Middle East: Weathering the Storm

Begin survives, Sharon sulks and Gemayel asserts his authority

For virtually the first time since Israeli forces invaded Lebanon last June, the focus of U.S. attention in the Middle East shifted away from Lebanon and Israel briefly last week to the waters of the eastern Mediterranean, where the U.S. dispatched air and naval units. The move, clouded in secrecy and confusion, was prompted by reports that Libya's strongman, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, was concentrating his military forces in the southeastern corner of his country, thereby appearing to threaten the neighboring states of Sudan and Chad and alarming the government of Egypt.

In spite...

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