This is possibly the beginning of the end for Syria's occupation of its smaller neighbor. The most important thing at the present time is for none of the parties opposing Syria's hold on Lebanon to slacken off on the pressure or show any signs of indecision, lest Assad and his henchmen regain their nerves, which have clearly been badly frayed.
The Syrian government's hold on Lebanon was shaken last night when its placeman, the prime minister Omar Karami, was forced to resign after a wave of street protests.
Both the Syrian regime and its puppet government in Beirut have been under pressure since the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri a fortnight ago.
With Beirut halted by a general strike and tens of thousands of protesters taking to the streets, Mr Karami announced the dissolution of his government, saying: "I am keen that the government will not be a hurdle in front of those who want the good for this country."
[...]
Last night the White House said the government's resignation was "an opportunity for the Lebanese people to have a new government that is truly representative of their _ diversity".
Israel presented the Jerusalem diplomatic corps with what it said was evidence of telephone conversations linking Islamic Jihad leaders in Syria with those responsible for the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on Friday.
The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, voiced concern yesterday that the US was preparing to attack his country.
Good, let him think that; fear is the only thing he and his fellow thugs understand, and there's no clearer sign that they speak this language well than the following excerpt:
On Sunday, trying to placate the US, Mr Assad handed over to the interim Iraqi government a half-brother of Saddam Hussein, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti, after months of denying that he was in the country. He has also promised to pull troops from Lebanon, but has given no timetable.
While I very much doubt that the Bush administration is thinking in any serious way about invading Syria, it definitely helps that the Syrian regime believes that it is a possibility; if there's one thing Bush's two wars in a single term have accomplished, it's to imbue his warnings with tremendous threat credibility in the eyes of Middle Eastern troublemakers, and the great thing about having a reputation for unilateralism and belligerence is that the fear it instills in others spares one from having to actually fight all that often.
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