Forlorn Mood Grips Christian Lebanese : Mideast: Optimism for future of nation wanes as Gen. Michel Aoun, rebel commander, calls its quits.

When Kamal Abu-Haidar, 30, had a flat tire on his way home on a main highway in central Lebanon one Saturday evening, he waited seven hours before a lone car pulled over and its driver loaned him a jack.

One month earlier, the bustling road into Lebanon’s mountain resorts east of Beirut was constantly jammed with vehicles carrying people until the morning’s first light.

Abu-Haidar’s saviors were a group of Syrian soldiers on patrol in the newly conquered Christian area of Lebanon, which Gen. Michel Aoun, the Christian rebel chief, ruled for two years until he finally gave up in October.

The Syrian attack that led to Aoun’s ouster cost 700 lives and about $12 million in property damage in the Christian areas. It also claimed another casualty: feelings of defeat, pessimism and submission among the Christian Lebanese.

“Lebanon without Christians will not be the same Lebanon again. They had better name it something else,” said Nazik Yared, a Christian writer and professor at Beirut University College.

“I think the Christian areas will witness massive emigration such as has never been seen before,” she predicted.

Abu-Haidar, who lives in the hilltop village of Mansouriyeh in the Metin area northeast of Beirut, used to enjoy watching from his balcony the lines of cars heading to trendy night spots scattered through the picturesque villages and resorts nearby.

“Last (Saturday) night only two cars drove by. Their occupants must have been pro-Syrian militiamen, otherwise they would not have dared to go out at night,” Abu-Haidar said.

Like many of the Christians now living under Syrian control, Abu-Haidar prefers to stay at home after dark. He locks himself, his wife and their only child in as soon as he returns from work at 6 every evening.

He is fed up with the country. “There is no water, telephones or electricity. But we were in an area which was free of any foreign presence. This used to be our consolation. Now, even that is gone,” he said.

His wife, Jumana, never contemplated emigrating until recently. “Even if I have to leave home briefly to buy vegetables or milk for my child, I have to endure the gazes, whispers and sometimes harassment by the Syrian soldiers surrounding our home,” she said.

Residents of East Beirut frequently hear radio reports of rape, looting and revenge killings of Christians by Syrian soldiers and their surrogate Muslim militiamen.

Although most of the reports have been exaggerated, various security sources note that they have been effective. An estimated 20,000 residents of East Beirut have fled to France, Canada and the United States.

Of those unable to leave for financial reasons, some seldom report to work. Many are in hiding out of fear of revenge for their support of Aoun, residents in East Beirut say.

Mohamad Kak, 45, a Muslim doctor at the American University of Beirut, sees the current development as the start of another cycle in Lebanon’s violent history.

“The Christians of East Beirut are having that same feeling of insecurity and abandonment which the Muslims of this country felt when Israel invaded their half of the capital in 1982,” Kak said. “God help us when that ruthless wheel of history turns again.”