MIDDLE EAST: US officials this week delivered their most strident ultimatum that Syria end its domination of Lebanon. In Damascus, the US Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, issued "a stern warning" that Syria must stop all support for Iraqi insurgents based there.
That warning was coupled with specific demands concerning Lebanon, outlined in a written statement by the US ambassador to Lebanon, Jeffrey Feltman, on Tuesday. Syria must respect UN Security Council Resolution 1559 of September 2nd, 2004, which demanded the departure of Syrian troops and military intelligence from Lebanon, Feltman said.
Lest the Syrians be tempted to leave chaos in their wake, he added, the withdrawal must be "peaceful and organised". Furthermore, the US and its international partners vowed "to watch closely and with greatest interest the legislative elections scheduled in Lebanon next spring." The elections must take place "without foreign interference ... and removed from all intimidation and threat of recourse to force".
Washington also demands that Damascus turn over an estimated $3 billion lodged by members of the former Iraqi regime in Syrian banks. Syria claims it holds only $230 million, but has resisted giving it to the interim government of the Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi.
When Syrian troops first came to Lebanon at the request of President Suleiman Frangieh in 1976, Washington welcomed their deployment. In 1990, the US allowed Damascus to crush a rebellion by the Maronite Catholic Gen Michel Aoun, because he had allied himself with Saddam Hussein.
Now, for the second time, US interests in Iraq are determining the fate of little Lebanon. Washington also has Israeli interests at heart: it wants Syria to stop support for the Lebanese Hizbullah and the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
"The days when the Americans gave a green light for the Syrians to enter and stay in Lebanon are over," the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said in a telephone interview. "Lebanon is the last satellite country in the world."
In the 1980s and 1990s, Jumblatt was one of Syria's staunchest Lebanese allies, but in recent months he joined the growing ranks of the opposition in the Lebanese parliament.
"I saw that I was going against the trend," Jumblatt explained. "The Syrian grip on Lebanon is out of sync with our times; I will not go against Syria's basic interests, but Lebanon should be free."
Three ministers loyal to Jumblatt resigned in protest after Damascus changed the Lebanese constitution to extend the mandate of President Emile Lahoud in September. The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, had stunned the Lebanese politicians he summoned to Damascus by telling them: "I alone have the right to choose the president of Lebanon."
In protest at Lahoud's "re-election", Marwan Hamade, one of Jumblatt's closest friends, resigned as minister of the economy. On October 1st, Hamade narrowly escaped assassination when 15 kg of military explosives detonated under his limousine.
By chance, his bodyguard had taken Hamade's usual seat in the back of the car. He was killed instantly. Most Lebanese believe the attack was planned in Damascus.
Largely as a result of US pressure on Damascus, Syrian power is crumbling in Lebanon. Despite an atmosphere fraught with menace, politicians and journalists are daring to speak out.
On December 13th, a coalition called the Democratic Forum, comprised of Christian and left-wing groups and Walid Jumblatt's party, issued a platform denouncing "the interference of the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services which has transformed Lebanon into a police state".
The number of Syrian troops in Lebanon has fallen from 35,000 in the early 1990s to 14,000 today.
Further redeployments could be used to convince the world that Syria is complying with UN resolution 1559. Lebanese observers say troop levels are irrelevant; Syria dominates Lebanon through its Mokhabarat (military intelligence). "The day they pull the head of military intelligence out of Beirut, I'll believe they're serious," says Samir Kassir, an editorialist for An-Nahar newspaper.
Syrian intelligence agents live incognito among one million Syrian "guest workers" in Lebanon. Their boss, the Syrian general Rostom Ghazale, is the effective ruler of the country and he is famously rude to high-ranking Lebanese politicians. Now the politicians are rebelling.
The activities of the Democratic Forum are covered extensively by the television and radio stations and the newspaper owned by former prime minister Rafik Hariri, who governed Lebanon for 10 of the past 12 years.
Hariri clashed with the slavishly pro-Syrian President Lahoud and resigned last autumn. His Mustaqbal (Future) movement is thought likely to join the opposition Democratic Forum before the elections.
The opposition's demand for foreign observers has been rejected by Omar Karame, the lacklustre pro-Syrian prime minister who replaced Hariri.
Karame has vowed to turn the election into a referendum against resolution 1559. Last month, he rigged a poorly attended demonstration against 1559 in Beirut. In the tradition of Arab dictatorships, demonstrators were bused in from across the country. Lebanese journalists found that most had no idea what 1559 was.
Opposition groups hold close to a third of the Lebanese parliament. "They don't even have to win a majority," says Samir Kassir. "It would be enough for them to establish a strong core, say 50 of 128 seats. This will build momentum and other parliamentarians will swing to their side."
Washington is threatening Damascus with more severe economic sanctions than those already in place. Kassir believes only one thing could stop Lebanon shaking itself free of Syria: the assassination of Jumblatt. "It would block the opposition," he says. "They could no longer be united." There is historical irony in that fact that Jumblatt is now challenging Bashar al-Assad, the son of Hafez al-Assad, who ordered that Jumblatt's father Kamal be murdered in 1977.
Neither the US nor France is likely to become militarily involved in Lebanon again, but they may have found a more effective means of persuasion: a threat to freeze Syrian assets.
