On April 13, 1975 – the official date for the start of the Civil War in Lebanon – the debate was focused on two issues: the political system and the confrontation with Israel. Some in the opposition, which was at the time represented by what used to be called Islamic and national forces, were complaining of the “monopoly" of the Maronites on the decision-making process and declaring their wish to put an end to “constitutional privileges" to the benefit of sectarian participation in government. Others in the opposition declared that the capitalist system back then, which was also allied with the West, was by its very nature unable to take the decision to fight against Israel. This debate has not yet been settled, after decades of fighting, dialogue and agreements, as well as regional and international political and military interference, including the invasion by Israeli forces of the Lebanese capital. The debate has taken on many names, but its content has always been the same. Thus, instead of Maronite “monopoly" through the former constitution, today there is Shiite “hegemony", through weapons, funds, and influence provided by the former Syrian tutelage. And instead of demanding support for Palestinian forces, who sought “liberation" from South Lebanon, there is today the formula of “the army, the people and the resistance". The late Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad was early to pick up on the profound connection between the two issues of the political system and the confrontation with Israel. He quickly realized that the political system's legitimacy would not be complete without the slogan of confrontation. He also realized that the stability of such a political system would be based on not crossing the red line of Israeli security. Indeed, he paved the way, when he was Minister of Defense, for his “corrective movement" through the eruption of the crisis of the connection between the political system and the resistance in Jordan. Indeed, he had refrained from protecting the forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) who were being attacked by Jordanian artillery, knowing that Jordan represented a red line for both the Americans and the Israelis, but had at the same time allowed for Palestinian forces to move to Lebanon, where he could keep them in check by relying on that same formula. It is noteworthy that the Lebanese arena erupted after the “corrective movement", justified by the tendency to take risks of the former Baathist rule and by the necessity of opening up to the Arab moderates. And it became even more heated after the October War (Yom Kippur War), which represented the cornerstone of the “legitimacy" of the new Baathist regime, in which sectarian dominance gradually began to appear. When he was Minister of Defense, Hafez Al-Assad thwarted attempts to drive Syria to unanticipated adventures that would turn the domestic situation in Syria upside down and do away with the Baath regime, including the minister himself. And when he became the actual ruler, he worked on making of his regime a regional necessity. Lebanon at the time represented the ideal testing ground for such a necessity – through its sectarian divisions on the one hand, and its open front with Israel on the other. And while the Syrian regime was gradually shifting from a state of institutions to one of autocratic rule, intelligence services and the monopoly of decision-making within a sectarian minority, restoring the role of the state of institutions was being prevented in Lebanon through the promotion of sectarian solutions, as appeared at every milestone of the Lebanese crisis, especially after the Taif Agreement, in which necessity took the name of political and military tutelage, with what this would entail in terms of subjecting the Lebanese arena as a whole. Lebanon's April 13 failed to emerge from civil infighting and the sectarian tendency towards hegemony and monopoly, as a result of the need by the regime of the corrective movement for such a testing ground. And it appears that emerging from it is more than ever before connected to the fate of the Syrian regime, which is making use of all kinds of weapons of death in order to ward off demands to put an end to sectarian hegemony.
