The military occupation of Lebanon by Ba'athist Syria lasted from 1976, beginning with the Syrian intervention in the Lebanese Civil War, until April 30, 2005.

In January 1976, Syria proposed restoring the pre-civil war limits on the Palestinian guerrilla presence in Lebanon.

Following the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1559 and the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005, allegedly involving Syria, a public uprising known as the Cedar Revolution occurred.

[6] On August 18 2020, a UN-backed special tribunal found a Hezbollah member guilty of Hariri's assassination, but found no direct evidence of Syrian involvement[7] The Syrian military presence in Lebanon was established during the Lebanese Civil War, which began on April 13, 1975 The Middle East's geopolitical landscape was reshaped by the conflicts and wars of June 1967 and October 1973.

Israel's resounding win in 1967, compounded by its occupation of the Sinai Peninsula, East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights, dealt a catastrophic blow to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and the pan-Arabist ideology.

Recognizing that they were vulnerable to attacks, Syria moved from mediation to indirect intervention in supporting guerrilla groups to, finally, the deployment of Syrian troops in Lebanon.

[14] In his public speech on 20 July, Hafez al-Assad espoused the notion of a "Greater Syria", stating: "Syria and Lebanon were one state and one people... and have shared interests and a common history"[15]A second Syrian offensive in mid-October 1976 succeeded at capturing all of central Lebanon as well as some of the country's most important urban centres.

[12] Syrian involvement in the fighting between various Lebanese militias that erupted around the first of the year had previously been limited to tactical actions carried out by portions of the Palestine Liberation Army under Damascus' supervision.

Around 4 April, these efforts were bolstered by a virtual blockade of Lebanon's ports by Syrian navy forces, ostensibly to prevent the fighting factions from receiving resupply of arms and ammunition.

[16] By October 1976, Syria had significantly weakened the leftists and their Palestinian allies, but at a meeting of the Arab League, it was forced to accept a ceasefire.

Aoun initially received a greater degree of international support than el-Hoss, but this ended abruptly with the American build-up for war with Iraq over Kuwait.

[5] After the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon and the death of Hafez al-Assad in 2000, the Syrian military presence faced criticism and resistance from the Lebanese population.

[21] With the consequent adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1559 and following the assassination of the Lebanese ex-premier Rafik Hariri and allegations of Syrian involvement in his death, a public uprising nicknamed the Cedar Revolution swept the country.

Both Lebanon's neighbours, Syria and Israel, were among the top donors and sponsored militias from the beginning to the end of the conflict.

After a few years, following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and a change in the dynamics of the Iran-Iraq war, Iran became actively committed in the conflict.

Libya, Iraq and to a lesser extent, the United States and the Soviet Union, supplied backing to various militias.

Iran wants to build a presence in Lebanon, which would allow it to share a common border with Israel and land fertile ground for extreme Islamic doctrine.

[31] On 14 September 1982, the Lebanese president Bachir Gemayel was addressing a speech in Achrafieh, at 4:10 pm, a bomb was detonated at the headquarters, killing him and 26 other politicians.

[citation needed] Syrian forces entered Lebanon in 1976, one year after the Lebanese civil war began.

[citation needed] Ghazi Kanaan and Rustum Ghazaleh were the two intelligence officers who controlled Lebanon throughout this period.

[citation needed] In October 2008, both Syria and Lebanon decided to have diplomatic relationships by establishing embassies for the first time in history since both countries gained their national independence during the 1940s.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) was established by the United Nations Security Council resolution 1757 in 2007, in response to the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri and the deaths of 21 others in a bombing in downtown Beirut on February 14, 2005.

[35] The tribunal’s notable achievements include the trial of Salim Jamil Ayyash, who received five concurrent life sentences in 2020.

The STL faced numerous challenges, such as accusations of selective justice, inefficacy in enforcing arrests, and internal mismanagement.

Egypt fought in Yemen (1963–67) and Iraq invaded Kuwait (1990), but only Syria occupied a fellow Arab country for thirty years... Stalinism in Eastern Europe and Assadism in Lebanon offer certain similarities for consideration.

Military invasion, political manipulation, and ideological co-optation supplied the means for the Soviet Union to penetrate and dominate Eastern Europe; these were also methods employed by Syria against Lebanon.