The 1958 Lebanon crisis was a Lebanese political crisis caused by political and religious tensions in the country. It included a U.S. military intervention.

In July 1958, Lebanon was threatened by a civil war between Maronite Christians and Muslims. Lebanese Muslims pushed the government to join the newly created United Arab Republic, while the Christians wanted to keep Lebanon aligned with Western powers.

A Muslim rebellion that was allegedly supplied with arms by the UAR through Syria caused President Chamoun to complain to the United Nations Security Council. The United Nations sent a group of inspectors that reported that it didn’t find any evidence of significant intervention from the UAR.

The Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, threatened to use nuclear weapons in the event of an American intervention. The toppling of a pro-Western government in Iraq’s 14 July Revolution, along with the internal instability, caused President Chamoun to call for American assistance.

Source: Wikipedia, published under the GNU FDL. Retrieved 2014-03-03