I could see that Little Pines was a kind of fiction. All you had to do was take a map and draw in the 40-kilometer line. In the areas nearer the Mediterranean, in the western and central parts of the border area, it indeed covered territory controlled by armed PLO groups. But in the eastern sector, there were Syrian positions a mere 10 to 12 kilometers up from the border, well inside the “security zone’. Not much further north were two full Syrian divisions. That meant we’d be fighting not just the Palestinians, which was the ostensible aim of Little Pines. We would have to take on Syria. As soon as those hostilities began, we would have to destroy radar and SAM sites in the Syrian-controlled Beka’a Valley further north into Lebanon. After the first costly days of the 1973 war in the Sinai, we were not about to enter a major conflict without ensuring air superiority. Unless the Syrians retreated or surrendered, the inevitable result would be a wider conflict, not limited to dealing with Palestinian fighters in south Lebanon but paving the way for Arik to go ahead with his original plan and push all the way to Beirut. This wasn’t mere supposition on my part. In February 1982, we ran a simulation exercise in the Airya based on Plan B. The result: Little Pines became Big Pines. A clash with the Syrians proved inevitable, if only because one target even under Little Pines was the main road between Beirut and Damascus. It lay well beyond the 40-kilometer line. As the main supply route for their forces in the interior of Lebanon, it was also of critical importance for the Syrians. So any idea of a quick, limited strike to establish a security zone was fantasy. A few days later, Raful chaired a wide-ranging discussion on Lebanon. Near the end of the session, I asked him directly whether government ministers were aware that our war plan “will inevitably lead to a clash with the Syrians”. Raful hesitated for a second, but then answered briskly: “Yes.” That assurance would