Air University Review, September-October 1977

Lebanon, Syria, and the Crisis of
Soviet Policy in the Middle East

The Soviet Union's experiences in the Middle East have been characterized by both success and failure beyond expectation. In large part this is because although the U.S.S.R. has aggressively pursued opportunities as they occurred, the initiative has usually remained with the counties of the region. The Soviet have found willing takers for their economic, military, and political aid but have learned that such support does not necessarily increase their control over developments. Consequently, Soviet policies and influence have become entangled in the Middle East’s political and military conflicts, risking involvement of the U.S.S.R. in situations more costly and less certain of payoff than it had bargained for.

Thwarting Moscow’s Objectives

The Middle East has frequently confounded Soviet perceptions and prognostications. This is well illustrated by recalling Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev’s confident assurances at the Congress of U.S.S.R. Trade Unions in March 1972 that our relations with our Arab friends have been as firmly based and all-pervading as now,"¹ in light of the expulsion of Soviet advisers from Egypt in July of that year; the Sinai agreement of September 1975; Egyptian abrogation in March 1976 of the Soviet-Egyptain Friendship Treaty; and the problems with Syria over Lebanon.

The fratricidal nature of intra- and inter-Arab politics accounts in large measure for Moscow’s inability to ensure its control over its would-be clients’ policies and guarantee the stability of its influence. The Soviets have long decried the factionalism within individual Arab countries and the inability of the Arab nations to coalesce around common policies. The failure of the Arab counties, including those with more or less socially and politically progressive regimes, to marshal their united efforts in the anti-Israeli, anti-imperialist struggle has confounded even the U.S.S.R.’s top Middle East experts. As Rostislav Ulyanovsky, Boris Ponomarev’s deputy in the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee, maintained, unity of the anti-imperialist, national-democratic, and progressive forces within the Arab world as progressive forces within the Arab world as a whole is impossible as long as the disunity of these forces within individual Arab countries persists. ²

Moscow and the Lebanese Crisis

The crisis in Labanon posed the latest threat to Moscow’s painstaking efforts to achieve a resolution of the Middle East conflict favorable to itself and its clients. For reasons of both ideology and practicality, the situation in which two Soviet-armed clients, Syria and the Palestime Liberation Organization (PLO), confronted each other in a power struggle was one in which the Soviets could not long remain impartial. The threat of a resurgence of the right in the Arab national liberation movement had become a greater concern to Moscow since the defection of Egypt and the flowing of enormous oil wealth predominantly to conservative regimes. Thus, the consequences of a smashing defeat of the Palestiniams and Lebanese left and the possible realignment of Syria were too serious to be countenanced. Having defined the Lebanese religious community cleavage strictly in class terms, linking the Phalangist party to the "ruling reactionary financial oligarchy," ⁴ Moscow now seemed convinced that it had to act to prevent any further erosion of the left’s position in the Middle East. Thus, when it became apparent that the impact of Syria’s intervention was a de facto alliance with the rightist elements in Lebanon, which themselves were tainted—in the Soviet view—by Israeli support, the Soviets had no alternative but to side openly with the Palestinians and their allies among the Labanese left. Moscow initially tried to apply behind-the-scenes pressure on Syria; gradually, however, as the Soviets themselves came under increasing pressure from Arab leftists to do more than give token verbal assurances of their solidarity, private arm-twisting yielded to public denunciations. Even then, however, the Soviets’ determination to avoid a rupture with Syria if at all possible was evident, for once having enunciated its strong public condemnation, Moscow muted its attack and took an altogether different approach.

The Soviets reached back into Arab history for an acceptable explanation of the root causes of what they euphemistically termed "the present flareup of inter-Arab strife" in Lebanon. ⁵ It is not surprising that vestiges from the feudal relationships of only a few decades ago should remain in the economy, public life, and political thinking of the Arab countries, Soviet commentator Dimitri Volskiy observed. The religious strife is another undesirable legacy from the past which Arab progressive forces consider essential to overcome, but, this takes time, Volskiy acknowledged.

A revealing insight into the depth of Soviet consternation over Lebanon was provided by two small but significant deviations from this analysis. An author in the Soviet journal New Times contended that the Lebanese situation was really a matter of class conflicts that were being masqueraded as religious strife, while a Pravda editorial insisted that no internal contradictions in Lebanon could have led to such destructive consequences were it not for the interference of Israel and "imperialist circles." ⁶ The Israelis, the Soviets maintained, were delighted to be able to point to the Lebanese civil war as proof that followers of different religions could not coexist peacefully within a single state.

