Challenge: Stable Lebanon

The Sandman

Banned
Keep the PLO out of Lebanon. Without its presence, the Israelis don't have any particular reason to invade in the 1980s, the Iranians probably won't bother funding Hezbollah (assuming it even exists without the Israeli invasion) and you lose a volatile and disloyal element that did precisely nothing for Lebanon while they were there.

Of course, this presumably means they go elsewhere. Maybe Syria; Jordan just threw them out, Egypt isn't going to openly tear up the peace agreement and thus permanently lose the Sinai, and Lebanon is presumably having all of the feuding parties forge a temporary alliance to force the PLO to look for a different home.
 

Hashasheen

Banned
Look, I didn't suggest cleaning Shias out of Lebanon just for the sheer fun of doing it. It was just a cruel and inhumane mean to the end OP wanted (stable Lebanon). Exploring possible consequences, as you've said. And let's be truthful here, percentage-wise most cruel Middle Eastern ethnic cleansing doesn't hold candle to what Nazis did in USSR (how does 25% of Belarussian population being killed, not merely cleansed, in 3 years, sound). I do doubt that worst case scenario of Lebanese ethnic cleansing would cause more than single-digit mortality among Shiites, which makes it almost charitable act comparing to Belarus in 1941-1944.
Khalas! lets just forget about it.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Stable Lebanon post 1945; eh... quite hard.
Stable Lebanon post 1919; easy, the French don't go mad and annex many Muslim majority regions to Lebanon. (Nothing against Muslims, but it was the multi- religous, multi- ethnic mess that made the country so unstable).
 
Maybe the key to a stable Lebanon is a political party that appeals across confessional and ethnic lines. The Communist party was not legalized in Lebanon until the late 1960s (by a Druse Interior Minister). If the Communists are legalized earlier and can appeal to working class voters, they could be a kingmaker when it comes to electing a Prime Minister (Sunni Muslim), Speaker (Shiite Muslim) and President (Maronite Christian).
Wow, are you proposing to let Communists control Lebanon in the middle of th Cold War? This is ASB of worst kind. Americans would support every tribal "political party" out there and every illegal militia not to let it happen. Just look at Afghanistan for inspiration. And we're supposed to stabilize Lebanon, not to turn it into Afghanistan.
 

Bearcat

Banned
Like the PLO should have stayed out of Lebanon?

Also would have helped if the French didn't engineer things to benefit the Maronite Phalangists, who were basically fascist in outlook. they would have probably have been the main roadblock to Hash's Canton model in the 1940s and 1950s.

If the Palestinian partition hadn't gone ClusterFuck, Lebanon might have come to a *semi*-civil solution to the demographic problems of the 1970s. The PLO lit the fuze that blew the old system apart, and left largely chaos.
 

skorpion123

Banned

I didn't claim that it is stable. I was speaking comparatively. Also i was speaking about today. it was my mistake not to state that.

Compared to the Gaza strip , western Pakistan and several regions of Iraq , and some of the eastern regions of Turkey and possibly some other regions i am forgetting currently , it is more stable. It seems to me as it's bad days are a part of the past. Comparatively it does fare better than some other regions of the middle east .



I could be completely wrong , but i don't see civil war happening soon. i see Hezbolach and the Lebanon government to control the country enforcing an unspoken truce , where one does not attempt to eliminate the completely the other. The increased presence of UN troops after the war certainly helps a lot in that regard. And it is a stabilizing factor. The fact that Lebanon is not as big as some other regions of the middle east also helps. And i think that 2006 may been a lesson for Hezbollah. And for the rest of the war which would keep a better eye on the area. I may be wrong however and the bad days of Lebanon may not be behind it , since i don't consider my self as an expert on this matter. But i do think my opinion is not completely uninformed.

I actually visited Lebanon ( for a day on a cruise and what i remember the most are the breathtaking stalactites ) and you could see the signs of past war .

Maybe my optimism is unfounded. But currently there are more unstable regions in the middle east , where civil war IS happening.
 
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The real problem is post-1945, no? Even without the PLO aren't the structural problems a problem? Perhaps no Islamic Revolution=no Hizbollah which=different politicization of Shiites. That is, one could imagine a different enough Middle East (where Lebanon still exists; not a No Israel=No Lebanon=No Instability because the UAR somehow conjured itself up, fun ensues etc.) that Lebanese dynamics fundamental change at some point. Other possibilities might include a more puppet-like state (through Syria?) so that like pre-war Iraq or Syria (or for that matter Saudi Arabia), things seem pretty stable.
 

Hashasheen

Banned
Like the PLO should have stayed out of Lebanon?
Exactly! Good that we understand each other.

Also would have helped if the French didn't engineer things to benefit the Maronite Phalangists, who were basically fascist in outlook. they would have probably have been the main roadblock to Hash's Canton model in the 1940s and 1950s.
They're still a buch of fascist cunts actually. Some ran to Israel after the SLA collapsed, but the majority are still there in the Kateb Party I think.

