In ’73, The turks invaded and took half of Cyprus, and Yassar Araphat’s PLO was driven from the Kingdom of Jordan after PLO’s unsuccessful attempts to “liberate” the KoJ. Arabphat then headed for Lebanon and we know what happened to Lebanon after that.

How does the ‘brandishing’ that took place (known only to those deployed in subs, and in SAC) figure into these two scenarios?

I always thought that it was the weakening of the executive office (via watergate) that prevented Nixon from taking action to defend Lebanon. Thirty thousand soviet troops in Syria, and possible confrontation with them placed so close to Araphat’s escape route.

The world pivoted to how we know it today in that year, with Iran superseding soviet influence in Syria, and Lebanon later on. that was the time and the opportunity to defend an ally, Lebanon, but cleaning up Kennedy and Johnsons Viet-mess cost a lot of capital and I wonder what pre-emptively stopped a deployment of marines to annihilate anyone or anything threatening the sovereignty of Lebanon?