When the Syrians invaded Lebanon on May 30, 1976—hours before Premier Aleksei Kosygin arrived in Damascus on an official visit—the Soviets publicly adopted a cautious wait-and-see attitude. The Syrians, Moscow stressed, had given assurances that their intervention was only for the purpose of putting in place a cordon sanitaire between the opposing forces and would be of short duration. While the official Soviet-Syrian communiqué issued June 4 following Kosygin's visit made no direct mention of the presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon, a Pravda article of June 6 attempted to put a good face on the situation, attributing to Syria papers the report that Syrian army units had entered Lebanon and that their presence had "helped ease the situation" in a number of regions of the country.

As the Syrian military presence in Lebanon dragged on and it became increasingly obvious that Syrian forces were engaging the Palestinian commandos and Lebanese leftists in direct combat, the Soviet position became untenably awkward. According to Le Monde, on July 11 Brezhnev sent Damascus a message conveying the Soviets' total exasperation with the Syrians' conduct in Lebanon. "We understand neither your line of conduct nor the aims which you are pursuing in Lebanon," Brezhnev is said to have declared. ⁷ The Syrians were urged to withdraw their troops to facilitate cessation of the conflict. The message concluded with a thinly disguised threat of a rupture in Soviet- Syrian relations if Syria failed to comply.

On the afternoon of July 20 Syrian President Hafez al-Assad delivered a lengthy address to the members of the newly elected Syrian provincial councils, devoted almost in its entirety to a defense of Syria's intervention in Lebanon.⁸ Assad justified Syria's actions as designed to preserve the political equilibrium and restore stability in Lebanon. He insisted that the intervention was motivated by the dual necessities of foiling Israeli-supported plans to partition Lebanon and preserving the Palestine resistance movement in Lebanon. Ostensibly endorsing the Soviets' opposition to partition because it would vitiate the Arab's position on the viability of a democratic secular state and acquit Israel of the charges of racism,⁹ Assad indirectly revealed concern of another order. The Syrian president expressed the fear that partition as a result of the Lebanese civil war would spawn a state comprised of rancorous and embittered people, whose history of oppression would lead them to reject pan-Arab and Islamic values; in other words, a state that would present fertile ground for Marxism. More to the point, Assad charged that the Palestine resistance was being manipulated by forces inside Lebanon and in the international arena, which were seeking to exploit it for their own tactical and strategic objectives. The Palestine resistance was, therefore, unwittingly fighting to accomplish the goals of others, against the true aims and interests of the Palestinian people.

Although he detailed even previously confidential inter-Arab overtures to end the Lebanese crisis, Assad did not mention the Soviet note, the existence of which was by then becoming known from other Sources. Later he was to express his astonishment that the Soviets had permitted the note to become public.¹⁰ Assad's rebuff of the Soviet démarche was no less emphatic, however, for having been made by indirection. Ostensibly rejecting the right of any Palestinian Arab to demand Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon, he declared in the strongest language that only the constitutional authorities of Lebanon had the right to make such a request. Moreover, he added darkly, the demand for Syria's evacuation was being made "for the sake of everything other than" the liberation of Palestine.

Moscow and Damascus

The Syrian spurning of the Soviet request ultimately forced Moscow to call openly for the withdrawal of Syrian troops and their replacement, as urged by the Arab League, by inter-Arab security forces. The Syrians were implored to support their "natural allies," the leftists and Palestinians. Their intervention, the Soviets charged, was playing into the hands of the "imperialists and Zionists," who were seeking to prolong the Lebanese conflict in order to undermine the Arab national-liberation movement and divert the Arabs from their main task, the struggle against Israel. As a Radio Moscow commentator ruefully asserted, the "imperialists and Zionists" had succeeded in obtaining what they had only dreamed of in the past: a deep division in the Arabs' ranks and distraction of their efforts from the struggle against Israeli aggression and occupation.¹¹ In the words of an important Soviet government policy statement, to which repeated reference has been made since its issuance April 28, 1976, "obvious attempts are being made to strike a blow at the forces of the Palestine resistance movement and draw the Arabs into a fratricidal war. This is the real meaning of the events in Lebanon."¹²

The Soviet Union's limited leverage over Syria in the Lebanese debacle points up the extent to which its policy options have been circumscribed in the Middle East. After the costly injury to Soviet prestige and influence inflicted by the Egyptian rupture, Moscow could not afford a permanent breach with its Syrian client. The extent of the Syrians' freedom of maneuver was reflected in President Hafez al-Assad's rejection of a direct appeal from Brezhnev on September 11 for withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, despite a threatened reduction in Soviet military and technical aid.

