslims, who make up 50% to 60% of the Lebanese population. In addition, Jumblatt and Berri are determined to end the longstanding Christian Maronite domination of the upper reaches of the Lebanese civil service and army.

Reacting to those anticipated changes, a growing number of Maronites favor the outright division of Lebanon into religious and political enclaves. A spokesman for the Christians' powerful Lebanese Forces militia went so far last week as to threaten to ignore the results of the Lausanne meeting if they were deemed unsatisfactory. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, another kind of territorial split for Lebanon was under consideration. By the terms of the May 17 agreement, Israel was bound to withdraw its 22,000 troops from southern Lebanon provided that Syria, with 62,000 troops on Lebanese soil, did likewise. Now the Israeli Cabinet is apparently considering withdrawal of the troops only from their current defensive line at the Awali River to new positions on the Zahrani River, about seven miles to the south.

In Washington, Secretary of State George Shultz continued to insist before Congress that the U.S. was willing to lend a hand in achieving a political solution in Lebanon. While Shultz spoke, the number of U.S. warships stationed off the shores of Beirut was dwindling from about 20 to twelve. In tacit recognition of their impotence, Shultz and various Congressmen traded barbs over the American policy failure in Lebanon, contributing heat but no light to that country's future.

Finally, in the Syrian capital of Damascus, an additional cause for speculation emerged as President Assad, who is known to be ailing, abruptly shuffled his entire 37-member Cabinet. Reagan Administration experts interpreted the move as no more than a restatement of Assad's domestic authority. Overseeing the rearrangement of the political chessboard in Lebanon could prove to be a greater test of the Syrian leader's mettle.