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• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
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• Publication Date: July 7, 1986
• Content Type: MEMO

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Central Intelligence Agency
Office of the Deputy Director for Intelligence
DDI 03179-86
7 JUL 1986
NOTE TO: Director of Central Intelligence
FROM: Deputy Director for Intelligence
We have added material on page 2 that
addresses your suggestions.
We'll go ahea?5X1
and make a limited internal distribution of the
study.
Attachment:
As stated
CL BY SIGNER
DECL OADR
3EERET
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LEBANON: The Analytical Record, 1981-1984
Product Evaluation Staff
July 1986
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Key Findings
The Directorate of Intelligence and National Intelligence
Council deserve high marks for their analysis of Lebanese events
between 1981 and 1984. The quantity of production was enormous
and the treatment of issues was thorough. The relevance of
analyses to US policy interests was consistently high.
The DI and NIC gave clear warning of a possible Israeli
invasion of Lebanon more than a year before it occurred and
refined and reissued the warning thereafter. On four other key
issues, DI and NIC analyses sent clear and consistent messages to
policymakers by:
-- Explaining the factors that would undermine the Gemayel
regime and chronicling its demise.
-- Pointing to the high Syrian interest in Lebanon and to
growing Syrian intransigence.
-- Giving full and complete coverage to Palestinian
issues.
-- Analyzing the obstacles to implementation of the
September 1982 peace initiative.
In general, DI and NIC analyses carefully considered each aspect
of the Lebanese problem, showed how the aspects would interact
within Lebanon and how repercussions would be felt throughout the
Middle East, and traced the impact of outside influences.
While the Agency can be satisfied with its analytical effort
on Lebanon in the 1981-84 period, we identified one problem area
that is worthy of attention. Analysts felt themselves to be
almost completely cut out of information on the policymaking
process, particularly as it related to negotiations for the May
1983 accord. This led to gaps in production when US involvement
in Lebanon was most intense. It also led to delays in accurately
assessing the intentions of other participants in the Lebanese
imbroglio. For example, we were slow off the mark in identifying
growing Syrian intransigence. Analysts and lower-level managers
must do their part, on a day-to-day basis, to maintain contacts
with policymakers. But when policy is being made at a high
level, our customers and our own representatives need to make a
conscious effort to keep analysts apprised of how their work can
best support the policymaking process.
*This study was prepared by the Product Evaluation Staff of the Directorate
of Intelligence at the request of the Director of Central Intelligence.
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J 1? v 1 1 1
Two other matters came to light in our study of Lebanon.
They were not serious problems in this case, but they could
easily become so in other policy-sensitive situations:
-- Distribution. Many of the most important analytical
messages the DI and NIC sent on Lebanon were contained
initially in memos that went to a very small number of
people, sometimes only one or two. There was thus the
potential danger that others in the policymaking
community might not have received the same analytical
line as the select few. This did not appear to happen in
the Lebanese case, because the DI and NIC made a
conscious and successful effort to ensure that basic
analytical themes were promulgated in a variety of
publications.
-- Boldness. Analytical points were, however, put most
clearly and confidently in the memos that received very
limited distribution. NIEs and SNIEs had a certain
tendency toward fuzziness, and NID Special Features
tended to surround some key analytical points with too
much general analysis of broad trends.
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KCII
Lebanon: The Analytical Record, 1981-1984
Table of Contents
Page No.
Key Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
I. The Quality of Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
II. Other Characteristics of the Product. . . . . . . . . 4
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 I. The Quality of Analysis
To test the quality of DI and NIC analysis on Lebanon, we
focused on five key issues:
-- The warning of war prior to the Israeli invasion on
6 June 1982.
-- The status of the Gemayel government after September
1982.
-- Syrian interests in Lebanon.
-- The impact of the Israeli invasion on the PLO.
-- Prospects for the US peace initiative of September 1982.
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These issues permit conclusions to be drawn about how well the DI
and NIC did in two crucial functions of intelligence analysis:
warning and long-term forecasting.
On warning of war, the DI and NIC record
without blemish.
