The world’s attention remains focused on US President Barack Obama to find out when, or whether, he will give the green light to launch military operations against the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which has been accused of using chemical weapons against its people in an attack that curdled the blood of all those who saw the horrific images from al-Ghouta on Aug. 21. Meanwhile, Lebanon's citizens and others find themselves eyeing the movement of military flotillas off the country’s coast, as they await the possible repercussions of such operations on their small piece of land, reminiscing about Lebanon's long history of involvement in the wars of major powers.
Many of them still remember the day when the US fleet arrived in 1982 and bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs and encampments of factions allied with a Hafiz al-Assad–led Syrian regime, only to withdraw its forces from Beirut following the double suicide bombing against US and French barracks in October 1983. The suicide attacks, which led to the death of 241 American and 58 French soldiers, have since been attributed to Hezbollah. The Sixth Fleet’s movement did not, at the time, achieve the US administration’s objectives for various reasons, the most important being the presence of the Soviet Union in its capacity as a superpower and overwhelming Arab rejection of all forms of Western intervention.