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March 07, 2005

Serious Occupation

Caroline Glick assertss Syria's occupation of Lebanon amounts to much more than just military strategic positioning:

Today, after 29 years of Syrian interference in Lebanon and 15 years of Syrian control of the country, Lebanon is at an advanced stage of Syrian colonization. According to New York based Lebanon expert Gary Gambill, today the Syrian economy and hence the Ba'athist regime is dependent on its control of Lebanon. "The remittances that Syria receives from the 1.4 million Syrian workers in Lebanon; the profits from Syrian agricultural exports to Lebanon; and the money that Syrian intelligence officials extort from Lebanese are more important to the Syrian economy than oil sales," he says.

If this is truly the case, Syria could very well stand on the brink of destruction. If Syria's economy is inextricably linked with Lebanon, it is only a matter of time before Bashar's country joins the growing number of Arab states liberated in the dawning days of this millennia.

Syria is not going to let go of Lebanon without resistance:

...the Syrians and their Lebanese allies have orchestrated increasingly violent attacks against anti-Syrian activists throughout the country. On Saturday night, pro-Syrian militiamen backed by Syrian intelligence operatives attacked residential buildings in an anti-Syrian neighborhood in Tripoli. Late Saturday night, in the Ashrafiyah neighborhood in Beirut, pro-Syrian gunmen shot and wounded people sitting on their balconies. In the southern suburbs of Beirut and in Nabatiyeh in south Lebanon, Hizbullah members held pro-Syrian demonstrations accompanied by automatic rifle fire.

There is a marked difference in the content of the pro-freedom demonstrations of the anti-Syrian contingent and that of the pro-Syrians.

Update: Hizbullah General Secretary Hassan Nasrullah says that Syria should reject the U.N. Security Council resolution 1559 because Syria and Lebanon are still at war -- not with each other, mind you:

In this regard, the secretary general of the Hizbullah party was careful to recall that Lebanon and Syria are still in a state of war with Israel, noting that the question of withdrawal from the Bekaa might last for five years or ten years, according to the agreement between the two states.

It is my bet that five to ten years is a sight shorter than what Bush, or even Chriac, have in mind.

Nasrullah called for a massive people's demonstration in Riyadh al-Solh square in Beirut on Tuesday ( tomorrow) against the foreign intervention and resolution 1559 and to demand the implementation of Taif accord.

It will be interesting to see how many pro-Syrian demonstrators turn out for tomorrow's event. One wonders if it will be anywhere near the 150 thousand that showed up today to protest Assad's refusal to "announce a timetable for a complete pullout as demanded by the Lebanese opposition and the international community."

Posted by bubba138 at March 7, 2005 12:40 PM