ملخص الجهاز:
Later, with the deepening of anti-Western, anti-Israeli nationalist sentiments in the aftermath of the 1967 defeat, the subsequent growth of the Palestinian nationalist movement in Lebanon, and the increasing immersion of the country in the Arab-Israeli struggle, the severity of the perceived external threat reached crisis proportions, producing divisions so acute and unmanageable that the agreement within the nationally integrated Lebanese elite broke down.
Consequently, military and strategic considerations were the ruling factors in Syria's decision to stay in Lebanon, making the issue of withdrawal more a function of Syrian strategic defense than a Lebanese national requirement.
In fact, the tightening of Syrian control of the PLO in the Biqa' and in the North, the creation of the National Salvation Front as a major anti-government coalition, and the ensuing outbreak of fighting in southern Beirut and the surrounding mountains have all been utilized to enhance Syria's position in Lebanon.
What makes the current Lebanese situation so ominous and so radically different from what has happened before is that the intensity of sectarian violence since the 1975-1976 civil war and the subsequent Syrian intervention and Israeli invasion have presented the country with the ultimate challenge: survival.
S. foreign policy toward the area's basic problems, the lack of an internal settlement of Lebanon's factional struggle, and a continuation of the status quo between Syria and Israel in Lebanon, as the former is determined to stay put and the latter is in no mood to evict it, the partition of the country will be a fait accompli.