Lebanon and Europe: The Foreign Policy of a Penetrated State

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Notes

Even works which focus on the foreign policies of Middle East states tend simply to ignore Lebanon. In the first systematic study of Arab foreign policies – Bahgat Korany and Ali Dessouki (eds.), The Foreign Policies of Arab States (Boulder: Westview Press, 1984) – the editors found not a single ‘systematic study of Lebanon's foreign policy’ (p. 10); even in the period leading up to the volume's second edition in 1991, they note that among the plethora of writings on Lebanon, the country is mostly ‘discussed as a battlefield for various forces, whereas Lebanon itself as well as its foreign policy is not discussed’. (p. 15). This is replicated in the otherwise excellent volume by Raymond Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami (eds.) The Foreign Policies of Middle East States (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002).

Of course, a more aggressive US foreign policy towards Syria by the current US administration may affect Syrian capabilities to control the situation in Lebanon.

See Helena Cobban, The Making of Modern Lebanon (London: Hutchinson, 1985); David Gilmour, Lebanon: The Fractured Country (London: Sphere Books, 1984); and Tabitha Petran, The Struggle over Lebanon (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987).

For an examination of the period leading to the war, see: Farid el Khazen, The Breakdown of the State in Lebanon, 1967–1976 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000); Walid Khalidi, Conflict and Violence in Lebanon: Confrontation in the Middle East (Cambridge, Mass: Centre for International Affairs, Harvard, 1979); Roger Owen, Essays on the Crisis in Lebanon (London: Ithaca Press, 1976).

See in particular, Tom Pierre Najem, Lebanon's Renaissance: The Political Economy of Reconstruction (London: Ithaca Press, 2000); Habib Malik, Between Damascus and Jerusalem: Lebanon and the Middle East Peace Process. (Washington: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1997); Habib Malik, ‘Lebanon in the 1990s: Stability Without Freedom?’ Global Affairs, Part 7 (Winter 1992).

For various analyses of the Ta'if Accord, see: Augustus Richard Norton, ‘Lebanon after Ta'if: Is the Civil War Over?’ Middle East Journal 45, no.3 (1991), pp. 457–73; Augustus Richard Norton and Jillian Schwedler, ‘Swiss Soldiers, Ta'if Clocks, and Early Elections: Toward a Happy Ending in Lebanon?’ Middle East Insight 10, no.1 (1993), pp. 46–7; Habib Malik, ‘Lebanon in the 1990s: Stability without Freedom?’; Najem, Lebanon's Renaissance, pp. 23–49.

A detailed discussion of this can be found in Najem, Lebanon's Renaissance, pp. 23–49.

For detailed studies on Syrian foreign policy, see Patrick Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); Neil Quilliam, Syria and the New World Order (London: Ithaca Press, 1999); and Hinnebusch's chapter in Hinnebusch and Ehteshami (eds.) The Foreign Policies of Middle East States. See also Hinnebusch's contribution in this volume.

However, as noted earlier, an aggressive US policy toward Syria with respect to disarming Hizbollah may force Syria's hand in this regard.

For an analysis of state/resistance dynamics in Lebanon, see: Ilya Harik, ‘Syrian Foreign Policy and State/Resistance Dynamics in Lebanon’. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 20, no. 3 (1997), pp. 249–65.

For a detailed examination of this dynamic, see Najem, Lebanon's Renaissance.

One may also expect to see a growing and increasingly vocal alliance between right wing Maronites and Israelis in order to lobby Washington to pressure Syria on Lebanese and other matters.

Although press censorship in Lebanon exists, especially with respect to Syria's role in the country, the Lebanese press has nevertheless reported on opposition against Syria.

The role of France is of course of particular importance. See Cobban, The making of Modern Lebanon, on the French–Lebanese Treaty of 1936: pp. 66, 69 and 72; and on France's role more generally in the pre-1943 period: pp. 43–75, passim. On France's early role also see Petran, The Struggle over Lebanon, pp. 13–16, 24, 28–33. A good overview of the context of the emergence of modern Lebanon and the French role can be found in William Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, 2nd edition (Boulder: Westview, 2000), pp. 213–24.

For extensive data and analysis on the EU role in the reconstruction of Lebanon, see Najem, Lebanon's Renaissance, Chapter 5.

Ibid.

Ibid., Chapter 6. It should be noted that the Lebanese government under P.M. Hariri did much to advertise opportunities for Europe in Lebanon's reconstruction.

For an official EU view on the Agreement, see the official EU website: http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/lebanon/intro/index.htm. The website also covers other forms of cooperation between the EU and Lebanon.