In a revealing interview with a Beirut journal published on October 1, President Assad first gave vent publicly to his reaction to the Soviet initiatives, which had already been communicated in private.¹³ Assad stated that he regarded Brezhnev's request for a Syrian withdrawal simply as an expression of a point of view on a matter which was not subject to compromise because it concerned Syria's fundamental national interests and principles. He repeated his justifications of Syria's action, adding that he had hoped Syria's "Soviet friends" would understand and support its position. In reply to the assertion of the questioner—who clearly was not out of sympathy with the Syrian presence in Lebanon--that Moscow undoubtedly felt justified in chastising Assad for preventing the establishment of a leftist state in Lebanon, Assad retorted: "If the Soviet Union has the right to reproach us, then we have the right to ask the Palestinian resistance not to become a tool in the scheme that can lead only to partitioning Lebanon." Finally, Assad acknowledged receipt and rejection of the second Soviet message and confirmed the questioner's depiction of both messages as being based on the premise that Syrian intervention was "robbing nationalist forces of the chance to establish a progressive regime in Lebanon. "¹⁴

Frustrated by their failure to get their position accepted by their Syrian ally, the Soviets sought to rally the Arabs around their shared hostility to Israel by assigning Israel a large share of responsibility for the Lebanese debacle. Soviet spokesmen indicated a genuine concern that the negative impact on Arab unity and hence ability to prosecute the anti-imperialist struggle would be long lasting. They accused Israel of supplying weapons, training Lebanese Christian soldiers on its territory, instituting a naval blockade against the Palestinian-held Lebanese ports of Tyre and Sidon, and, under the terms of a secret agreement, allowing Phalangist troops to infiltrate southern Lebanon from Israel. Furthermore, they charged that Israeli troops had invaded Lebanon with the eventual aim of conquering the southern part of the country. Moscow denounced any attempt to partition Lebanon as creating "a new imperialist state, a new Israel."¹⁵ Such a partition, the Kremlin feared, would further erode the Soviet position in the region.

In an obvious exercise of rubbing salt into old wounds, the Soviets also laid the blame for the Lebanese disaster at Egyptian President Sadat's doorstep. They charged that the Lebanese events were the "worst consequences" of the Sinai agreement, which they tarred with the epithet of having stabbed the Palestinian Arab people in the back.¹⁶ A Pravda article claimed that the U.S.-Israeli policy of "partial steps" and the Sinai agreement had been the "detonator" for the flare-up of the Lebanese crisis.¹⁷ According to the Soviets, the Sinai agreement had permitted Israel, the "imperialists" and Arab reaction to fan the flames of civil war in Lebanon, against the unified Arab front, and to liquidate the Palestine resistance movement. Because the Palestine resistance was the "vanguard of the Arab national-liberation movement," the Soviets asserted, the brunt of the "imperialists' "attacks were directed against it.¹⁸ Writing in the CPSU journal Kommunist, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko exhorted the warring factions to resolve their differences in order to permit the resumption of the main business at hand, the anti-Israeli (and, more important from the Soviet point of view, the anti-imperialist) struggle.¹⁹

Moscow was apparently hopeful that the election of Elias Sarkis might be a first step toward satisfactory resolution of the Lebanese crisis. TASS reported that political circles in Beirut believed that Sarkis commanded sufficiently broad-based support to enable him to find a solution to the crisis acceptable to all. The intensification of the Syrian-rightist Christian offensive against the Lebanese left and the Palestinians was therefore said to have placed Sarkis in a difficult position and to have torpedoed the political talks he had undertaken with a view to settling the crisis. ²⁰ Syria was directly accused of aiding the rightists, who themselves were said to be in league with "aggressive NATO quarters" and Israel. The Soviets openly scoffed at Syria's official explanation that its aim was to help stop the fighting and normalize the political situation. The entry of the Syrian troops into Lebanon had not helped terminate hostilities, Moscow bluntly asserted, but in fact had exacerbated them.²¹

