Word: syrians
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...incident that has sparked an international diplomatic flare-up, the former prime minister of Lebanon—who was a benefactor of the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) and an opponent of Syrian involvement in Lebanon—was killed Monday when a massive explosion ripped through his motorcade in Beirut...
Much of Hariri’s political career was defined by his opposition to pro-Syrian elements of Lebanon’s government...
While Hariri was always careful not to directly criticize Syria, he resigned from his position as prime minister in 2004 when Syria ordered the Lebanese parliament to amend its constitution and allow a pro-Syrian Lebanese president to serve past the existing constitutional limit...
...certainly economic benefits for Syria to maintain control over its economically dynamic neighbor whose progress and integration into the world economy puts Syria's own decrepit economy to shame. But Lebanon's primary importance to Damascus is its value as a strategic trump card. The organizing principle of Syrian foreign policy over the past four decades has been to find ways of pressuring Israel to return the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since the war of 1967. Syria's presence in Lebanon, and particularly its support for the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, became its key strategic bargaining chips with Israel...
...some in the Syrian regime had calculated that killing Hariri would send a message of that Syria was the indispensable guarantor of peace, that would have been a dangerous miscalculation - a panicky response to mounting pressure to leave Lebanon to the Lebanese. If anything, now, that pressure is likely to grow. But the government in Damascus, or some elements of it, may well be feeling cause for panic. Syria is isolated diplomatically and under fire from the Bush administration, which accuses Damascus of doing too little to curb the flow of men and money to insurgents in Iraq, and demands...