So long as Syria is positioned to exert significant influence in Lebanon and the Shia remain steadfast partners in helping perpetuate the Alawite Ba’athist government in Damascus—and Iran could accommodate Syria toward those ends—Syria likely will not resist a de facto Caliphate. With Iraq being pulled in the direction of Iran despite the presence of more than 100,000 American soldiers there, the regional balance of power is beginning to tilt more toward Iran and away from the United States and West. That trend will tend to further deepen Iranian-Syrian cooperation.

At a minimum, the Rejectionist group is likely to try to harden any tough negotiating positions that might be adopted by Lebanon. Following Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem, Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) launched a diplomatic offensive in the Arab world aimed at blocking the possibility of a separate peace between Egypt and Israel. Later, at a sensitive moment in the early stages of the Egyptian-Israeli peace process, Morocco’s King Hassan praised Sadat’s “firmness” against what he described as “Israeli pretentions.”

If that does not impede progress, terrorists could instigate a major terrorist attack or series of attacks to sabotage the peace process. In March 1978, the PLO seized a bus in Israel and killed 32 Israelis on the eve of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s trip to the United States to further the Egyptian-Israeli peace process. If such attacks do little to abort the peace process, a campaign of assassinations and car bombings directed at Lebanese leaders could be undertaken, much as occurred during the early 1980s. Moreover, Lebanon’s Shia could be encouraged by Iran to seek a new governing relationship based on current demographic realities. Such a bid could shatter Lebanon’s delicate political structure and bring an end to any peace process that might be underway.

Radical Palestinian groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of whose leaders are hosted by Damascus, could seek to foment unrest among Lebanon’s Palestinian population. Lebanon’s political leaders remain opposed to granting Palestinians full rights of citizenship, even those born in Lebanon. They fear that such an arrangement would upset the current sectarian balance upon which Lebanon’s political and economic system rests. Hence, even if Lebanon embraces a long-term goal for the resettlement of Palestinians in a Palestinian state, radical Palestinian leaders could still provoke such unrest to help block a possible peace treaty.