/ DI and NIC analysis did not foresee a
ground advance as far as Beirut, but the Israeli leadership
itself may not have realized that such a push was Defense
Minister Sharon's intention.
The DI and the NIC had built a strong analytical foundation
for assessing the status of the Gemayel government by their
earlier work on the pro ems of confessions ism in Lebanon. The
gradual weakening of Gemayel's position was chronicled in the
NID, and by July 1983 DI memoranda were sounding a clear and
strong pessimistic note.
While DI and NIC analysis portrayed Lebanon as vital to
Syrian interests, judgments about Syrian willingness to pull out
of Lebanon were not consistent or clear until mid-1983, when
Syria denounced the US-sponsored peace accord. After that, the
increasingly intransigent Syrian position was addressed
forthrightly in DI and NIC publications.
DI and NIC coverage of issues related to the Palestinians
was consistently thorough, accurate, and forward-looking.
Coverage of prospects for the September 1982 peace
initiative balanced careful assessments of the stumbling blocks
to success with broader judgments of the need for the United
States to remain an active broker in the Arab-Israeli peace
process.
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In looking at these five issues, PES was struck by the
manner in which the integrative focus of the longer anal ses
provided the contextual understanding needed to assess US goals
and policies in Lebanon. From early 1981, when NE SA and the NIC
began to warn of deteriorating security conditions in Lebanon and
the threat of an Israeli invasion, the analysts examined
potential developments in terms of the US general position in the
Middle East and prospects for specific peace proposals. The
assessment of prospects for US policy became particularly marked
from October 1983 onward, with the issuance in rapid succession
of three SN I Es .
These three estimates were issued at a particularly
sensitive juncture: by September 1983 the US military role in
Lebanon had evolved from an essentially passive one to a more
active one and the security situation was changing rapidly.
The first of the three SNIEs appeared 13 days before the
bombing of the Marine Headquarters in October. Entitled
"Prospects for Lebanon," it was initiated by the Intelligence
Community to examine prospects for Lebanon in light of the
deteriorating security situation. Its focus was primarily
internal and its message was bleak (see pp 9-10 of this report
for details). The estimate delivered an unwelcome message to
policymakers, who were considering increases in the application
of US force in Lebanon.
Dissatisfied with the October SNIE, senior policymakers,
notably Secretary of State Shultz, asked that a fresh look be
taken, with particular emphasis given to factoring in the US
military role. This led to the issuance of a second estimate in
December 1983, "Implications of the Military Balance of Power in
Lebanon." As the title indicates, greater attention was paid to
the role of outside players--especially Syria and the United
States--in the Lebanese political equation. But the message
delivered by this SNIE was also depressing. The key judgments
noted that the "incremental application of US and/or Israeli
military power will not induce a major shift in Syrian goals in
Lebanon... Greater US and Israeli involvement in Lebanon without
a domestic political accommodation is likely to polarize Lebanese
politics."
The third SNIE, written just a month later, also responded
to the desire of senior policy officials to reexamine prospects
in light of new developments. This estimate reaffirmed the
judgments of the December 1983 study, and, by the time that it
was issued, a decision to withdraw US forces from Lebanon was
taking shape.
In addition to warning of deteriorating security conditions,
DI and NIC products examined the reactions of other regional
states to developments in Lebanon. The analysis treated the
Middle East as a highly interdependent, pressure-sensitive system
of states, and it examined the repercussions of changes on that
system as well as the influence on it by outside players.
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Analysts addressed not only developments in Lebanon itself
and Syrian and Israeli interests there, but also looked at the
impact of the Israeli invasion on an Arab-Israeli peace and
issues such as the Soviet posture in the region. Developments in
Lebanon had an important impact on countries, both radical and
moderate, throughout the Middle East, and NESA's Persian Gulf
Division, along with its Arab-Israeli Division, was drawn into
the analytical process.
PES also found that the isolation of the analysts from
information on the negotiating process had a major impact on DI
and NIC production. This was reflected both in the time profile
of of production an in the inability of analysts to comment at an
early stage on the prospects for the Lebanese-Israeli accord of
May 1983. A great deal of vital information was passed through
NODIS channels and via secure telephone links, and a general lack
of DI access to such information, even on a delayed basis,
undermined the ability of analysts to anticipate in advance how
regional actors would adjust their policies. NESA officers felt
that this problem had been particularly telling in their failure
before late summer 1983 to recognize the hardening of Syria's
position on withdrawal from Lebanon.
