The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 proved the watershed in the Lebanese conflict. At war once again, Iraq could no longer afford to arm its Lebanese clients. Moreover, Saddam Hussein’s attempt to link Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait to a general resolution of regional problems, including the Syrian “occupation” of Lebanon, was a transparent bid to divert international pressure onto Syria to withdraw from Lebanon. The Syrians were far too adept at regional politics to succumb to Saddam Hussein’s ploy. Hafiz al-Asad was using the Kuwait crisis to improve Syrian relations with Washington, and Washington fully supported the Taif Accord. Al-Asad thus decided to give his government’s full support to implementing the Taif framework and cast Iraq’s ally Michel Aoun as the main obstacle to peace. The Lebanese and Syrians conferred, and on October 11 President Hrawi formally requested Syrian military assistance, under the terms of the Taif Accord, to oust General Aoun. Two days later, Syrian aircraft began the bombardment of Aoun’s positions while Syrian and Lebanese Army tanks advanced into territory held by Aoun’s forces. Within three hours, General Aoun had capitulated and sought asylum in the French Embassy while his partisans continued the struggle. The fighting—often very intense—was over within eight hours. When the smoke cleared over the empty presidential palace in Baabda on October 13, the people of Lebanon enjoyed their first glimpse of a postwar world, if still under Syrian occupation. It was only after the defeat of Michel Aoun that the postwar reconstruction envisaged by the Taif Accord could begin in earnest. In November 1990 the government ordered all militias out of the capital, Beirut, and in December the army cleared the barricades separating Muslim West Beirut from Christian East Beirut, reuniting the city for the first time since 1984. On Christmas Eve 1990, Omar Karami, brother of the assassinated reformist premier Rashid Karami, announced a new government of national unity. With thirty ministers, the cabinet was the largest in Lebanon’s history, and it integrated the leaders of nearly all the country’s main militias. The advantages of forming a government from the very warlords responsible for the worst atrocities of the conflict soon became apparent when the government decreed the disarmament of the militias—again, in accordance with the Taif Accord. The militias were given to the end of April 1991 to disband and surrender their weapons; in return, the government promised to integrate those militiamen who wished to serve in Lebanon’s army. However much the militia leaders might have objected, they did not oppose the government or resign from the cabinet.³¹ Only one militia was allowed to continue military operations: Hizbullah, which enjoyed Iranian and Syrian support, retained its weapons so that it could continue its resistance to the Israeli occupation in the south of Lebanon. The Shiite militia agreed to confine its operations to the territory Israel claimed as part of its South Lebanon “security zone,” which at any rate lay beyond the writ of the Lebanese government. Hizbullah would continue its jihad against the Israeli occupier, with growing sophistication and lethal effect. The fighting finally at an end, Lebanon faced the nearly insurmountable task of reconstruction after fifteen years of civil war. Between 1975 and 1990 an estimated 100,000–200,000 people died, many more were wounded and disabled, and hundreds of thousands were driven to exile. No city had been spared, as whole quarters were reduced to silent streets of shattered buildings. Squatters—refugees from later battles—had taken over habitable buildings abandoned in earlier battles. Utilities had completely broken down in many parts of the country. Private generators provided electricity, running water was sporadic and unhealthy, and raw sewage flowed through the streets, encouraging luxuriant plant growth among the ruins of the war. The social fabric of Lebanon was no less damaged. Memories of atrocities and of injustices that would never be redressed divided Lebanon’s many communities long after peace had been declared. A combination of reconciliation, amnesia, and a fierce drive to get on with life enabled the Lebanese to act like a nation again. Some have argued that the Lebanese have emerged stronger in their commitment to their nation as a consequence.³² Yet Lebanon remains a volatile country in which the threat of renewed conflict is never far from consciousness.

