How Lebanon Became the Middle East’s Battleground

In mid-July 2006, NPR’s foreign editor dispatched me to Beirut. Israel and Hezbollah were waging an all-out war after militants launched a cross-border attack from Lebanon, killing eight Israeli soldiers and capturing two more. Israeli bombs pounded Lebanon’s ports, roads, and bridges, while Hezbollah rained missiles down on northern Israel. Believing his country had the upper hand, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wanted to finish off Hezbollah once and for all and had convinced the George W. Bush administration to hold off calling for a ceasefire. I was in my hotel room working on a story with a Lebanese translator when then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appeared on TV, suggesting the conflict was an opportunity to remake the region. She added that the attacks—which had already led to more than 300 Lebanese deaths and would go on to kill over 1,000 people in Lebanon and 121 Israeli soldiers—were the “birth pangs of a new Middle East.” The translator looked up from her computer and turned to me. “Birth pangs?” she asked, shaking her head. “Why does Lebanon always have to be the midwife?” Book cover of "The Best Kind of American: A True Story of Murder, War, and America’s Undoing in the Middle East," by Kim Ghattas, Henry Holt and Co. The Best Kind of American: A True Story of Murder, War, and America’s Undoing in the Middle East, Kim Ghattas, Henry Holt and Co., 496 pp., $32.99, October 2026 For five decades, Lebanon has been a key Middle East battleground, caught in the geopolitical crosshairs of Israel, Iran, Syria, and the United States competing to shape or control the broader region. In her new book The Best Kind of American: A True Story of Murder, War, and America’s Undoing in the Middle East, Kim Ghattas contends that many of the policies and conflicts playing out across the region today were established in Lebanon during the 1980s, particularly Israel’s 1982 invasion. It’s a prescient argument given where the Middle East now finds itself, with Israel continuing to vie for security and land, Iran using Hezbollah to project power, and Lebanon remaining a fragile state. Ghattas, a Lebanon-born journalist and commentator, unfolds the story of the country’s turbulence around the 1984 murder of Malcolm Kerr, a U.S. scholar of the Middle East and president of the American University of Beirut who was gunned down outside his office. The book begins with an email from Kerr’s widow, Ann, asking Ghattas if she had discovered new information about his assassination while writing an earlier book. Ann had clues about who had killed her husband, but no clarity as to why. Kerr was born and spent most of his childhood in Lebanon. Ghattas portrays him as an Arabist with a deep knowledge of the Middle East and an intuitive understanding of the role of religious fanaticism in the region. This was in striking contrast to successive U.S. administrations that, Ghattas writes, have been out-maneuvered time and again by Iran, Israel, and Syria. Lebanon was embroiled in a brutal civil war in the 1980s, which provides a vivid backdrop for Ghattas’ search to identify Kerr’s killer and the reason for his death. Regional powers pursued their own deadly agendas in the country, while Israeli tanks swept through southern Lebanon and did not stop until they reached Beirut. Kerr’s death was considered just one of many wartime losses and thus was not investigated. The book provides rich, well-researched profiles of a patchwork of deadly rivals—militants, religious fanatics, assassins, and governments—operating in Lebanon during this time. These included the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which had been based in the country since the early 1970s; the pro-Iranian Islamic Amal militia; and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and his son and successor, Bashar, who brutally controlled Lebanon for decades. Ghattas also humanizes a wide cast of characters affected by the hijackings, car bombs, hostage taking, and civil war that marked the era: a wife searching for her husband who was kidnapped, a celebrated Lebanese diva refusing to sing until the killings stopped, and the agony of those who lost loved ones, including the Kerr family. One of the more striking consequences of the 1982 war was that it led to the emergence of Hezbollah, one of Iran’s most powerful proxies. That June, Israel invaded Lebanon in a bid to dislodge Yasser Arafat and his PLO, which had been launching sporadic attacks against Israel. At the same time, Iran’s new Islamist regime sent several hundred fighters and volunteers, along with a handful of clerics, to Lebanon via Syria. They set up training camps for local Shias around Baalbek and other areas in the Beqaa Valley. More fighters and paramilitary forces arrived, taking up the name Hezbollah, or Party of God. Initially, Hafez al-Assad was cautious about allowing Iran to funnel troops and weapons through Syria, even though the two countries had become allies after the 1979 Iranian revolution. But Assad came to view Hezbollah as a powerful deterrent against Israel and a way to help consolidate his grip on Lebanon. In Ghattas’ telling, the Ronald Reagan administration made a strategic mistake by acquiescing to the 1982 invasion. It was sold to the United States by then-Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon as a limited operation to remove the PLO from Lebanon, not the broad incursion into Beirut it turned out to be. There are remarkable moments in the book highlighting Israeli sway over Washington. The U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Robert Dillon, urgently called the State Department to say he was watching Israeli tanks and troops moving into Beirut, only to be told by the switchboard operator that Tel Aviv had given its assurances that the Israeli military was not there. A few weeks later, Philip Habib, Reagan’s special Middle East envoy, rang Washington to say Israel had broken a ceasefire and was pounding Beirut. When Washington told him Israel denied that claim, Habib held his phone out the window as two tanks fired off rounds, thereby making his case. The United States was pulled into the Lebanon morass to help control the blowback from the Israeli invasion, which the White House worried could spin into another