USS Cole reminds Lebanese of 1983 military intervention

Beirut: Washington's decision to deploy the USS Cole off Lebanon's coast is kindling grim memories of a past conflict here - and fresh concerns over another war.

While the US State Department says the Cole and other warships are being sent to the eastern Mediterranean to support regional stability amid Lebanon's political crisis, the move seems to have embarrassed the besieged Western-backed administration of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and provided ammunition for the pro-Syrian opposition, led by Hezbollah, to accuse the government of being a US pawn.

"It has done Hezbollah a huge favour," says Amal Sa'ad Gorayeb of the Carnegie Endowment's Middle East Centre in Beirut. "It's a sign of political bankruptcy on the part of the US. They have failed to achieve anything in Lebanon; all they have left is military muscle-flexing."

Analysts here are divided over whether the USS Cole's presence is intended as warning for Hezbollah or Syria. But it has reminded Lebanese of the last time the US sought to intervene militarily in Lebanon, an involvement that had disastrous consequences.

In September 1983, midway through Lebanon's 16-year civil war, US warships shelled the Druze-dominated Chouf mountains south of Beirut in support of the Lebanese Army, then battling pro-Syrian militias.

The shelling further convinced those Lebanese who were opposed to the then US-backed Lebanese government that Washington was not a neutral peacekeeper in Lebanon.

In October 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was destroyed by a suicide bomber, killing 241 US servicemen. Two months later, the USS New Jersey, a World War II-era battleship, fired on Syrian troops and allied militia positions in what was the heaviest shore bombardment since the Korean War.

In early February 1984, pro-Syrian militias took over West Beirut, spurring President Reagan to order a Marines evacuation.

The Marines left by the end of the month, ending what then Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger called a "particularly miserable assignment."

Heavy retaliatory blow

The alleged architect of the Marine barracks strike, Emad Mughnieh, was assassinated last month in a Damascus car bombing. Hezbollah, which blames Israel for the attack, has sworn to avenge the death of Mughnieh.

"To have an American warship here is highly symbolic, given that Imad Mughnieh is accused of the 1983 bombing," Sa'ad Gorayeb says.

Some analysts say that if Hezbollah deals a heavy retaliatory blow to Israel, it could force Israel to launch another offensive against the group.

The symbolism of the USS Cole is not just related to America's past in Lebanon, but also to its "war on terror."

The USS Cole was badly damaged in an Al Qaida suicide attack in Yemen in 2000, leaving 17 sailors dead, one of several pre-9/11 Al Qaida attacks. It redeployed to the Middle East in June 2007 for the first time since the bombing. But now few analysts expect it to have much impact in Lebanon.

"These sort of gestures do not work around here," says Timur Goksel, a university lecturer in Beirut and former United Nations official in Lebanon.

Reaction: Rice defends deployment

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended the deployment of USS Cole, a guided-missile destroyer, off the coast of Lebanon, saying it was designed to to show Washington's readiness to defend its allies' interests.

"As to the American military presence, the US exercise a military presence in the region and it has for a very very long time," Rice told reporters in Cairo at a news conference with her Egyptian counterpart Ahmad Abul Gaith.

"It is simply to make very clear that the US is capable and willing of defending its interests and the interests of its allies. That is really all that is happening there," she said.

- AP