Shultz's hasty tour of major capitals brings minor results
When George Shultz began his diplomatic hopscotch across the Middle East last week, he candidly admitted that he did not expect much to come of it. The results seem to have lived down to his expectations fully. In Damascus, Syrian President Hafez Assad told the Secretary of State privately what he has been saying publicly for two months: Syria adamantly opposes the agreement worked out last May calling for Israel to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, and therefore Syria refuses to pull out its own forces. Admitted Shultz at trip's end: "I can't point to any substantive achievement."
The outlook for a settlement in Lebanon has now turned gloomier. Faced with Syrian intransigence, Israeli officials informed Shultz last week of their plans to pull back their troops to more defensible positions within Lebanon. Such a maneuver, however, could take some of the pressure off Damascus toward any move at all and invite renewed fighting between Christians and Druze in the Chouf Mountains southeast of Beirut. Worse yet, the redeployment could lead to a de facto partition of Lebanon between Israel and Syria, with a weakened Lebanese government in control only of Beirut.
The Shultz mission was hastily hatched. When the Secretary of State embarked on a twelve-day swing through Asia three weeks ago, he dispatched Special Envoy Philip Habib to judge whether a Middle East side trip by Habib's boss would be worthwhile. By the time Shultz reached Pakistan, his last stop in Asia, senior White House aides decided that he should visit the region. They reasoned that Shultz had little to lose—and much to gain if, miraculously, his presence spurred some progress. Said an Administration official: "No one thought we had to score on this or else."
The Secretary of State stopped first in Saudi Arabia to find out how much pressure the Saudis were willing to exert on Syria. It is the holy month of Ramadan, and Shultz had to wait in Jidda while King Fahd spent the day at prayer in Mecca. The two finally met after midnight. In the course of the talks, which went on until 2:30 a.m., Saudi officials made it clear that they were not going to lean on Assad; they felt that the Israeli-Lebanese agreement favored Jerusalem.
Shultz then flew to Beirut, where, during three hours of talks, Lebanese President Amin Gemayel stressed that he was adamantly opposed to Israel's redeployment plans. Gemayel fears that the move will lead to a permanent Israeli presence on Lebanese soil and give Syria an excuse to stay put as well. The Lebanese insisted that if Israel pulled back its troops without announcing a schedule for a total withdrawal, then Beirut might scuttle its accord with Jerusalem altogether.