Once Israel had invaded Lebanon in June 1982, most DI and
NIC production, other than that in the NID and PDB, was driven by
requests from senior policymakers and/or senior Agency
officials. (See Appendix B, which differentiates papers iven
very limited distribution and those given wider exposure.?? Such
requests generally were not made in late 1982 and early 1983, the
period that bracketed the September 1982 initiative and the
signing of the Lebanese-Israeli accord.
As a result, relative to the overall body of production
issued between 1981 and 1984, coverage declined in this period,
except in the current intelligence dailies. Nearly a year
elapsed between the issuance of one SNIE in November 1982
("PLO: Impact of the Lebanese Incursion") and the next in
October 1983 ("Prospects for Lebanon"). In that one-year period,
events had taken a dramatic turn for the worse, both in terms of
Gemayel's position and Syria's attitudes toward Lebanon.
Analysts remained isolated from some sensitive policy
information until the denouement of US involvement in Lebanon,
but increasing debate in Washington on US policy options and
increasing requests from policymakers for analysis paved the way
for an explosion of NESA and NIC production in late 1983 and
early 1984. The withdrawal of Israel from the Shuf and Alayh
districts in mid-1983 led to heightened concern both with the
role of the Syrians and other outside actors in Lebanon and with
US military vulnerability there. The bombing of the US Marine
headquarters in October 1983 gave further impetus to the
production of carefully documented analysis.
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II. Other Characteristics of the Product
Developments in Lebanon from 1981 to 1984 received heav and
thoroug treatment by the and the NIC. Both the 01 and
significantly increased their production in the spring of 1981 as
fighting intensified between Syria and Christian elements in
Lebanon, the Israelis challenged the Syrians in air battles over
Lebanon, and Damascus moved SA-6 missiles into the Bekaa
Valley. By the time of the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon
on 6 June 1982, the twin issues of deteriorating conditions in
Lebanon and Israeli options for a major military operation had
been covered in:
-- An Interagency Alert Memorandum and two SNIEs.
-- Fourteen widely disseminated write-ups of monthly warning
meetings chaired by the NIO for the Near East.
-- One intelligence memorandum, one broadly disseminated
typescript, and seven limited distribution typescripts
(three of them for internal use only), all prepared by
NESA.
Once the invasion occurred, the pace of production, in both
the current intelligence dailies and longer interpretive pieces,
gained further momentum.
-- Between June and October 1982, a DI Task Force produced
daily situation reports.
-- At least one, and often two articles, appeared daily in
the NID for the first several months. Thereafter, several
items appeared weekly until the withdrawal of US forces in
early 1984.
-- Four SNIEs were published between November 1982 and
January 1984. In addition, the NIC issued an Interagency
Intelligence Assessment just after the invasion,
-- NESA produced six hard-copy intelligence assessments on
Lebanese and Syrian developments, 31 significant
typescript memoranda on various aspects of the Lebanese
problem, and a steady flow of publications on Israeli,
Jordanian, and Persian Gulf developments relevant to
Lebanon.
-- Finally, NESA produced a sizeable number of talking
points and specialized pieces of analysis for the DCI,
DDCI, and DDI. Between July and November 1983, for
example, it wrote 34 such pieces, many of which served to
prepare senior Agency officers for policy meetings at the
White House.
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-- The NIO's monthly warning meetings provided continued
coverage of Lebanon.
Although a good portion of the NESA product was given very
limited distribution, as shown in Appendix B, PES believes that
all major consumers in Washington had access, through one set of
publications or another, to key intelligence conclusions. This
was due to two factors: concordance of views among analysts
within the intelligence community, which resulted in consistency
in the messages carried by various intelligence formats, and the
clarity of the basic analytical messages.
