Lebanon is a tragic country. It was ancient Phoenicia, a maritime state which preceded most of the Eastern Mediterranean peoples in developing trade and settlements all along the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean, all the way to what became Gibraltar and even beyond. The most successful and famous Phoenician settlement was the great city of Carthage in the present-day Tunisia, which arose and flourished simultaneously with Rome.
Carthage became a very rich city. In its interaction with the Spanish tribes, Carthage discovered the existence in Spain of rich silver and gold mines which it seized, and then recruited the Spanish as elite forces (paid from the great wealth it extracted from Spain), along with other mercenary units, to advance its interests aggressively. This brought Carthage into a dispute in the third century B.C. with Rome over Sicily, which was then a largely Greek island. Rome created a navy, turned tens of thousands of Italian farmers and vineyard workers instantly into sailors, and defeated Carthage’s mercenary navy in the First Punic War (264–241 B.C.).
Full of vengeance, Carthage then initiated the Second Punic War (218–201 B.C.), in which Hannibal prowled and ricocheted around the Italian peninsula for 10 years but could not breach the walls of Rome. Eventually, the Romans played their strategic cards and seized Carthage’s mines in Spain, forcing Hannibal’s withdrawal from Italy, and then defeated the Carthaginians at the Battle of Zama in 202 B.C. Carthage was subsequently destroyed completely in the Third Punic War (149–146 B.C.), which was unprovoked and a dishonorable instance of gratuitous and sadistic aggression championed by Cato the Elder (which has incited my curiosity about how his name could possibly resonate positively through subsequent ages).
By this time, Phoenicia had fallen under the occupation of, first, the Persians, then Alexander the Great and his Seleucid and Ptolemaic successors. The Romans were along shortly after the end of the Punic Wars, and they and their Byzantine inheritors remained for 800 years. They were followed by a series of caliphates, which in turn were followed by the Ottoman Empire, and then under the famous Sykes-Picot agreement, by France between 1919 and 1946. The famous Cedars of Lebanon were considered for thousands of years the best timber from which to build a ship or a large edifice, and retain impressive forests in Lebanon today.
The present Lebanese population of a little over 5 million is approximately one quarter Shiite Muslim, which is in some sympathy with Iran and provides the personnel for Hezbollah, the terrorist organization that has a large political force and is the dominating military force in much of Lebanon. Approximately another quarter of the population is Sunni Muslim, which are hostile to the Shiites. A slightly larger percentage (and the wealthiest group) are the Roman Catholic Maronites, and another 13 percent are other Christians, mainly Eastern and Armenian Orthodox. These demographic facts alone ensure a contentious condition, and this was greatly magnified during the Assad era in Syria, which Iran used as a conduit to assist the Shiite Hezbollah in conducting a terrible civil war that required the intervention of Israel to protect northern Israel from constant terrorist harassment by Hezbollah.
There is now considerable evidence that the majority of Lebanese are exasperated by Hezbollah’s war against Israel, which has had the character both of a civil war within Lebanon and a foreign war with Lebanon’s powerful southern neighbor. Israel conducted a series of incursions into Lebanon to punish and repulse Hezbollah, which weakened it to the point that it could no longer prop up the Assad regime in Syria. Meanwhile, the domestic opposition to Assad, assisted by Israel and the United States, expelled and expunged Iranian influences within Syria and largely cut off the flow of Iranian assistance to Hezbollah. And for the last 30 months, since the infamous invasion of Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, Hezbollah has been severely reduced and damaged by comprehensive Israeli warfare.
Fifty years of almost constant strife has not deprived Beirut of its status as one of the world’s most interesting cities. It has an elegant French aspect from its days as one of the leading cities of the French Empire as well as the prosperous architecture of the legendarily astute Lebanese commercial community, imperishable and legitimate descendants of Phoenicia, and the proverbially beautiful and elegant Maronite Lebanese women, all in a spectacular Mediterranean setting.
Like so much else in the Middle East, everything now depends on whether President Trump finishes the job with Iran.
The United States clearly possesses the ability to pummel that horrible regime into submission, but its fanaticism, indifference to the hardship inflicted on its people and neighbors, and a morbid pseudo-philosophical approach to suicide, make predictions hazardous. In a small measure, the presence of the Lebanese president in Washington indicates that this battle-scarred veteran of the wars and traditions of his country has some hope and perhaps even faith that the only power in the world capable of doing so, may do the necessary to bring the elusive prospect of peace in the Middle East within reach.
