JON STEWART SYNDROME:

Now comes Arab pressure (Ehsan Ahrari, 3/05/05, Asia Times)

Now Saudi Arabia and Egypt have initiated the important phase of Arab pressure on Syria to pull out of Lebanon. If Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had any doubts about the meaning of the growing Western chorus for Syria to withdraw its 15,000 troops from Lebanon, he should have no doubts about it now. Still he is stalling, reportedly releasing trial balloons about what his optimal choice should be: perhaps pull out most of his troops, but still maintain a foothold in Lebanon.

The post-September 11, 2001, era seems to have considerably weakened the impasse-oriented aspect of Arab politics. One example of this new development is emerging in Lebanon: it is likely to win independence from a long-standing Syrian occupation, and soon.

To everyone's surprise, a major change is in the making after the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri two weeks ago. Persuading Syria to get out of Lebanon would not have been easy before that development; however, the Middle Eastern version of the "Velvet Revolution" - or the "Cedar Revolution" to be precise - is about to materialize, with the United States' help, and now, with visible help from some Arab states. America's military power is lurking in the background, at least tacitly, signaling Damascus that any attempt to crush that Cedar Revolution will be met with equally brutal force. [...]

[A]rab leaders seem to understand the power of the information age that is posing an increasing threat to their old thinking about forces of change. Their old attitude was if you ignore those forces, or suppress them long enough, they will go away. Now they know it is an entirely different era, and a very different ball game in Lebanon. The assassination of Hariri created a firestorm of protest inside Lebanon, a reality that is being closely watched by the world at large. In addition, given that US forces were in Iraq, Syria could not have cavalierly suppressed this near-popular uprising against its occupation of Lebanon.

You can't help noticing that an awful lot of folks who have been hostile to George Bush's Middle Eastern Reformation seem to have gotten religion over the last month or two. Shall we start keeping track of converts?:

-INTERVIEW: with Nancy Soderberg, author of "The Superpower Myth: The Use and Misuse of American Might" (The Daily Show With Jon Stewart)

-Will the Mideast Bloom? (Youssef M. Ibrahim, March 13, 2005, Washington Post)

-The Iraq effect?: Bush may have had it right (Daniel Schorr, 3/04/05, CS Monitor)

-The war's silver lining: We need to face up to the fact that the Iraq invasion has intensified pressure for democracy in the Middle East (Jonathan Freedland, March 2, 2005, The Guardian)

- Mideast Climate Change (NY Times, 3/01/05)

Um, `Could Bush be right' (Chicago Tribune, March 6, 2005)

-Idea of the Week: Advancing Democracy (New Dem Dispatch, March 4, 2005)

-Could George W. Bush Be Right? (Claus Christian Malzahn, February 23, 2005, Der Spiegel)

-Good-News Bind: The Democrats and the Democracy Movements (E. J. Dionne Jr., March 4, 2005, Washington Post)

-Was George Bush Right About Freedom and Democracy?: Maybe. Maybe Not. (Fred Kaplan, March 2, 2005, Slate)

-Cedar revolution: Can the French and the Anglo-Saxons walk the road to Damascus together? (Timothy Garton Ash, March 3, 2005, The Guardian)

The Rap on Freedom: Dictators and despots may believe that Washington’s rhetoric on democracy is just another American fad. But the political climate really has changed in the Middle East (Christopher Dickey, March 2, 2005, Newsweek)

Democracy in the Mideast: Arabs are saying 'Enough' (Mona Eltahawy, March 5, 2005, International Herald Tribune)

- What if Bush has been right about Iraq all along? (MARK BROWN, February 1, 2005, Chicago SUN-TIMES)

-When Good News Feels Bad (Kurt Andersen, 2/21/05, New York Magazine)

-Remapping the Middle East, Maybe (THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN , 1/09/05, NY Times)

-The Case for George W. Bush: i.e., what if he's right? (Tom Junod, Aug 01 '04, Esquire)

-What Bush Got Right: Freedom's march: The president has been right on some big questions. Now, if he can get the little stuff right, he'll change the world (Fareed Zakaria, 3/14/05, Newsweek)

-Developments in Mideast Soften Criticism in Congress (Tyler Marshall, March 7, 2005, LA Times)

Could Bush Be Right (The Left Reconsiders) (By Dawn's Early Light, 3/08/05)

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 13, 2005 12:02 AM