Frequent and fruitful exchanges among intelligence community
analysts are mirrored, among other places, in the record of the
monthly warning meetings convened by the NIO and the memoranda
issued following these meetings. Lebanon was, for example, a key
topic of discussion ten times in 1981 as well as in each month of
1982 prior to the invasion. In January 1981, seventeen months
before Israel invaded Lebanon, the warning meeting had focused on
the issue of a large scale move, noting that "a beleaguered Begin
might try a military spectacular." When the invasion at last
occurred, the analysts had had over a year of working together on
the issue of Israeli actions and their likely repercussions.
Most of the memoranda produced for a limited number of
consumers, or for internal use only, were complemented by
coverage of that same issue in the NID. For example, on
20 January 1983, NESA produced for internal use only a memorandum
entitled "The SA-5s in Syria: Israeli and Syrian Attitudes." In
the same timeframe (January to February 1983), it authored 25
articles on the SA-5s for the NID, including seven articles that
were two or more pages in length.
Similarly, multiple media were used to examine the question
of fighting that flared in the Shuf district in late summer
1983.
-- Between 24 August and 12 September 1983, NESA produced
four limited distribution typescript memoranda that looked
at the question of responsibility for the fighting. The
to General Vessey; the second to the
INR, and the NSC; the third to the NSC; and
the fourth to senior Agency officials.
-- On 3 October 1983, CIA and DIA analysts, at the request
of the NSC, jointly produced a memorandum, entitled
"Intelligence Reassessment of Recent Developments in
Lebanon," that also addressed the issue of possible Syrian
involvement in the fighting.
-- The fighting in the Shuf was also given heavy coverage in
the NID.
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rLI I
The NID concluded that direct Syrian involvement in the
fighting was unlikely but that Damascus was a major factor in the
political and military strengthening of the Palestinians and
Muslims fighting the government. These judgments were embedded
in longer NID articles that focused on Syrian interests overall
in Lebanon. In contrast, the special memoranda focused clearly
on whether foreign powers, especially Syria, were engaged in the
shooting which by this time threatened US Marine positions. The
evidence for foreign government involvement was examined in
detail, particularly in the memorandum prepared for internal use
nnl V nn 12 Contamhor Tha i eeuc hart nrn2+ immnrli 2-, fnr ennlor
The differences in the treatment of the Shuf fighting in the
limited distribution memoranda and the current intelligence
dailies illustrate what PES found to be fairly constant factors
in the analytical treatment of Lebanon. First, the clearest and
most confident judgments are found in NESA's typescript
memoranda. Second the analysis in these memoranda was the most
explicit in addressing the implications for the United States o
Lebanese developments.
Judgments in NESA memoranda were expressed with a high
degree of confidence, even while incorporating analyses of
alternative scenarios. Judgments in the SNIEs paralleled those
seen in NESA typescripts, but PES found the language in these
community products marginally less pointed. And, simply because
the SNIEs were issued at less frequent intervals than NESA's ad
hoc typescript memoranda, the SNIEs in most cases were unable to
focus on tactical questions.
Previous postmortems on DI production have pointed to the
NID as a weak link in conveying important analytical messages.
An unpublished appraisal produced by the DI in 1973 on the
October 1973 Middle East war noted "a tendency in current
intelligence analysis to focus on the latest information received
just before." The official NFAC postmortem on Iran written in
1979 said that NID "analysis often stops short of stating the
full implications of the information presented" and that "the
pessimistic inferences had to be drawn from the stories, rather
than being presented as key messages."
PES believes that neither of these earlier characterizations
applies to the NID coverage of Lebanon between 1982 and 1984.
The NID was obviously not an appropriate medium in which to
convey some of the more sensitive policy-relevent judgments found
in the typescripts and later SNIEs--for example, the conclusion
of a December 1983 SNIE that "incremental application of US
and/or Israeli military power will not induce a major shift in
Syrian goals in Lebanon." But the thorough coverage of Lebanon
in the NID, with its balance of tactical reporting and stand-back
Special Analyses, by and large hconveyed clear analytical messages
o dU5 polRicyiiTiit~iativeseand nfllitaryeinvolvemengLe the viability
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Appendix A: The Five Case Studies
The Israeli Invasion
The Agency provided policymakers early warning of the
likelihood of an Israeli invasion on at least three occasions in
1981. An Alert Memorandum sent to the NSC on 30 April 1981,
provided an initial warning of "an increasing possibility of a
major Israeli incursion in the south (of Lebanon)." A NESA memo,
"The Lebanese Crisis," prepared a day earlier for Vice President
Bush and Secretary Weinberger also cited the increased prospect
of a "major Syrian-Israeli confrontation" and the "consideration
apparently being given (by Israel) to a major military move into
southern Lebanon."