Arab-Israeli war. Washington deployed Marines in August 1982 as peacekeepers to help oversee the withdrawal of the PLO from Lebanon to Tunisia, and to control fighting between various Lebanese factions. A second deployment of Marines came after the massacre by Lebanon’s Israeli-backed Phalange militia in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in September 1982, which killed roughly 3,500 Palestinians and Lebanese Shia in Beirut over the course of three days. Black-and-white photo of a line of U.S. soldiers in camouflage uniforms and helmets carrying backpacks and equipment along a paved road, with a damaged multi-story building in the background. U.S. Marines deploy in Beirut on Aug. 25, 1982, during the Lebanese Civil War. Dominique Faget/AFP via Getty Images Yet U.S. involvement in Lebanon, marred by tragedy, ultimately punctured Washington’s aura of invincibility. In April 1983, a pickup truck filled with explosives rammed into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans. That October, barracks housing U.S. Marines collapsed after a suicide bomber detonated a truck loaded with explosives, leaving 241 U.S. service personnel dead. Four months later, Reagan announced the end of the mission. Washington’s reputation took another hit with the Iran-Contra affair. In 1986, it came out that Reagan had secretly authorized a plan to sell U.S. weapons to Iran with the aim of getting seven hostages held by Hezbollah released. U.S. officials had also siphoned profits from the sales to help fund the Nicaraguan Contras in their fight against the leftist Sandinista government. The scandal embroiled Washington for months and left lingering questions among allies about U.S. trustworthiness. It also made clear that hostage-taking was lucrative and gave Hezbollah leverage when dealing with the United States. While this played out, Malcolm Kerr’s family continued to search for clues to his killing. Andrew Kerr, his youngest son, stumbled across classified information while working as a junior staffer on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. It was a transcript of an intercepted conversation in which two Iranian operatives told the Iranian ambassador in Damascus, Ali Akbar Mohtashemipur, that they had killed Kerr. The document, which directly proved Iran’s involvement, contained the means and methods of his father’s death, but no definitive answers about the motive. To this day, no one has stood trial for the killing, but in researching her book, Ghattas discovered a link between Kerr’s murder and his investigation into the kidnapping of a university colleague, David Dodge. Still, for all that Ghattas has uncovered, the central mystery of Kerr’s death remains. U.S. President George W. Bush in a dark suit walks with his head down on a grassy lawn beside the tail section of a dark green helicopter marked with "AMERICA" and a yellow "DANGER KEEP AWAY" sign. U.S. President George W. Bush walks to Marine One as he departs the White House on July 11, 2005. Joe Raedle/Getty Images In the decades since, Ghattas observes, Iran’s covert activities and deadly ambitions have continued unabated, often in concert with other players. She writes that Bush’s decision to invade Iraq not only further eroded the United States’ standing in the region, but also consumed its attention, leaving Iran “effectively unshackled, from Baghdad to Beirut.” This allowed Hezbollah to build up its fighting force and consolidate power and legitimacy in Lebanon. In 2006, Hezbollah fighters ambushed Israeli soldiers, in part to force the release of Lebanese and Arab prisoners held in Israeli jails. Israel viewed the attack as an opportunity to eliminate Iran’s powerful proxy force, but the month-long war ended in a ceasefire. The Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, gave Israel, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, another opportunity to remake the region, just as Sharon had done in 1982. Shortly after the Iranian-backed militant group launched its assault, killing approximately 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapping 251, the Israeli military launched devastating assaults on Gaza, razing whole neighborhoods and cutting off electricity, food, and fuel to Palestinians. A second front in the war opened after Hezbollah launched a cross-border attack. Israeli forces moved into southern Lebanon, destroying much of Hezbollah’s military capabilities and killing several of its leaders, including Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. It bombed Iranian weapons depots and other targets in Syria. A weakened Hezbollah was unable or unwilling to help prop up Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which quickly fell. Iran’s network of proxies was unraveling. A shaky 2024 ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel was broken after the United States and Israel launched a war of choice against Iran in February with a series of strikes that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Hezbollah launched a barrage of missiles at Israel in support of Iran, and the Israeli military retaliated with a brutal offensive into southern Lebanon. At least 4,300 Lebanese have been killed and more than 1 million displaced in the ongoing operation, which has drawn parallels to Israel’s 1982 invasion. Iran—by far the weaker military force—has had leverage in the conflict with Israel and the United States because of its control of the Strait of Hormuz. Now in its ninth month, the war has led to a global energy crunch, shaken up alliances, and undercut U.S. credibility. Lebanon remains embroiled in conflict orchestrated by outsiders. Hezbollah is again rebuilding its forces. History has a way of repeating itself in the Middle East. A person wearing a black headscarf and a yellow sash sits and cries while holding a framed portrait of a bearded man. A woman holds a portrait of a killed fighter as she attends a ceremony commemorating Hezbollah Martyrs’ Day in Beirut on Nov. 11. Joseph Eid/AFP via Getty Images What Washington is sorely missing as it navigates this quagmire is someone like Kerr, an individual whom the historian Kamal Salibi, his friend and colleague, once called the “best kind of American who came to the Middle East”—one who was devoted to, and clear-eyed about, the region and its relations with the United States.