Obviously, the Soviets were anxious to avoid a repetition in Lebanon of a Sinai-type dénouement that would further erode their influence in the region. Moscow emphatically asserted its stake in Lebanon in an official response to hints of possible Western military intervention there. "The Soviet Union is forced to declare in this connection," the TASS statement read, "that the Middle East is much closer to the Soviet Union than to those who issue such threats and, in any case, the Soviet Union is not less interested in how the situation in Lebanon and around it develops and continues to develop. Nobody should lose sight of this."²²

The Soviets' consistent message to the Arabs was that inter-Arab agreement on Lebanon was a necessary precondition to an overall Middle East settlement. Thus, in early September Moscow declared that the Lebanese crisis, which contained all the contradictions in the Middle East, had to be "liquidated" before it would be possible to resolve the fundamental issue: elimination of the consequences of the 1967 Israeli aggression. The Soviet formula called for a political solution based on a reasonable compromise by the Lebanese themselves without outside pressure, which would preserve the national independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Lebanon. The settlement, furthermore, should not be achieved at the expense of the Palestinians' rights or without taking into consideration the lawful demands of the Lebanese national patriotic forces. ²³

A New Soviet Approach

Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko's September 28 speech to the U.N. General Assembly restated his country's basic positions on Lebanon and the Middle East, except for the intriguing suggestion that a reconvened Geneva Conference should examine" all the main questions of a Near East settlement." ²⁴ Notably absent from Gromyko's speech was any direct criticism of Syria. On the other hand, Gromyko continued the Kremlin practice of verbally hedging on the PLO, by using the term "Arab people of Palestine" instead of referring to the PLO by name; on other occasions the Soviets have referred generically to the "Palestine resistance movement."

While at the U.N., Gromyko also met with PLO Executive Committee member Faruq al-Qaddumi to discuss the Lebanese situation. According to TASS, Gromyko stressed the Soviet Union's full support for the Palestinian Arabs' struggle for "their inalienable rights, including the right to set up their own state."²⁵ The indication is that in emphasizing the precise parameters of the U.S.S.R.'s support while stressing its desire for a comprehensive settlement of the Middle East problems within the Geneva context, Gromyko may have been letting the Palestinians know that the Soviet Union considered that only further damage could be done to their central cause by delaying a return to the Geneva conference table while divisive but tangential issues were pursued in Lebanon.²⁶ The TASS notation that the conversation took place in a "friendly atmosphere" connotes a less than total identity of views. 

On October 1, Moscow issued a formal proposal calling for a reconvening of the Geneva Peace Conference as early as October or November, before prior resolution of the Lebanese conflict. ²⁷ Declaring that the Middle East situation was "highly unsound and unstable" and that a new military explosion could erupt there at any moment, the Kremlin now asserted that only an overall Middle East settlement could restore peace to the Middle East. Moreover, it explicitly linked the problem of Lebanon to such a solution. Perhaps the Soviets hoped they could cajole the Syrians with the prospect of gains at the conference table. In any event, the Kremlin statement sharply admonished that only those who were striving to preserve the existing situation in the Middle East for the sake of their own narrow purposes could oppose achievement of a broad political settlement.

In addition to the obvious motivation of trying to steal a march on Secretary of State Kissinger, who the week before in his address to the U.N. General Assembly had indicated United States support for a reconvening of the Geneva Peace Conference, the Soviets may have been responding to their' own growing apprehensions that once again they were becoming captive of events in the Middle East. Caught between their commitments to the Syrians on the one hand and the Palestinians on the other, plus the ever-present necessity of burnishing their revolutionary credentials, the Soviets saw their policy options rapidly diminishing. The very day the Soviets announced their new proposal, in fact, the Central Political Council of the national and progressive parties and forces in Lebanon publicly called for additional tangible Soviet support. Invoking the "strategic solidarity" existing between the worldwide national liberation movement and the Soviet-led Socialist camp, it appealed to "world progressive public opinion" to go beyond the role of "spectator" and grant effective material support to the struggle against the "imperialist plot" carried out by Syrian forces. ²⁸

Gambling with High Stakes

In calling for a reconvening of the Geneva Peace Conference at a time when its own fortunes in the Middle East had reached a post-1967 nadir, the Soviet Union gambled that it would be better able to stem the erosion of its prestige and exert more influence on the outcome of the settlement through its role as cochairman than by a continuation of its unsuccessful individual diplomatic efforts. Lebanon for the Soviets was a hopeless quagmire in which its entire Middle East strategy risked being submerged. At one stroke, Moscow seemed to be trying to get its Middle East cart back on track, by virtually forcing the Arabs to put aside their disagreement over Lebanon and reunite in a solid anti-Israeli front. It is only on this basis, the Soviets believe, that their own objective of permanently altering the regional correlation of forces in their favor can be achieved.