If the Palestinian partition hadn't gone ClusterFuck, Lebanon might have come to a *semi*-civil solution to the demographic problems of the 1970s. The PLO lit the fuze that blew the old system apart, and left largely chaos.
Did you know that the Shias were relatively secular politically before the PLO came in? Then the homegrown Islamists movements cropped up (Amal, Hezballoh, etc...)
 

Hashasheen

Banned
The real problem is post-1945, no? Even without the PLO aren't the structural problems a problem?
See the Canton proposition.

Perhaps no Islamic Revolution=no Hizbollah which=different politicization of Shiites.
Nothing to do with it. The Shia got politically religious after the secular PLO dropped in and started recruiting from the natives. The immense poverty and martyer worshipping also helped.
 
I didn't claim that it is stable. I was speaking comparatively. Also i was speaking about today. it was my mistake not to state that.

I would agree that Lebanon is in better shape than it was, and that there are places which are worse off.

Compared to the Gaza strip , western Pakistan and several regions of Iraq , and some of the eastern regions of Turkey and possibly some other regions i am forgetting currently , it is more stable. It seems to me as it's bad days are a part of the past. Comparatively it does fare better than some other regions of the middle east .

The issue here is that, as I see it, you are confusing stability with security. Lebanon as it stands today is a fairly safe place, at least relative to a few years ago. It is far from the safest place in the middle east, but there are places where I would feel less secure walking down the street. Parts of Lebanon are still fairly insecure, but Beirut is not in a state of anarchy as of this moment.

The thing is, people not shooting at each other does not mean that the state is particularly stable, at least in anything more than the immediate present. Lebanon has experienced a turbulent, violent past, complete with civil war, interventions by at least three different powers, political turmoil, etc... Lebanon today is not as violent as it was a few years ago, but that does not mean that it cannot easily return to that state. In short, while there are some parts of the middle east which may be less safe than lebanon (and some that are less stable), Lebanon is in far greater danger of regressing to its former state than many other states in the region.

by the way, it is rather a stretch to consider Pakistan a part of the middle east.

I could be completely wrong , but i don't see civil war happening soon. i see Hezbolach and the Lebanon government to control the country enforcing an unspoken truce , where one does not attempt to eliminate the completely the other. The increased presence of UN troops after the war certainly helps a lot in that regard. And it is a stabilizing factor. The fact that Lebanon is not as big as some other regions of the middle east also helps. And i think that 2006 may been a lesson for Hezbollah. And for the rest of the war which would keep a better eye on the area. I may be wrong however and the bad days of Lebanon may not be behind it , since i don't consider my self as an expert on this matter. But i do think my opinion is not completely uninformed.

I actually visited Lebanon ( for a day on a cruise and what i remember the most are the breathtaking stalactites ) and you could see the signs of past war .

Maybe my optimism is unfounded. But currently there are more unstable regions in the middle east , where civil war IS happening.

Stability in the middle east is always a relative thing. There are very few states in the region where the collapse or overthrow of the government, or some other sort of chaos, is unlikely in the near future. In my opinion, perhaps the deciding factor is the recent histories of Lebanon and its neighbors. Syria is going to descend into chaos once the ruling regime falls, but they have managed to forestall that for fourty plus years. Jordan is relativly secure, at least for the moment, and has been since they drove out the PLO. Egypt isn't going to be pretty when Mubarak falls, but isn't going to do to badly. Turkey, for all the talk of military coups and the PKK, is a fairly secure state. Frankly, all these nations have histories of either avoiding major political turmoil, or weathering it, that a more fragile state with a more recent history of relative stability cannot match. Lebanon may be calm for the moment, but it is far more likely to implode than many other states in the region.
 
That could also work too - however, the OP presumes an existing Israel.

OK. Let's eat the cake and keep it, somehow.... Israelis figure that the Palestinians would be cheap labour in a few years and dot drive them of? Early peace treaty?
 
But for the OP this is something I've given some thought, and I've wondered about the Swiss Canton model. Why not use that?

The thing the canton people on this thread need to understand is that Lebanon has a total area of a little over 4,000 square miles-less than half the size of the state of Massachusetts. The "canton" solution would produce federal units the size of average US counties, or smaller.

Here's a map of Lebanon showing religious distribution. Does anyone on this thread think this would be a logical basis for political bounderies? (Especially when you consider the mixed areas)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lebanon_sectors_map.jpg
Furthermore, Cantons based on religion would by necessity have to ignore geographic barriers like mountain ranges
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lebanon_2002_CIA_map.jpg

The political system created by Lebanese politicians in the 1940's (the "National Pact") divided the government up among religious lines giving the majority of power to Maronite Christians and shutting out other groups, especially Shia Muslims. It discouraged the formation of cross-religion political parties and served to deepen the religious divisions among Lebanese. I would argue that, ultimately, it was an unsustainable system, and its probably a miracle it survived as long as it did.

That said, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the actions of both the PLO and the Israeli army (as well as the Syrians) greatly contributed to the instability and helped to prolong and deepen the war. So if you want to make a timeline with a stable Lebanon, it has to have two things to be realistic
1. No Israel (and thus no Palestinian problem and no PLO)
2. No religious division of the Lebanese government.
 
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