Although conflict between Syria and Israel had been
temporarily averted by US diplomacy, the community concluded in
the 21 May 1981 SNIE on Lebanon "that violence and tension will
remain at dangerously high levels for the foreseeable future in
Lebanon." It went on to point out that the Israelis "are eager
to strike at the Palestinians in the south."
Despite the relative calm that followed the July 1981 cease-
fire agreement, NESA remained wary and noted in a December 1981
n February 1982 a ,
"Lebanon: Prospects or xpan a os i ities," characterized the
cease-fire as "extremely fragile" and concluded that chances were
growing that it would "collapse in the next few months or even
weeks."
The question of what would provide sufficient provocation
for such an invasion was briefly examined in the February 1982
SNIE on Lebanon. The community stated that although Begin
assured the United States that "Israel would not undertake a
large scale operation against the Palestinians without
provocation, we believe that it would not take much to constitute
such a provocation."
In a 1 March 1982 memorandum to the DCI, NESA described in
more definitive terms what Begin would regard as a clear
provocation warranting a response. Among the provocations listed
were the resumption of the shelling of northern Israel and a
Palestinian attack on an Israeli target--such as an embassy--
outside Israel. In the aftermath of the early June attempted
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assassination of Ambassador Argov in London and continued
Palestinian shelling of northern Israel, the NID on 5 June 1982
reported that Begin "will find it difficult to resist pressures
from hardliners" to invade.
The Status of Gemayel
Amin Gemayel, hastily elected president of Lebanon following
the assassination of Bashir in September 1982, came to power in a
period when DI production other than that in the current
intelligence dailies was at a relative low point. A SNIE
published in November 1982 dealt primarily with the impact of
Israel's invasion on the PLO, and a more broadly based assessment
(SNIE 36.4-83, "Prospects for Lebanon") was not published until
October 1983. The DI and NIC had done a thorough job, however,
in documenting the problems of confessionalism in Lebanon even
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before the Israeli invasion took place, and this understanding
informed the earliest analysis on Gemayel, including two
typescript memoranda prepared for his visit to Washington in
October 1982.
Between October 1982 and July 1983, the burden of assessing
Gemayel's prospects and problems fell to the current intelligence
dailies. Coverage in the NID provided both quick reaction
analysis of breaking developments and, in six "Special Analyses"
on Lebanese domestic affairs, assessments of broader trends. PES
found that these "Special Analyses," in particular, kept the
readers abreast of the gradual process whereby Gemayel's position
weakened.
NESA sounded a note of pessimism even more clearly and
strongly in two typescript memoranda sent to key consumers at the
White House and the Departments of State and Defense in July and
August 1983. The first, "Bleak Prospects for the Gemayel
Government," spoke of a failure to achieve US policy objectives
in Lebanon. The second, "Lebanon: After Gemayel," noted that
the imminent withdrawal of the Israelis from the Shuf and Alayh
districts confronted Gemayel with the prospect of fierce
Christian-Druze fighting and his most serious crisis to date.
The memorandum went on to talk of possible coups, assassinations,
and succession scenarios.
NESA memoranda issued through February 1984 continued to
take a pessimistic line on Gemayel's ability to make hard
compromises and reestablish control of the political process and
raised again the possiblity of Gemayel's replacement.
There is no doubt that the tone of the three estimates
issued in late 1983 and early 1984 was pessimistic, and they were
read with dismay by senior policy officials still trying to
fashion a diplomatic compromise for Lebanon. Even so, we found
the messages less pointed than those conveyed in the NESA
memoranda. And, while they were consistent on most analytical
points, the changes in focus from one to another introduced some
element of difficulty in appreciating the pace at which
conditions were deteriorating. We found this to be true in
particular in the case of the January 1984 SNIE ("Implications of
the Military Balance of Power in Lebanon--Memorandum to
Holders").
