James R. Stocker. Spheres of Intervention

If there is one word that sums up the foreign policy of successive U.S. administrations toward Lebanon during the decade before the outbreak of that country’s tragic civil war, it is “neglect.” For the bulk of this period, U.S. attention was directed elsewhere in the region. As James R. Stocker shows in this clearly written and careful study, this U.S. neglect stood in stark contrast to the perception of U.S. interference held by many Lebanese themselves. Spheres of Intervention: US Foreign Policy and the Collapse of Lebanon, 1967–1976 opens by quoting a speech by Hizbullah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah in November 2011, in which Nasrallah cited a message from U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger to the Maronite Christian politician Raymond Edde. In the message, Kissinger supposedly claimed responsibility for causing the Lebanese civil war. According to Nasrallah, Kissinger had admitted that Lebanon’s pre–civil war model of coexistence threatened U.S. interests, which depended on the maintenance of sectarian states in the region, of which Israel was the prime example.

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