North of the Sea of Galilee, I took a break from war reporting. It was June 9—the third day of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon—and I had just left an Israel Defense Forces battalion moving slowly north on foot. I pulled over to inhale the perfume of northern Israel. The fragrance from eucalyptus trees filled the cooler air. The sunlight, free of city dust, made brilliant every flower and leaf. And the sky …
Wait a minute.
Above, the blue sky to my west was full of supersonic aircraft in a classic air battle. Just to the south, an E-2C Hawkeye was loitering on a racetrack course. This US Navy version of airborne warning and control (AWAC) was orchestrating an air battle for the Israeli air force. Two F-15C Eagles were roaring north with fiery afterburners. Coming south was an F-16 Falcon spiraling in a joyful victory barrel roll. The black puff of an exploding missile warhead was seen but not heard. For me, it was a silent airshow of America’s most powerful aerial weapons in the hands of the Israeli air force in a full-bore attack on Russian jets flown by Syrian pilots. As a Pentagon reporter in Washington, I instantly grasped the rarity of 200 warplanes filling the blue sky. Not since the Korean War of 1950 had Russian and American jets engaged in battle, and then nothing on the scale unfolding above. But the politics of the battle baffled.
The details of that day during the summer of 1982 would not become clear for several years. Misleading statements and downright lies by both the American and Israeli governments put a cloak of duplicity over what became known as the Bekaa Valley Turkey Shoot. The day before, June 8, 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin took the floor of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, for a rare direct appeal to Syrian president Hafez al-Assad.
“I once again state that we do not want a war with Syria,” Begin said. “From this platform I call on President Assad to instruct the Syrian army not to harm Israeli soldiers, and then nothing bad will happen to [Syrian soldiers]. We desire no clashes with the Syrian army. If we reach the line 40 kilometers from our northern border the work will have been done, all fighting will end. I am directing my words to the ears of the president of Syria.”
It was a total ruse. Begin never announced Israel’s war on Syria as the Jerusalem government did on the Palestine Liberation Organization on May 4.
Israel’s ambassador to London, Shlomo Argov, was attacked and shot—he recovered months later—on May 3, 1982. The attack was ordered by Abu Nidal, leader of Fatah and the archenemy of Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Nidal had left the PLO after bitter attacks on Arafat. Members of the Begin cabinet had second thoughts about blaming Arafat for the London attack when Abu Nidal’s role was clear. But Begin shut off debate. “They’re all PLO,” the prime minister said. Begin approved air strikes on 255 of Arafat’s PLO sites in southern Lebanon and Beirut. Hundreds were killed and injured. Arafat replied the next day with a 24-hour barrage of rockets on northern Israel. The war was under way.
The very next day after Begin’s Knesset appeal to the Syrian president, Begin and his defense minister, Ariel Sharon, implemented Operation Mole Cricket. The strike, two years in the planning, was designed to strip Syria of its air force and drive 35,000 Syrian troops out of Lebanon. Without air support, the Syrian forces that had occupied Lebanon for seven years would be easy pickings for Israeli armored and air forces. Syria’s defeat and the expulsion of PLO fighters would permit Jerusalem to redraw the Mideast map. That fall, Begin planned to install as president of Lebanon the Christian warlord Bashir Gemayel. In turn, Gemayel would sign a peace treaty and open diplomatic and trade relations with the Jewish nation. It was exactly the game plan Begin outlined to Secretary of State Alexander Haig three years earlier in Cairo. Haig enlisted the support of President Ronald Reagan.
In the sky over Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley on June 9, America’s most important weapons were put on display by an Israeli government that defied American restrictions on their use. While the combat planes, electronic warfare aircraft, and all-seeing radar had been given for Israel’s defense, now Begin and Sharon were using the weapons for all-out aggression—a first for Israel. At every turn, American weapons crippled and then crushed Syria’s air defenses and air force. Mole Cricket began at 2 p.m. June 9, with Israeli and American drones teasing crucial electronic signatures from the warheads of Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles. These were the very same Soviet SAMs that wrecked the Israeli air force nine years earlier in the Yom Kippur War. This time, Syrian SAM batteries mistook the drones for attacking aircraft. When they “painted” the drones, their radar signatures were relayed to following American F-4 Phantoms that popped up over the SAM batteries. US antiradiation missiles were quickly armed with the SAM signatures from the drones. These US missiles zoomed down an electronic highway to destroy the first of 26 Syrian batteries. These were American tactics refined in Vietnam to combat massive Soviet SAM networks all over Hanoi.