The October 1983 estimate, "Prospects for Lebanon," was very
pessimistic, noting in the first line of the key judgments that
"The prospects for a lasting political reconciliation among
Lebanon's confessional factions are extremely bleak." It
predicted that we could "expect a weak central government which
probably can maintain control over Beirut but which has to
contend with autonomous Maronite and Druze heartlands and
prolonged Syrian and Israeli occupation." The December 1983
estimate, "Implications of the Military Balance of Power in
Lebanon," took a similar line, but, reflecting new developments,
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put heavier emphasis on outside players, including Syria and the
United States.
The January 1984 memorandum to holders noted early in its
key judgments that the basic conclusions of the December estimate
remained valid, but cited two new developments which warranted an
updated assessment. These were the agreement in principle by
Lebanese confessional factions, the Syrians, and Israelis to a
security plan that would expand central government control, and
the extension of Lebanese Army authority to the Sabra-Shatilla
camp area. The January memorandum to holders reaffirmed the
earlier estimative judgment that Gemayel would be unable to deal
effectively with his Lebanese rivals. But the overall tenor of
the publication conveyed what in retrospect appears to PES to be
a slightly blurred message on prospects for Gemayel and the
central government.
Syrian Interests
Treatment of Syrian interests appeared throughout DI and NIC
coverage of Lebanon, but the tenor of that coverage and the
prominence that it received underwent a significant change in
mid-1983. Compared to the four other substantive issues examined
in this section, the role of Syria in Lebanon was treated with
relatively less confidence prior to that date. Before that, PES
found sometimes inconsistent and wavering judgments regarding
Syria's willingness to pull out of Lebanon.
From mid-1983 onward, after Syrian reactions to the
Lebanese-Israeli accord could be measured, however, the analysis
produced by both the DI and NIC showed considerable consistency
and clarity in its judgments. In fact, the recognition of
Syria's determination to remain in Lebanon and to expand its
support for radical Muslim elements was a major factor underlying
DI and NIC pessimism regarding the prospects for US peace
initiatives and the status of Gemayel.
With ground units in Lebanon since 1976, Syria was
recognized as an interested party and treated as such in early DI
and NIC products. Memoranda given limited distribution in early
1981, as well as the SNIE issued in February 1982, came to two
basic conclusions:
-- Assad viewed Lebanon as a vital element in his regional
strategy and would defend Syria's right to a military
presence there.
-- While Syria sought to avoid direct military confrontation
with Israel, it would accept losses to protect its
equities in Lebanon.
Over the next year, the analysis did not challenge these
assumptions per se, but it began to include suggestions that
Syria might withdraw its forces under favorable circumstances
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and/or judgments that Syrian forces might be expelled. In
January 1983, for example, a memorandum on the SA-5s, which was
given only internal distribution, noted that "Syria continues to
profess a willingness to withdraw its forces from
Lebanon....Assad probably views a mutual withdrawal of Israeli
and Syrian forces as contributing to Syrian security." The SA-5s
were viewed as a tactical move, designed to improve Assad's
bargaining position, but not as a sign that he had altered "his
willingness to withdraw, once Syria's security concerns are
satisfied."
Following Syria's denunciation of the US-sponsored peace
accord of 17 May 1983, analysis of Syrian intentions began to
change course. PES found this to be a gradual rather than an
abrupt shift, which probably mirrored the evolution of Assad's
position as he observed Gemayel's deteriorating situation and
Israel's weakening resolve to remain in northern Lebanon. In the
June to October period of 1983, Syrian intentions and activities
in Lebanon became the top focus and preoccupation of DI
analysis.
