The United States has ignored Lebanon for too long and must increase its support for the nation if it wants to regain its credibility in the Middle East, a former high-ranking Lebanese diplomat told a Harvard audience last night.

"Why should the U.S. elevate Lebanon to significant importance by creating a foreign policy?" asked Wadi Haddad, the Lebanese diplomat, as he opened his remarks.

Because, if neglected by America, Lebanon would almost certainly drift toward antagonism to U.S. interests, the former adviser to a Lebanese president told a half-filled Boylston Hall auditorium.

Haddad said that although Lebanon is about the size of Connecticut, the nation could undermine U.S. efforts to establish a lasting peace in the Middle East.

"The U.S. has never had a foreign policy with Lebanon," Haddad told the crowd, cautioning that a continuation of that neglect could lead to disaster for the U.S.

Haddad said Lebanese history illustrates the risks. He said that when the U.S. supported the withdrawal of Israeli and Syrian troops from Lebanon in 1982, American officials overestimated their own influence in the region.

"The U.S. was wrong in believing that neither Israel or Syria would resist withdrawal," Haddad said.

Referring to the attack on U.S. marines stationed in Beirut, Haddad said "the Lebanese fiasco" cost the U.S. credibility in the Middle East because Americans overestimated their military efficacy in the convoluted world of Middle Eastern politics.

The Harvard-Radcliffe Society for Lebanese Affairs sponsored Haddad's speech. The student group exists "to keep Lebanon in the hearts and minds of people here," a spokesman for the society said.

Haddad said the need for the U.S. to take an active interest in Lebanon is greater today than it ever has been before because "Lebanon is fighting now for sovereignty."

According to Haddad, that fight has caused cracks in what he called Lebanon's "thin veneer of civilization."