Lebanese Strike Back

In the first of the weekly Monday marches since the massive pro-Syrian demonstration last Tuesday, the pro-Lebanese crowds surged massively through downtown Beirut. I'm amazed at how the rules to this game are so radically different than the rules to the "game" of the fifteen-year civil war, and yet the goals and players are very much the same. That is the biggest testament to change in the post-Soviet, post-Iraq world: both sides see democracy as the only safe and legal way to legitimate their rule.

Also, as Josh Landis reported a few days ago, the Assad has promised to fully withdraw, and the wires today report that Syrian intelligence offices in Beirut are being vacated. By acting on the strength of the Hezbollah demonstration, Syria has managed to quietly ease out, bridges intact, because they did so in a time of strength, not weakness.

Now who was it who said that demonstration could be a Syrian parachute?