By PATRICK COCKBURN
"The arrival of the multinational force in Lebanon in 1982 brought with it a train of disasters. I still recall that great concrete sandwich near the airport that was all that remained of the US barracks in which 241 Marines died after it was hit by a suicide bomber on 23 October 1983. Elsewhere in Beirut, 58 French paratroopers were entombed when the building in which they were living was rammed by a second vehicle packed with explosives.
A multinational force sent to Lebanon will be seen much as the US and British in Iraq. They will be fought as a new detachment of crusaders. The US is probably more unpopular than it has ever been across the Middle East. Even if there are no American troops in the new multinational force they will be seen as opening another front in the West's perceived war on Islam. They will be joining a war, not ending it."
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