US Military Strategy in 1996 Lebanon Conflict Aimed to Pressure Syria via Civilian Displacement

Syria. We could halt at that stage, in the unlikely event Hizbollah showed signs of de-escalation. But if it didn’t, the air strikes would intensify. The aim was not target the nearly 250,000 Lebanese civilians who lived in the immediate border area. It was to use our attacks, along with leaflet drops and radio messages, to encourage them to flee north. My assessment was that this would bring pressure on the Lebanese government and, through the Lebanese, on the real power in Lebanon, the Syrians. I doubted Damascus would respond directly by telling Hizbollah to cease fire. I did believe they’d be ready to engage with American efforts to stop the fighting, and that Rabin and the government could then secure terms we were prepared to accept. On July 25, we began our heaviest air strikes since 1982. Far from producing a sign of a climb-down by Hizbollah, it responded with intensified rocket fire. We escalated over the following 24 hours, but still with no indication of any change from Hizbollah. So as planned, we expanded our bombing to wider areas of south Lebanon. Sadly, some Lebanese civilians were killed, which I’m sure was a much greater cause of concern to us than to Hizbollah. Thankfully, however, the majority fled north. In south Lebanon, this meant that our jets and artillery had much greater freedom of operation against Hizbollah, which had now lost its human shields. In Beirut, a government suddenly overwhelmed with the need to provide shelter for the large number of refugees from the fighting did press Syrian President Assad to help bring it to an end. Critically, the new Clinton Administration, especially Secretary of State Warren Christopher, reinforced that message. Our military operation lasted just a week. It did not end Hizbollah attacks on Israeli troops in the security zone, something I think even most Israelis were coming to realize was impossible as long as our soldiers remained in Lebanon. But the rocket attacks on northern Israel did stop, with very few exceptions, for a period that lasted nearly two years. The intifada, however, had not stopped. Nor, as I knew from my increasingly frequent meetings with Rabin, had the search for a way both to control the violence, and seek out any realistic prospect of a political path to resolving our conflict with our Arab neighbors. 252 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028100