By late June both the current intelligence dailies and
NESA's longer memoranda were addressing the constant factor of
Syria's intransigence, but only with the issuance of a SNIE
("Prospects for Lebanon") in October 1983, did the analytical
community present an assessment of the altered power balance in
Lebanon. Similar judgments appeared on 12 October in a
memorandum that CIA and INR analysts prepared for Ambassador
McFarlane on "Dealing with Syria in Lebanon." (McFarlane had
gone to Lebanon in August to seek new means for negotiating a
Syrian withdrawal.) A significant piece of analysis, this
memorandum addressed head on the issue of Syria's intransigence
and the implications of this for Lebanon and the United States.
Concerns about Syria grew even sharper following the
of our Marine Headquarters in Beirut on 23 October 1983,
e SNIE (--Implications of the
Military Balance of Power") issued in December 1983, the Memo to
Holders follow-up of January 1984, and a NESA memorandum prepared
for passage to President Reagan in Februar 1984 ("Syria:
Reaction to Unilateral Israeli Withdrawal") all made the same key
points: Syrian resolve in Lebanon was unassailable and nearly
all national reconciliation efforts were thus doomed to
failure.
The Palestinians
Issues related to the Palestinians--including the impact of
an Israeli invasion, the evolution of PLO politics, and prospects
for an Arab-Israeli peace--received both early and frequent
coverage in NESA and NIC analysis. Indeed, all of the above
concerns were addressed and skillfully interwoven in a NESA
typescript memorandum, "The Impact of an Israeli Attack on the
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PLO," that was disseminated in March 1982, three months before
Israel drove into southern Lebanon. (A SNIE, entitled
"Lebanon: Prospects for Expanded Hostilities" and issued in
February 1982, also addressed Palestinian issues, but only
briefly.)
The NESA paper is notable not only because it looked ahead
but also because it touched on what would become many of the
issues of enduring concern regarding the Palestinian movement.
These included:
-- Arafat's ability to remain as head of the PLO.
-- The probable strengthening of leftists and radicals
within the organization.
-- Challenges to Arafat's emphasis on diplomatic means of
dealing with Palestinian problems.
-- Prospects for increased Palestinian-sponsored terrorism.
-- Palestinian support for Iranian destabilization efforts
in the Gulf states.
Once Israel had invaded, DI and NIC analysis regarding
Arafat's short-term prospects shifted in accordance with his
changing fortunes. Even so, underlying a NESA typescript
memorandum of late June 1982 and a SNIE of October 1982 ("PLO:
Impact of the Lebanese Incursion") was the more fundamental
judgment that his long-term position had eroded.
In PES' judgment, the most significant piece written on the
Palestinians in the 1982-1984 timeframe was NESA's typescript,
"The Fatah Mutiny: Implications for the Peace Process," issued
in June 1983. Concluding that both Arafat and Washington had
been dealt a major blow, the anaysis hit two themes that would
prove key to understanding unfolding events in Lebanon and
prospects for the Reagan peace initiative. These were the
growing influence of Syria over the PLO and the diminishing
ability of Arafat to fashion a strategy that would mesh with US
hopes for linking the PLO and Jordan in peace talks.
After mid-1983, treatment of the PLO declined in relative
terms in the major DI and NIC publications as the focus of US
attention and concern turned to Syria's hardening position in
Lebanon and the deterioration of Gemayel's position. The NID
gave heavy coverage to the PLO--seven "Special Analyses" on the
PLO were published between June 1983 and February 1984--but in
this medium, too, the emphasis had shifted to Assad and
Gemayel. NID analysis of the PLO was consistent with that of
NESA's June 1983 memorandum and continued to point out the
consequences of Arafat's declining fortunes for a negotiated
Arab-Israeli peace.
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The Peace Process
In defining the scope of this study, PES found that the key
analytical concerns associated with the Lebanese crisis could be
examined effectively in the 1981-1984 timeframe. The issue of an
Arab-Israeli peace, however, demands that we examine also
developments that occurred following the US withdrawal from
Lebanon.
As noted throughout this paper, DI and NIC products paid
early attention to how developments in Lebanon would affect the
broader Arab-Israeli peace process. Even before Israel had
invaded Lebanon, NESA warned that such an action would likely
radicalize the PLO and make it far more difficult to engage the
Palestinians in a search for diplomatic solutions to their
problems. The analysis had also turned that equation around.
