Posted on 04/27/2005 6:02:39 AM PDT by OESY
...In a letter to the U.N. yesterday, Syria notes that its departure puts the country in compliance with Security Council Resolution 1559, passed last September at the urging of the U.S. and France, and claims that the withdrawal "was primarily dictated by Syria's unwavering commitment to the charter of the United Nations and its resolutions." The reality, of course, is that Syria strenuously opposed the resolution when it was proposed, declared it a failure when it passed and ignored it until the combination of Lebanese and international pressure for withdrawal made its position untenable....
And yet, even after Hariri's murder and the anti-Syrian protests that swept the country, many so-called realists said that rapid Syrian withdrawal was too much to expect. Syria had too much at stake economically and politically, the conventional wisdom went, to really loosen its grip on its longtime client state to the west. Flynt Leverett, former director of Middle Eastern Affairs at the National Security Council, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that the U.S. "should recognize that an expansion of political openness will unfold over years, rather than weeks or months; it will need to proceed cautiously to avoid a re-emergence of sectarian violence." Well, so much for that theory....
In all this, President Bush deserves a large portion of the credit, not that his critics will grant it. It is unlikely the Cedar Revolution would have taken place when and how it did without the example of Iraq's elections. The President's diplomatic and rhetorical support also proved crucial. That's not to say the world can rest easy about Lebanon. The country remains religiously fractious and politically fragile. But if we've learned one thing from this experience, it is that the Arab world isn't resistant to democratic change, but ripe for it.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Now it is time for the Iranians to leave Hizbollah bases in southern Lebanon.
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