The Patience of Job

It was carnage as usual in Beirut last week as Lebanon's 25th cease-fire in a year began with shelling, sniping and an opening-day death toll of 110. Moslem leftists advanced on the Christian-held port quarter of the capital by blowing a passage through already battle-scarred buildings, rather than moving through the streets. The city's international airport, under Moslem control, became a target for the first time when a dozen mortar rounds crashed into a hangar area, wounding seven and setting a Boeing 707 freighter on fire. Hopes were briefly raised when units of Syrian-controlled Palestine Liberation Army troops took up some buffer positions between Christian and Moslem lines, but artillery continued to whine and crash through the city, and the death toll for the week climbed to nearly 500.

The week of bloodshed was climaxed by a hopeful gesture on the political front. Christian Maronite President Suleiman Franjieh, finally acceding to pressures from both Moslems and his own supporters, agreed to sign a constitutional amendment providing for the early election of a new head of state. To virtually all parties, Franjieh's replacement is an essential prerequisite to any political settlement. Indeed, before Franjieh ended his holdout last week, Moslem Leftist Leader Kamal Jumblatt had issued a grim ultimatum: he would form "a revolutionary government" and "liberate" Christian strongholds unless the President left office by May 2.

The intransigence of the Christian rightists had also caused irritation in Damascus. Observed Syrian Information Minister Ahmad Iskander: "If President Assad and Syria did not have the patience of Job, we would have stopped [peacekeeping] efforts long ago." However frustrating the task, Assad is not expected to abandon his efforts in Lebanon. For one thing, he is concerned that more radical Arabs, such as the Iraqis and the Libyans, may make further inroads in a country that Syria would like to keep strictly within its own sphere of influence. An unstable or radical Arab regime in Lebanon would not only increase Syrian defense burdens but quite possibly drag Assad into unwanted new confrontations with Israel.

Assad's most likely course would seem to be a continuation of the cautious moves he has made throughout the crisis--a mix of political pressure and persuasion, backed by a limited troop presence inside Lebanon. Though White House Press Secretary Ron Nessen last week praised Syria for "playing a constructive role" in Lebanon, Damascus was emphatic in putting down suggestions that Assad had received from Washington a "green light" for greater military intervention. As one Syrian official recently put it, "We only want to be the gendarme."

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