The Hawkeye AWAC system—its radar covered 3 million cubic miles—spotted Syrian air force turmoil. Syrians flying Soviet MiG-20s and MiG-21s took off from Shayrat Airbase, and Hawkeye instantly assigned F-15s and F-16s on an interception course. These vectoring US warplanes were armed with American Sidewinder air-to-air rockets. No need to maneuver behind the enemy. Launched from any angle miles away, the supersonic Sidewinders destroyed Syrian pilots who were unaware of an attack until too late. Over two days, Israeli pilots shot down 86 Syrian MiGs, some at a range of 10 miles. Only one F-15 was damaged. And 26 SAM batteries were destroyed without a single F-4 Phantom loss. In Damascus, Syrian generals were unable to get a clear picture of the attack. A major reason was a US-made electronic-warfare Boeing 707 hovering over the battlefield, filled with gear that jammed radar and both radio and telephone transmission in Syria. More than 100 Syrian MiGs entered the fray over two days but without radar guidance. Benjamin Lambeth of the RAND Corporation saw the unguided Syrian MiG-21s. “I watched a group of Syrian fighter planes fly figure-eights,” he said. “They just flew around and around and obviously had no idea what to do next.”
Just as isolated from the air war 30 miles away was Phillip Habib, President Reagan’s personal Mideast representative. He was waiting at the American embassy in Damascus for a meeting with Syrian president Assad. Habib was carrying a cease-fire plan from Israel, his stock-in-trade. Throughout the 10-year war in Vietnam and later in other countries, Habib had become the star US negotiator, arbitrator, interlocutor, and brilliant policymaker. Habib’s reputation was a major reason he was recruited by Haig and Reagan. The son of Lebanese immigrants, Habib was a tough-talking product of Brooklyn who used unvarnished directness with everyone. That delighted Ronald Reagan, who used ethnic jokes that had Habib laughing through many of their meetings in 1982. Quickly, Habib realized Reagan had more misinformation than knowledge about the Mideast. The president was convinced that the turmoil in Lebanon was caused by the Soviet Union and that Moscow was using Syria and the PLO to threaten Israel. The air defense missiles in Lebanon were really Syria’s warheads aiming at Israel. White House staffers prepared 3"× 5" cards with Mideast details that Reagan would read aloud during policy sessions. The president retained nothing. According to Habib, his boss “couldn’t remember one detail from one minute to the next.” But for the Big Picture, Reagan shared with Haig the determination that America would protect Israel—no matter what.
Habib was no Mideast whiz. He had carried to Damascus a cease-fire proposal from Begin that Syrian experts at the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency knew Assad would never accept. It required Syria to pull its troops out of southern Lebanon, along with its air defense missiles. Habib met with Assad amid the roar of Syrian jets from a nearby airbase. Assad offered no hint that he knew Israeli warplanes had launched the Mole Cricket attack at 2 p.m. When Habib returned to the Damascus embassy, he learned of Begin’s massive air attack. Habib quickly arranged for a second meeting with Assad. He found the Syrian president tense and suspicious of the representative of the American president. No matter what was said, Habib realized the skills that won plaudits in Asia were useless in the Mideast. Habib that night cabled Washington: “I am astounded and dismayed by what happened today. The prime minister of Israel in reality sent me off on a wild goose chase.”
Mole Cricket’s total destruction was certainly a military disaster for Syria. It was also a deep wound for Assad, a Soviet-trained jet fighter pilot and commander of the air force before becoming president. Assad began preaparing for a Mideast-style revenge that would stun both Israel and the United States. It would take time. He would later portray Habib as an agent of Israel, not the United States. After accusing Habib of deception about a later cease-fire with Israel, Assad declared Habib persona non grata, the ultimate slap in a diplomat’s face, ending his welcome in Damascus.
Habib’s initial foray in the Mideast had been a disaster. There were more to come.