Kim Ghattas

and we'll bite our tongue and we'll accept this new president.

But something goes wrong, but nobody notices what it is.

It is that Caspar Weinberger, the defense secretary, orders the Marines to leave before the agreed departure day.

And they leave very quickly, much quicker than Philip Habib wanted to, because he knew

about the dangers that could unfold in Lebanon if the Marines left too soon.

So part of the agreement was that they were to stay for an extra number of weeks, but they leave on the 10th of September and on the 11th, the French leave as well.

And they leave

civilians unprotected.

He gets assassinated on September 14th.

In a country with so much war and so many assassinations, nothing is really unexpected.

Just before he is assassinated towards the end of the month of August, when he is president-elect, he gets summoned to Israel by Menachem Begin, who demands a peace treaty and demands that Begin could visit Beirut.

And Bashir Jumail, in the meantime, has moved on from just his ambitions as a Christian phalangist militia leader.

He wants to become president of Lebanon during the invasion.

This becomes clear.

And so he doesn't actually deliver for the Israelis in the way that they had hoped for because he has these ambitions and his own people and the Americans are telling him, if you want to become president of Lebanon.

You cannot go and massacre people in West Beirut, which is your city, the city over which you will have to rule and be president.

He had a lot of shortcomings.

He was involved in a lot of massacres, but he does step back a little bit then, and he does become elected president by a majority that was present.

Not everyone shows up.

He gets elected by Christian and, notably at the time, Shia members of parliament.