February 28, 2005

Thanks to Lucianne Goldberg's superb site, I found out that Publius Pundit is blogging what he/she is certain is an imminent revolution in Lebanon.
Publius has pictures and video and updates frequently.
It's going down in Beirut again, but this time, it's very good stuff!
Here's what's been happening:
Lebanon headed for showdown

Lebanon was headed for a showdown between the opposition and the security forces as thousands of demonstrators massed late today in Beirut in defiance of a ban on protests by the pro-Syrian government.

Shouting "Syria out" and waving the Lebanese flag, the protesters converged on the central Martyr's Square as hundreds of heavily armed troops aided by police deployed jeeps and trucks to the main crossroads leading to the square.

An opposition member of parliament told the demonstrators that three members of the pro-Syrian Lebanese government had resigned.
[...]
   More than 5000 protesters are vowing to mark the second week since a bomb blast on the Beirut seafront killed former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, a Damascus critic.

Hundreds stopped from getting to the square blocked nearby crossings, some of them shouting "we don't want any other army than the Lebanese army".

Pro-government parties, including the Shi'ite Islamist movement Hizbollah, have called their supporters from Monday on to the streets for counter-demonstrations, raising fears of violence that the government used to justify its ban.
[...]
The army's call for the public to heed the ban raised fears that troops would forcibly disperse the opposition sit-ins that have been held nightly since Hariri's death on February 14.
[...]
The head of the Democratic Rally, a lay movement, told Hariri's Al-Mostaqbal satellite television channel the Syrian president should be "confident in the fact that the Lebanese institutions are capable of assuming their responsibilities and that there will be no separate peace with Israel".
[Why do they always have to include their hatred of Israel? *sigh*--Jen]
[...]
The mounting showdown came as a senior US envoy visited Beirut to press UN Security Council demands for a rapid and complete withdrawal of Syrian troops, and Syrian officials sought Arab backing for their insistence on managing any pullback on their own terms.

The US deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, David Satterfield, called for a "credible investigation" into Mr Hariri's killing and for "concrete steps towards the immediate implementation" of Resolution 1559, passed last September, demanding the withdrawal of all foreign troops.

Mr Satterfield said Washington was still waiting for a Syrian pullback to the eastern Bekaa valley announced by Lebanese officials on Thursday.
[Will this be good enough?
Can't the Syrians still fire on Israel from here?--Jen]

"We have seen nothing happen on the ground," the US envoy told Future TV, which was owned by the slain former premier.

Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara, meanwhile, launched a regional tour to seek Arab support for his government's refusal to bow to US-led pressure for a rapid withdrawal.
[Heheheh!
Stay out of the Bushes!
That purple finger of fate will get you! LOL!]

His Egyptian counterpart, Ahmed Abul Gheit, said he was seeking a compromise under which Syria would be allowed to pull back gradually under existing bilateral agreements that would be seen as an indirect way of implementing the Security Council's demands.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda...Is it possible for these hard-core Arabs to sound more wishy-washy and weak?
"Compromise...gradually...bilateral...indirect."
Weak as water! (and they know it!)

Of course, the Lebanese patriots ("opposition forces") are inspired and heartened by the crowds of Ukraine, who took to the streets to uphold Yushchenko's victory in late December and who vowed to carry their Orange Revolution forward, instead of letting Putin install Russia's puppet.
Meanwhile, Syria is busy backpedalling; you might even say that Assad is panicking, as well he should.
First, Syria coughed up Saddam's half brother in an effort to appease the U.S. ire.
Already in trouble with Israel for being thought to be behind Friday's bombing of a Tel Aviv nightclub which claimed 5 lives (the 5th person died yesterday),
the Jerusalem Post is reporting that Syrian and Israeli officials met in secret sometime last week in Jordan for peace talks!

An official Jordanian source told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that Syrian, Jordanian and Israeli Foreign Ministry officials held secret peace talks in Jordan last week. According to the source, technical committees from Syria and Israel were hosted at the Movenpick Hotel on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea.
[...]
Syrian President Bashar Assad last November invited Israel to enter peace negotiations without preconditions.

Israel dismissed the offer, saying that if Assad were serious he would crack down on Lebanon's Hizbullah organization and close the offices of terrorist organizations in Damascus. "Syria should translate words into action by shutting Palestinian offices and military bases in Damascus and stopping the relaying of missiles to Hizbullah from Iran via the Damascus airport," said Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom at that time.
[...]
Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, Israel's outgoing chief of General Staff, said in August that Israel should take advantage of Syria's diplomatic isolation to cut the best possible deal. At the time, Ya'alon declared that Israel's military superiority means it could return the Golan Heights it conquered from Syria in 1967.
[Slow down there, pardner!
Israel shouldn't let go of the Golan Heights just yet (if ever).
They won that land fair and square in battle.--Jen]

Peace negotiations between Syria and Israel began in 1994 and broke down in March 2000 over a narrow strip of land along Lake Kinneret. Assad signaled a desire to resume peace talks with Israel in an interview with The New York Times in December 2003. That offer was repeated at least five more times.

"Baby" Bashir Assad, trained to be an opthomologist, may not have inherited the ruthless tyrant gene from his father, after all.
Hooray!
Remember that he "let" the exiled Iraqis in Syria vote in the January 30 election, too, so the Purple Finger has already given the whole place the light touch.
Freedom is on the march in the Middle East.
This promises to be exciting and fast-breaking, so stay close to your computer!