For Syria, too, the Lebanon operation represented a dangerous gamble. Pulled in opposing directions by pressure to join an alliance of "radical" Arab states including Libya, Iraq, and Algeria (reported urged by Kosygin during his Damascus visit in June ²⁹) or to mend its fences with such "conservative" states as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan, Syria had somehow to convince critics (both domestic and within the Arab world) of the justice of its course in Lebanon. Economic pressure resulting from a suspension of Saudi Arabian aid over Syria's feud, with Egypt and Iraq's suspension of oil deliveries threatened to undermine Assad's regime from both within and without, while a permanent break with the Soviet Union would result in a cutoff of the arms and technical assistance essential to back up Syria's ambitions both in the Arab world and toward Israel.

Clearly, Syria's immediate goal in invading Lebanon had been to prevent the: creation of a radical Lebanese-Palestinian state in the volatile region on Israel's northern flank and thereby to reduce the chances of being dragged into a war with Israel contrary to Syria's interests by forces over which Syria had little or no control. The ideal outcome for Syria was a unified Lebanon dependent on Syria for maintaining internal order and external security and a chastened PLO whose presence in Lebanon would be governed by a more restrictive application of the 1969 Cairo accords. Syria's goals also included improved relations with Egypt and restoration of some balance in its relations between East and West. These moves would facilitate obtaining more economic assistance from both the United States and the conservative oil states and possibly bring closer the ultimate goal of a negotiated return of Israeli-occupied Syrian territory.

PERHAPS THE most significant effect of the Lebanese civil war outside Lebanon itself was the way it engendered a realignment of forces first within the Arab world and second between the Arabs and the protagonists of East and West. Syria, whose reputation as champion of Arab nationalism and socialism had been enhanced both within the Arab world and in Moscow as a result of its strident denunciation of Egypt's unilateral acceptance of the Sinai agreement with Israel, suddenly became politically isolated from its former allies, while gaining the support of such an unlikely colleague as Jordan's King Hussein. Egypt, perhaps seizing on an opportunity to regain lost standing, assumed the role of one of Syria's most vociferous critics and a prime mover in seeking inter-Arab resolution of the crisis, while Libya emerged as Moscow's latest (and certainly most unpredictable) trump in the Middle East. The war even provided an opportunity for France to fulfill its ambition of exercising an independent diplomatic role. Lebanon also, of course, dramatically highlighted the limits of the Kremlin's ability either to control its Middle Eastern clients or effect crucial gains on their behalf. Moscow knows that no matter how much the Arabs may denounce the Sinai agreement, they recognize that the only substantial recovery of territory lost to Israel has occurred through United States mediation. The Soviets, therefore, urgently had to demonstrate to their Arab clients that they, too, can "deliver." This explains the Soviets' October 1 move to place the Middle East problem before what they hoped would be a more hospitable venue. As cochairman of the Geneva Conference they might reasonably expect to regain the diplomatic initiative that the preceding events had denied them.

Coral Gables, Florida

Notes

1. L. I. Brezhnev, "Decisions of the 24th CPSU Congress, A Program of Action for the Soviet Trade Unions," March 20, 1972, in L. I. Brezhnev, On the Policy of the Soviet Union and the International Situation, prepared by the Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co., 1973), p. 175.

2. R. Ulyanovsky, Socialism and the Newly Independent Nations (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), p. 139.

3. Kerim Mroue, "The Arab National-Liberation Movement," World Marxist Review, vol. 16, no. 2, 1973.

4. See Nadim Abdel-Samad, Political Bureau member and Central Committee Secretary of the Lebanese Communist Party, "Tension Persists: Political Events in Lebanon," World Marxist Review, vol. 18, no. 9, September 1975. See also John K. Cooley, "The Shifting Sands of Arab Communism," Problems of Communism, March-April 1975, pp. 22-42; Cooley notes that in a typically Lebanese paradox one of the country's leading leftists, Kamal Jumblatt, was also one of the largest landowners. It was feared that Jumblatt's assassination in March 1977 might shatter the fragile peace that had ended the nineteen-month civil war the previous November.

