Heralding the end of Pax Syriaca
Greg Djerejian, who famously called Saddam Hussein "a grotesque neo-Stalinist genocidaire", has this to say to those who are still in denial:
"Look, anyone who thinks Bush's forward-leaning posture on the entire democratization issue has had no impact on the Lebanese filling the streets of downtown Beirut are in denial of reality; or rabidly partisan fools, or both. There are many variables at play, yes, but Bush's post 9/11 policies have been an undeniable and major motor driving the developments we are currently witnessing with such expectation and hope. No one serious can deny this anymore."
Greg is blogging up a storm these days at his Belgravia Dispatch. His posts sing with the joy of one who feels in his bones that the awful Pax Syriaca imposed on Lebanon by Hafiz al-Assad and continued by his son Bashar is ending. The vibrant hub of the Middle East that was Lebanon could recover much of its past glory but not while it remains a Syrian protectorate. For far too long, the world has accepted the paralysis imposed on the country by a dictatorship and sponsor of terror but the time has come to let the Lebanese decide their destiny in free and fair elections. A precondition is a complete withdrawal of Syrian troops and the ending by Damascus of its political stranglehold on its neighbour.
