Lebanese Civil War (1975-90)

Civil war is just another way of saying revolution. Lebanon, for its part, is a Middle East nation that, while not militarily significant, has nevertheless been a cauldron of tension that has been a factor in the consistent unrest in the region. The 15 year civil war was a result of ethnic and religious intolerance. The history prior to the war is long and convoluted. Suffice to say, that by the 1960s, Lebanon consisted of two major blocks of people: Christians, who were the minority, yet held the government and other key military posts of authority; and the Muslims, who were the majority but were being held from assuming any authority by the Christian
minority. The Christian government became increasingly alarmed as the number of former Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) militia members started to rise among the ranks of the Muslims. These militias, to put a point on the situation, were heavily armed. Naturally, the Christian government was not particularly keen on the idea of giving up its power base and it certainly wasn’t inclined to allow the Muslims to go about arming themselves in East Beirut – and civil war erupted. By the time the conflict (technically) ended in 1990, well over 200,000 people had been killed. Virtually every nation in the region (Jordan, Israel, Syria, Iran etc.) had intervened in the conflict at one point or another, including the United Nations (with peace keeping troops – some from the US). Lebanon existed less as a sovereign nation than it did a smoldering collection of cities. With its economy in ruins and the nation on the brink of simply not existing, an uneasy peace was reached. In the end, the Muslim majority was able to obtain more authority within a type of coalition government.