After nearly a month of neocon triumphalism following the Iraqi elections, the stage seemed set for a reversal. Hezbollah, one of the most powerful terrorist groups on the planet and the only Arab group that could ever boast to having defeated the US, France, and Israel, had rallied to the side of its Syrian backers with something on the order of 500,000 answering its call.
As blogosphere's favorite academic stated in his latest not-so-thinly-veiled gloating of yet another defeat for Bushitleretardespotheocrat:
The simplistic master narrative constructed by the partisans of President George W. Bush held that the January 30 elections were a huge success, and signalled a turn to democracy in the Middle East. Then the anti-Syrian demonstrations were interpreted as a yearning for democracy inspired by the Iraqi elections ...
...Moreover, the anti-Syrian protests were not a signal that the Lebanese wanted to be like American-occupied Iraq. They were a signal that the Druze, Maronites and a section of the Sunnis had agreed to try to push Syria out ... And it was a sign that Lebanon is still deeply divided, since the Shiite plurality largely supports Syria. Given the pro-Syrian sentiment in some Sunni cities like Tripoli, it may well be that a majority of Lebanese want Syria to remain in some capacity. If that were true, what would it do to Mr. Bush's master narrative of the march of democracy?
Cole was, of course, by no means the only member of the commentariat to draw such conclusions. Any number of Western observers, European leaders, and members of the Department of State were sufficiently cowed by the pro-Syrian demonstrations into suggesting that the US abandon its "hard line" on Hezbollah, even to the point of falsely projecting such opinions onto the administration. The logic seemed clear, these three groups of observers concluded, that Hezbollah simply had more support on the ground in Lebanon than did the anti-Syrian coalition.
In recent days, opposition ads for Monday's rally have been running on television, and activists in towns and villages arranged buses to the capital. E-mails and telephone text messages referred to Prime Minister Omar Karami's claim that the Hezbollah demonstration showed the government had the support of the majority.
"Prove him wrong," the messages flashed across cellphones and computers.
From the looks of things, they did in spades:
There were no official estimates of the crowd size, but Lebanon's leading LBC TV station and some police officers estimated it at about 1 million. An Associated Press estimate put the number at least 800,000. Either way it was the biggest demonstration ever in this country of 3.5 million.
More on-the-spot photos here, including a very fine
photo of several thousand demonstrators who
made up a Lebanese flag by holding colored cards
Instapundit has more, and so does GlennReynolds.com. The exact numbers of this demonstration are likely to be quibbled about for some time to come (and for whatever it's worth, the CIA says that Lebanon's population is ~3,780,000, not 3,500,000), but the point that should not be missed here is that roughly a fourth of the Lebanese people took to the streets to call for an end to Syrian rule over their country.
And all of this without the organization, funding, or immense hard and soft powers of coercion that were available to Hezbollah. Just imagine for a moment what the Cedar Revolutionaries could had achieved had they had access to just one of those assets...
I confess that I have been somewhat remiss in blogging about recent developments in Lebanon for a whole host of reasons (mid-terms, spending spring break with the most beautiful girl at all of William and Mary, etc.), having been largely dependent on a combination of press reports and the excellent commentary from Tony over at Across the Bay. Nevertheless, Lebanon is important because our ability to provide sustained and successful support for the Cedar Revolutionaries is going to be the first real test as far as whether or not the US is going to be able to credibly back other nascent democratic efforts in the Middle East.
I don't want to get too pollyannish on Lebanon just yet for much the same reasons as those expressed by Londo Mollari in Into the Fire: "Every time I have been happy, the universe has conspired to do something nasty to me." Based on my own understanding of Lebanon's religio-political dynamics there is still a great deal that could go wrong here, especially given that under the current arrangement Hezbollah will be the largest independent armed force after the Syrians depart, which leaves the door open for trouble further down the line. However, yesterday's events refuted nearly every piece of Western "conventional wisdom" that had sprung up both in the MSM and in blogosphere in the last week or so since the Hezbollah demonstration and I think that fact in of itself is worthy of note.
Two other points:
- If Assad thought that Hezbollah's backing was going to save him, he never would have started pulling troops out to begin with. The schizophrenic nature of the Syrian regime aside (thus explaining the decision to both withdraw troops and have his vassals try and reinstate Karami), Assad and his backers appear to be at least intellectually aware of the fact that they are going to have to pull their troops and other colonial control devices out of Lebanon at some point in the near future and already planning for the post-occupation future of the country. When that occurs, Hezbollah is going to be the main organ that Syria and Iran are going to use to try and keep Lebanon within their sphere of influence.