The SNIE of May 1981, entitled "Lebanon," said that an enduring
settlement in Lebanon was unlikely outside the context of an
Arab-Israeli settlement.
Between mid-1982 and early 1984, eleven Special Analyses in
the NID and a number of shorter pieces had addressed aspects of
the peace process issue. And, in the nine months following the
announcement of President Reagan's September 1982 initiative,
four major publications devoted significant space to the issue.
These were:
-- The SNIE, "PLO: Impact of the Lebanese Incursion,"
issued in November 1982.
-- An Intelligence Assessment, "Jordan, the West Bank, and
the Peace Process," April 1983.
-- A typescript memorandum, "The Fatah Mutiny: Implications
for the Peace Process," June 1983.
The typescript on the mutiny--distributed only within the DI and
to the NSC--is of particular interest because it was the last
detailed look that the analysts gave to the peace process prior
to the withdrawal of US forces from Lebanon in early 1984.
"The Fatah Mutiny" memorandum laid out a series of
conclusions that were unrelievedly bleak in their implications
for US interests in promoting a Palestinian solution in the West
Bank-Gaza territories. Similar themes and conclusions were
expanded on in an NIE, "Outlook for the Palestinians," issued in
August 1984. The Key Judgments of that estimate opened with the
observation that "The Arab states are unlikely over the next two
to three years at least to cooperate with the United States in
negotiating a solution to the Palestinian issue." The primary
cause that it cited for that bleak assessment was the same raised
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nearly a year earlier in the NESA memorandum, namely that Arafat
could no longer speak for the PLO and permit King Hussein to
negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians.
NIC and DI analysis on the peace process produced since
early 1985 has been more voluminous than that issued in the 1981-
84 period. While hardly deserving to be labelled optimistic, it
has balanced negative assessments of prospects for the September
1982 proposal with positive judgments about the need for the
United States to be seen by both Arabs and Israelis as an active
broker in the peace process. PES found no significant points of
divergence in the NIC and DI analysis, although the heavier
coverage given Arafat and the PLO in NESA's ad hoc typescript
memoranda has tended at times to give the DI product a more
pointedly negative tone.
Two NIEs were issued last year. The first, dated January
1985 and entitled "The Middle East Peace Process," reevaluated
prospects for the 1982 initiative in light of new developments:
the installation of Peres's unity government, Arafat's then
improved status within the PLO, and the early signs of an
emerging moderate Arab alignment. It looked for windows of
opportunity for US policy, but its assessment was generally
pessimistic, with the estimate noting in its first line that the
Intelligence Community saw "little prospect for any major
breakthrough in the Middle East peace process in the months
ahead."
The September 1985 estimate, "Opposition to the Arab-Israeli
Peace Process: Syrian and Soviet Options," focused, as its title
indicates, on two countries determined to act as spoilers. It,
too, detailed the obstacles to a breakthrough, although it
catalogued in its introduction the rationale for continued US
efforts to seek a solution to the Palestinian problem.
NESA production of the past two years also has addressed the
issue of US involvement in the peace process. This has been most
pronounced in two articles that appeared in the biweekly NESA
Review: "What If the Arab-Israeli Peace Process Were to
Collapse?" (27 September 1985) and "Arab-Israeli Affairs: The
Outlook from Tel Aviv" (14 February 1986).
The NESA product is more notable, however, for its carefully
documented reporting on the ups and downs of Arafat's position
within the PLO and the emphasis given to the PLO as the key
variable in the complex negotiating equation. NESA assessments
of Arafat have rested on two basic judgments: first, that he is
tempermentally unsuited to make tough compromises, and, second,
that PLO politics constrain his freedom of maneuver. The DI has
viewed Arafat in this light even while taking note of tactical
gains, such as his convening the Palestine National Council in
November 1985 in Amman. These assessments assumed even greater
strength following developments in late 1984 (the Israeli strike
against Tunis and the hijacking of the Achille Lauro), which led
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NESA to conclude in a October 1985 typescript memorandum that
Arafat is now more vulnerable to pressures from Fatah hardliners
who have advocated a militant posture for the PLO.
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