Lebanon Invasion: Subtle like a Bulldozer

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Whatever the outcome, it will surely be remembered as his war: no other Middle East conflict had so unmistakably borne the stamp of one man. He had been spoiling for the fight against the Palestine Liberation Organization since he became Defense Minister last August. He had intensively lobbied Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his Cabinet to approve it. He aggressively directed every logistical detail of it. And, in the end, Ariel ("Arik") Sharon, 54, will reap the rewards, or the blame, for the success or failure of the enterprise. The stakes were high: Sharon hopes to become Prime Minister of Israel one day. But brinkmanship has always been his game. As one veteran Israeli politician observed last week, "He may just pull it off. If he does, it will make him a hero."

Sharon's strategic conduct of the Israeli invasion won praise from military officials. After the Israeli air force successfully destroyed the Syrian missiles that had been deployed in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley for more than a year, some of his former opponents in the defense echelon quickly joined Sharon's camp. Said one general: "There is nobody right now who is ready to oppose him or question his orders. He's got the upper hand." Sharon's unchallenged military authority, however, worried some political leaders. Said a veteran observer of the Israeli military scene: "The generals are afraid of him. He's very much in charge. Begin too is totally dependent on Sharon and on his reporting of the way the war is going." Added a Labor politician: "My main concern is that there is no other professional military judgment being presented to Begin."

Sharon does not have a great store of credibility among Israeli politicians or, for that matter, among his military colleagues. Throughout his long and controversial military career, he has rarely been far removed from the front pages, and more than once has been accused of insubordination. Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, was forced to make a public apology for a commando raid led by Sharon, then only 25, that killed scores of innocent Jordanians. Ben-Gurion castigated Sharon for "his weakness of not telling the truth." A few years later, Moshe Dayan, then chief of staff, considered court-martialing Sharon for defying orders and staging a paratroop maneuver during the 1956 Sinai campaign that cost the lives of dozens of Israeli soldiers.

A former major general, Sharon is frequently called "the Bulldozer." It suits both his girth (5 ft. 6 in., 235 lbs.) and his autocratic style. He inspires extremes of emotion. To his admirers, especially his troops, he is a brave and brilliant field commander who is not afraid to take risks, even at his peril. To his critics, among them many of his generals and Cabinet colleagues, he is an arrogant and dangerously ambitious megalomaniac with little or no respect for opposing points of view, much less democratic process. Said a senior Knesset member who attended meetings with Sharon last week: "If someone suggests another way of looking at things, he sweeps it away. He will say, 'You're not very patriotic.' "