Saddam Hussein’s invasion, and the American-led war to liberate Kuwait, had the unintended consequence of forcing America to address the long-simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The American government recognized that the Kuwait crisis had placed its Arab allies under tremendous pressure. However cynical, Saddam Hussein’s frequent references to liberating Palestine had earned him widespread popular support across the Arab world and exposed other Arab governments to public condemnation. Arab citizens believed their governments had lost the plot: they should be fighting Israel to liberate Palestine, not fighting Iraq on America’s behalf to liberate Kuwaiti wealth and oil. America too came under widespread condemnation in the Arab press and public opinion. For years the Americans had supported Israel while it flaunted U.N. resolutions calling for the restoration of occupied Arab lands. In 1990, Israel remained in occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and parts of southern Lebanon. Yet when Iraq invaded Kuwait, America invoked UN Security Council resolutions as though they were sacrosanct. Occupation was either right or wrong, and UN resolutions either were binding or they weren’t. The double standard in treatment of Iraq and Israel as occupiers was self-evident. President George H. W. Bush rejected Saddam Hussein’s attempts to link an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait to an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories. But he could not escape the logic of the Iraqi demand. No sooner had the Iraq conflict ended than the Bush administration announced a new Arab-Israeli peace initiative, in March 1991. It was a transparent bid to regain the initiative and demonstrate that, in the New World Order, America could use its power as effectively in peace as in war. Palestinians greeted the news of the American initiative to restart the peace process with some relief. Their support for Saddam Hussein and his occupation of Kuwait had cost the Palestinians dearly. The international community shunned the PLO, and the Arab Gulf states cut all funding to the Palestinians. Though the Bush administration made clear they had no intention of rewarding the PLO for its stance in the recent conflict, the new peace initiative could only serve to break the Palestinians out of their isolation. Palestinian activist Sari Nusseibeh celebrated the Bush initiative in his cell in Ramle Prison. Nusseibeh was coming to the end of his three-month sentence, ostensibly for guiding Iraqi Scuds against Israeli targets, when Bush made his announcement in March 1991. The American initiative came as a total surprise to Nusseibeh. “Out of the blue George Bush, Sr., made a stunning policy statement: ‘A comprehensive peace must be grounded in resolution 242 and 338 and the principle of territory for peace.’” Bush went on to link Israeli security to Palestinian rights. And his secretary of state, James Baker, declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank the greatest obstacle to peace. ?I was dancing in my tiny cage after hearing this,? Nusseibeh recalled in his memoirs.³³ Some Palestinians were more skeptical of American intentions. Hanan Ashrawi, one of Nusseibeh’s colleagues at Bir Zeit University and a leading Palestinian political activist, dissected the language of Bush’s statement. “The claim was that [Bush] would ‘invest the credibility that the United States had gained in the war in order to bring peace to the region.’ We read that as claiming the spoils of war.” Ashrawi saw the whole peace initiative as an American effort to subordinate the Middle East to its rules. “The claim was that a ‘New World Order’ was emerging with the end of the Cold War and that we were part of it. We read that as a reorganization of our world according to the American blueprint. The claim was that a window of opportunity was opening up for a Middle East reconciliation. We read that as a peephole, a long tunnel, or a trap.”³⁴ The first thing the Americans made clear to the Palestinians was that they would not allow the PLO to play any role in the negotiations. The Israeli government categorically refused to attend any meeting with the PLO, and the Americans were intent on sidelining Yasser Arafat in retribution for his support of Saddam Hussein. U.S. secretary of state James Baker went to Jerusalem in March 1991 to invite Palestinian leaders from the West Bank and Gaza Strip to take part in a peace conference and negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The Palestinians saw the Baker initiative as a blatant attempt to create an alternate Palestinian leadership. They wanted no part in undermining the PLO’s internationally recognized position as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The “insider” political activists wrote to Tunis for official approval from Arafat before agreeing to meet with Baker on March 13. Eleven Palestinians attended the first meeting, chaired by the Jerusalemite Faisal al-Husseini. The son of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, whose death in the 1948 battle of al-Qastal marked the defeat of Palestinian resistance to Zionism, Faisal al-Husseini was the scion of one of Jerusalem’s oldest and most respected families. He was also a loyal Fatah member with close ties to Yasser Arafat. “We are here at the behest of the PLO, our sole legitimate leadership,” al-Husseini began. “Whom you choose as your leadership is your own business,” Baker responded. “I am looking for Palestinians from the Occupied Territories who are not PLO members and who are willing to enter into direct bilateral two-phased negotiations on the basis of UNSC resolutions 242 and 338 and the principle of land for peace, and who are willing to live in peace with Israel. Are there any in this room?” Baker looked the eleven Palestinians in the face, but they were not to be rushed. “We must remind you, Mr. Secretary, that we are a people with dignity and pride. We are not defeated, and this is not Safwan Tent,” said Saeb Erakat, referring to the tent set up by the Americans to negotiate the terms of Iraq?s surrender at the end of the Gulf War. The burly Erakat was an English-trained professor of political science at al-Najah University in Nablus. “It’s not my fault you backed the losing side,” Baker retorted. “You should tell your leadership not to back the wrong horse; that was absolutely stupid. There’s a big price to be paid.” “I’ve agreed to come to this meeting to talk about one thing only,” said Haidar Abdel Shafi. A physician and president of the Gaza Medical Association, Abdel Shafi was the senior statesman in the Occupied Territories and had served as speaker of the Palestinian parliament while Gaza was under Egyptian rule, from 1948 to 1967. “Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Territories must stop. There will be no peace process while the settlements continue. You can count on hearing this from me all the time.” “Begin negotiations, and the settlements will stop,” Baker responded. “They must stop before, or we can’t enter the process,” the Palestinian activists replied in chorus. Secretary Baker recognized that the conversation was turning to negotiation, and that he had found a credible group to represent Palestine at the peace conference. “Now you’re talking business,” he said with some satisfaction.³⁵