- In case anyone doubted it before, the window for Assad to use violence to maintain control of Lebanon has now passed. There were a variety of reasons why it wouldn't have worked before, not the least of which being fears that violent Syrian action against the Lebanese would likely have been countered by both international condemnation and a US carte blanche to launch reprisal strikes against Syria that would likely brought an end to the Syrian Baathist oligarchy. If Syrian or Syrian-backed violence seemed an unlikely option before, however, there is no way in hell that it can be brought into play after yesterday - what's Assad going to do, kill 1/4 the population of the country that he wants to rule? The ball is now squarely in the opposition's court and all they have to do is call Assad's bluff by keeping up exactly what they did yesterday to force him to comply with their desire for a full and complete Syrian withdrawl from Lebanon.
This ain't the Ukraine, but it's going pretty well so far.
One other thing that I brought up in phone conversations today with Joe and DoctorZin are that we should now have enough emphirical evidence from the recent US-backed revolutions in the Ukraine, Georgia, and Lebanon as far as how to go about supporting "people power" movements in authoritarian states of one degree or another. In each of the above cases, the revolutions were pretty much grassroots phenomenons (for example, the AP story cites a combination of activists, television broadcasts, e-mails, and cell phones as being the main tools of the Cedar Revolution) that either sprung up simultaneously or else had long been championed by various opposition figures and finally obtained the critical mass of popular support. Somebody might want to do some kind of serious analysis on the most effective ways with which to externally support nascent democratic movements for future reference.
I mean, can you imagine the impact if nearly 1/4 of the Iranian general population took to the streets calling for a referendum on the regime?
"Somebody might want to do some kind of serious analysis on the most effective ways with which to externally support nascent democratic movements for future reference."
Been there, done that.
Regarding Iran, 25% of the population would be more than took to the streets in the '79 revolution. Not likely.
"what's Assad going to do, kill 1/4 the population of the country that he wants to rule?"
His Daddy, wouldn't have blinked an eyelash at that.
Praktike - way cool resource. That one deserves a front-page highlight.
His Daddy wouldn't have blinked an eyelash at that.
Yes, but his Daddy also would have been smart enough to go along with the Iraq invasion once it was clear it was happening in exchange for a free hand in Lebanon (check out what he did in the Gulf War), and also wouldn't have pissed off the USA, France, and Saudi Arabia simultaneously.
Baby Assad is not just a dictator, but an incompetent one.
Praktike:
Thanks for the great link!
I agree. Hell, has there ever been a situation in which ~25% of a nation's population has taken to the streets for anything like this before? That they were able to accomplish solely through what was apparently a grassroots effort is all the more staggering.
Robert Schwartz:
As John Thacker notes above, Bashar is far less capable and intelligent than his father was. The support for the Iraqi insurgency, the encouragement of the same Sunni Islamism that his dad tried to crush, etc.
As Fred Pruitt noted in his commentary of the Syrian encouragement of Islamism:
The Druze make up about 8% of the population, and Jumblatt is trying to woo Hezbollah. The Maronites who weren't slaughtered have no weapons, and corrupt 'leaders'. Amal and Hezbollah, the two Shia movements, support Syria. You can split the Sunnis and Alawis equally between the two sides, and the Syrians have the advantage.
At least civil war wasn't a likelihood.
#2
and in hindsight he was right.
#4
that deal was never on offer. Besides it was obvious that the USA would loose in Iraq and that you better be friendly with the new leaders and their deep ties with hezbollah.
#5
You need to be anti-Zionism to be a popular in the arab world.
In case anyone doubted it before, the window for Assad to use violence to maintain control of Lebanon has now passed.
Sadly no, restart the civil war and people will be asking for the Syrians
thats the second time ive seen you insert that detached from reality other-dimensional phrase.
You phasing in and out of this reality ?
as for whats "obvious", some of the local thugs have made note of that. dont screw with the USA is the lesson they learned.
I wonder if Osama's old speaches about how the USA will turn tail and run if attacked (well if a democrat is in charge he is right)
I wonder if that coin would still have the same exchange rate these days.
So perhaps this is what is now "obvious"
Dont screw with the USA when a republican is in charge.
Allowing an election to be won by shiite fundamentalists can only mean you accepted that you lost.
The have learned that you can survive screwing with the USA. That is not good news. People shood fear what you can do not know what you can do.
#9 a
So you'd suggest Carthage-redux next time? I have some sympathy with that.
Didn't the US already do that?
"The Cedar Revolution Revisited"
As I understand it, the folks on the ground are calling it an "intifada." The whole "Cedar Revolution" tagline is something made up by Rice or someone else is D.C.
About neocon triumphalism…
The good news: the fat lady has started to sing.
The bad news: It’s that notorious aria, Quanti pulcini coveranno?
Andrew J. Lazarus,
I believe there was a lot of triumphalism back in March-April of 2003 as well.
Gary, you might translate the Italian.