Lebanon A Preview of The Apocalypse

Factional strife has ripped Lebanon again and again over the past 14 years, numbing outrage at the carnage. But last week Beirut seemed to offer a grisly preview of the apocalypse. The fighting between Christian soldiers and Muslim and Syrian soldiers rose to a pitch that tested the limits of human endurance and forced the outside world to take notice. "Beirut is being wiped off the face of the earth," cried the Christian Voice of Lebanon radio. Rival Muslim station Voice of the Nation shared, at least, the agony. "Is this meaningless war going to continue until the last Lebanese is dead?"

It certainly seems that way. The ferocious shelling gave way only for lulls to permit both sides to reload. Calls for a cease-fire were drowned out by the volcanic bombardments. Western officials wrung their hands and made vain appeals to reason. But the sky continued to rain fire and death on the city in a prolonged paroxysm of violence.

There is not much the watching world can do to stop it. Bitterly stung by previous attempts to serve as a buffer among Lebanon's feuding militias, Europe and the U.S. steered clear of direct intervention, appealing instead for a campaign of international pressure to quiet the guns. The U.N. Security Council urged an immediate cease-fire. Pope John Paul II blamed Damascus for "genocide." But the pleas had little impact on a situation that is governed by passion and irrationality. Unless a cease-fire can be brokered quickly, Syria and its allies might risk an all out assault to crush the Christian forces.

The adversaries have been shelling each other mercilessly since March, when Major General Michel Aoun, the determined Christian President of the divided nation, clamped a blockade on Muslim ports and declared a "war of liberation" against Syria. Last week came intimations of a more serious escalation in hostilities. Syrian-backed Muslim forces attempted to invade the Christian sector. Aoun's troops successfully repulsed the ground attack on the town of Suq al Gharb, the gateway to the Christian stronghold in the southeast of the capital. The battle of Beirut appeared to be entering a crucial phase.

Damascus denied that any Syrian troops, who entered Lebanon as peacekeepers in 1976 and neglected to leave, had taken part in the assault. Yet plainly Syria was deeply involved. A Muslim officer who fought under Aoun stated that both Druze and Syrian forces advanced on Suq al Gharb, then turned back under heavy Christian fire, leaving 35 dead Syrians behind. In Damascus, Syrian President Hafez Assad convened representatives of various Muslim, Druze and Palestinian militias to map out a combat plan to topple Aoun. The war council aroused international concern that Syria, which has upwards of 30,000 troops inside Lebanon, might be preparing to invade the 300-sq.-mi. Christian enclave. Despite the evident danger, none of the combatants seem willing to back down. Syria stated flatly that there could be no cease-fire in Beirut until Aoun stepped aside. Responded Aoun: "A cease-fire is not the national objective. The Syrian regime does not belong in this country." To the Western leaders who pleaded from the sidelines, he said, "If declarations are all the rest of the world can offer, I would prefer the rest of the world shut up."