Word: beirutization
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...Beirut," in Middle East conversation, has long served as a synonym for civil chaos. But in recent weeks the mushrooming protest movement to eject Syrian troops from the country had begun to paint the Lebanese capital in a new light. Pundits wondered whether the protests presaged a wave of Eastern Europe-style pastel-shaded revolutions that would sweep aside Arab autocracy, and President Bush had warned the Syrians to leave in order that the "good democracy" of Lebanon could flourish unmolested. But a reality check came Tuesday in the form of a gigantic pro-Syria demonstration, which drew...
...anti-Syrian opposition is pressing for full withdrawal ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for May, and is using Syria's international isolation - and its failure to install a new regime of its own making in Beirut - to press the case. And their prospects have never been brighter, given the wave of international and domestic outrage that followed the Valentine's Day assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri...
...that another corner might be near. Amid the flush of springlike exuberance, though, it was hard to know which events history would immortalize. Was it President Hosni Mubarak's startling announcement that Egypt would hold its first-ever secret ballot, multiparty presidential elections? Was it the popular demonstrations in Beirut two days later that finally forced the resignation of the Syrian-backed Prime Minister and his Cabinet? Or did the start of something momentous come on Thursday, when Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah welcomed Syria's President Bashar Assad to Riyadh and not only told Assad to get Syria...
...scope of each event than their accumulation and potential for transforming the region that seemed so heartening. Yet it was also right to remember that progress in the Middle East invariably moves a few steps forward--then a few steps back. Even as thousands of Lebanese gathered in Beirut's Martyrs' Square on Saturday to call on Syria to end its occupation, thousands of Syrians cheered Assad as he told his parliament that he would make only a partial pullback of Syrian forces. "Bush, Bush, listen. The Syrian people will not bow!" chanted the crowd...
...spectacle of Eastern Europe-style ?people power? demonstrations erupting in a major Arab capital is a sure sign that momentous changes are afoot in the Middle East. And the street protests in Beirut aimed at forcing out Syrian troops are only the most dramatic of a series of developments that underscore the pressure on the region?s longtime autocrats. Many of those autocrats, of course, are traditional U.S. allies who now find themselves wedged between a mounting democratic clamor from their own people and a cold shoulder from their traditional backers in Washington, whose leader has warned friend...