5. D. Volsky, "The Lebanese Drama and the Middle East," New Times, no. 29, July 1976.

6. L. Volnov, "The Tragedy and Courage of Tel al-Zaatar," New Times, no. 32, July 1976; and "Stable Peace for the Near East," Pravda, July 27, 1976.

7. Message from Leonid Brezhnev to the Syrian leaders, Le Monde, July 20, 1976.

8. Damascus Domestic Service, July 20, 1976.

9. Although not all Arabs believe in the slogan of the democratic secular state, Assad asserted, it serves the Arab cause far better than the previous vow to "throw the Jews into the sea," which rendered "great service" to Israel.

10. See interview by Salim al-Lozi with President Assad in Events (Beirut), vol. 1, no. 1, October 1, 1976.

11. Farid Seyful-Mulyukov, Commentary in English to Africa, Radio Moscow, August 27, 1976.

12. TASS, April 28, 1976.

13. Interview, Events, October 1, 1976. In the interview Assad dented that he had made a secret trip to the U.S.S.R. prior to delivering his July 20 speech.

14. Ibid.

15. Farid Seyful-Mulyukov, Moscow Broadcast in English to Africa, August 27, 1976. 

16. Moscow Broadcasts in Arabic to the Arab World, September 19, 1976.

17. Yu. Glukhov, "Tel Aviv's Undeclared War," Pravda, September 9, 1976.

18. Moscow Broadcast in Arabic to the Arab World, September 9,1976. The authoritative Pravda "Observer" on August 30 also referred to the "Palestine resistance movement and the Lebanese national-patriotic forces" as the vanguard of the Arab national-liberation movement.

19. Kommunist, no. 14, October 1976.

20. TASS, September 22 and 29, 1976.

21. Leonid Biryuzov, "The Tragedy and Hopes of Lebanon," New Times, no. 36, September 1976. The Soviets also added to the litany of "imperialist" objectives in Lebanon the weakening of Syria itself; see Y. Tyunkov, "Seventeen Months of Bloodshed," New Times, no. 38, September 1976.

22. TASS Statement in English, June 9, 1976.

23. "A Way Out of the Lebanese Impasse Must Be Found," Pravda, September 8, 1976.

24. Pravda, September 29, 1976; emphasis added.

25. TASS, October 3, 1976.

26. The feeling that the PLO's involvement in the Lebanese civil war had severely undermined the Palestinian cause was shared by some Palestinian officials. As the President of the Damascus-based Palestinian National Council, Khalid Fahum, remarked: "Now we have all the support of the Communist parties in Europe, in France, in Italy. But is this helping us? No." Reported by James F. Clarity in the New York Time" September 29, 1976.

27. "Proposal from the Soviet Union on a Settlement in the Middle East and on the Geneva Peace Conference," TASS in English, October 1, 1976.

28. Beirut Domestic Service (Procoup radio), October 1,1976. Lebanese leftist leader Kamal Jumblatt also called for more decisive Soviet action, including a public Soviet demand for Syrian withdrawal and defiance of the blockade against Sidon and Tyre; see Le Monde, October 10-11, 1976. The head of the PLO office in Belgrade sharply criticized the Soviet's Geneva initiative, saying it indicated Moscow's continued support of Syria as its last base in the Arab world; he threatened that a PLO defeat in Lebanon would lead to the closure of all Soviet embassies in the Arab countries. Cairo MENA in Arabic, October 12, 1976.

29. See Events interview, October 1, 1976.

The day may dawn when fair play, love for one's fellow men, respect for justice and freedom, will enable tormented generations to march forth serene and triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell. Meanwhile, never Flinch, never weary, never despair.

Winston Churchill
Parliamentary Debates
March 1, 1955

Annette E. Stiefbold (M.A., Columbia University; Certified d'Etudes Politiques, University of Paris) is a Research Instructor at the Center for Advanced International Studies, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida. Among her publications are two books in the CAIS monograph series: Convergence of Communism and Capitalism: the Soviet View (coauthored with Leon Gouré, Foy D. Kohler, and Richard Soll) and The Uncertain Alliance: The Catholic Church and Labor in Latin America (coauthored with Alexis U. Florida). Her current work focuses on the role of military power in Soviet policy and Soviet perceptions of U.S. strategic doctrine.

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