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Although Assad regained some lost prestige by arranging the freeze, his credibility as claimant to leadership of the Arab world suffered when the Pax Syriana collapsed. For one thing, it appeared that Damascus had far less sway over the Lebanese Moslems, leftists and Palestinians than it had claimed. For another, Syria's frantic efforts to gain another cease-fire were backed primarily by Jordan's King Hussein and Saudi Arabia's King Khalid, two conservative monarchs who are anathema to radical Arabs. The U.S. also endorsed Syria's peace efforts, as did Moscow, although the Russians played no perceptible role in the crisis. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who was in Western Europe shopping for arms, strengthened his slightly tarnished credentials as a champion of the Moslem Arab cause by sending supplies to Jumblatt.
During the tense week, King Hussein sought assurances in Washington that the U.S. would restrain the Israelis if Syrian military intervention in Lebanon proved necessary as a last resort. The U.S. made no commitments, in part because relations between Washington and Jerusalem are once again slightly strained. Although Ambassador to the United Nations William Scranton vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli repression on the West Bank (TIME, April 5), Israel was still furious over the cool tenor of Scranton's maiden speech, in which he described the occupation of East Jerusalem as "interim and provisional."
The Ford Administration, meanwhile, was annoyed with Israel for attempting to block a U.S. proposal to sell six C-130 cargo planes to Sadat for $65 million. Despite U.S. denials, Israel sees the move as a first step in further armament sales to Egypt and has encouraged pro-Israel Congressmen to oppose it. The lobbying efforts so angered Ford that last week he declared his opposition to an extra $500 million in arms appropriations for Israel.
Both Israel and the U.S. now face the problem of how to deal with a new ingredient in the Middle East morass: a Lebanon that is not the Lebanon of old. It seemed certain last week that the Moslem leftists were on the verge of forcing the country to abandon the old sectarian political system, either by accepting reform or by facing the muzzles of 25,000 AK-47s. As King Hussein observed in Washington, it is no longer "a question of changing a President in Lebanon, but of changing a regime and its shape."
The shape of that emerging new regime presents potential dangers for peace in the Middle East. A Lebanon in which Moslems have a predominant influence in politics may gradually evolve into an Arab socialist state, and perhaps into a confrontation power as well. (Lebanon remained neutral during the last three Arab-Israeli wars.) Israel may have to worry much more about its 49-mile-long border with Lebanon. The establishment of Moslem rule in Lebanon may be a notable triumph for the Palestinians. The fedayeen initially tried to stay out of the political strife, later tried to police it, and finally were forced to join what seems to be the winning side. They can be expected to demand a few rewards from their leftist friends, even though they already constitute a state-within-a-state inside Lebanon.
What happens next in Lebanon will obviously complicate an already