AHC: Avoid the Lebanese Civil War
- Thread starter Plumber
- Start date
Libanon would have to close its borders aganst the PLO-refuges after the Black septembre 1970.
Agreed, it was the Palestinians and their push to gain rights within Lebanon that sparked the conflict, which ended up igniting previously existing ethnic hatreds. If you can butterfly away Black September (possibly by having the Palestinians overthrow the Hashemites with Ba'athist support), you won't have the same refugee problems.
If the rebellion that became Black September succeeds with significantly more Syrian aid (possibly ASB, I don't know a huge amount in depth on the subject), then you will have a Palestinian state, say called the Palestinian Arab Republic of Transjordan. The new state would likely have the former members of the PLO (i.e, Fatah, DFLP, etc.) as the government and would claim control over all of the land of Israel and Palestine.
In the long run, that would be a blessing for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as it might lead to a settlement where Israel cedes portions of the West Bank (probably excluding Jerusalem) and allows Palestinians in the land permanent residency status with Jordanian citizenship, while the Palestinians give up their claim to the rest of the land, and the two sign a permanent peace treaty.
Ah, I meant after Black September failed. This is why it's a challenge
Haha, all right. What if Syria remains under Salah Jadid's rule, with Assad being exiled from the country in 1968 due to his challenge to Jadid. Jadid then invades Lebanon at the first sign of trouble, occupying the country and setting up a Ba'athist-style multi-ethnic socialist dictatorship, dependent on Syria for survival. That might make the Lebanese more friendly towards Israel, which would obviously back any opposition to Syrian hegemony. Does that make sense?
Yup. Wouldn't Jadid just annex Lebanon though? I mean, it was Syrian until Sykes-Picot, and annexation could easily be spun as an Arab Unity thing I think...
He might, but that could also create more trouble than it was worth, what with Lebanese nationalism creating a massive backlash towards it. A union between the two countries could happen later as a "voluntary" agreement though. If Saddam's rise to power in Iraq is also butterflied away, you could also end up with a union between Iraq and Syria-Lebanon. THAT would be interesting...
Well, lets not get ahead of ourselves. Ba'athist control of Lebanon will see most of the banks based in Lebanon still flee to Bahrain or another Gulf state. While Iraq's oil will help, the country will be large, fractious and full of ethnic conflict, and its state-controlled economy will be relatively inefficient. Now, if Jadid puts a lot of effort into reforming the economy, moving more towards a market socialist model, Syria will have a chance of being a real power, especially by Mideast standards. However, if/when the USSR collapses, its not going to be pretty. Imagine Yugoslavia in the desert, with its neighbours encouraging the violence as opposed to at least pretending to try to halt it.
Agreed, post-Yom Kippur War, the real factors behind the civil war were already in place. Without the Maronites giving up most to all of their power and, say, giving the Palestinians all citizenship, there would still be a civil war.