Footnotes to the Revolution

Two interesting footnotes to the "Cedar Revolution" in Lebanon can be found in a report from Reuters this morning: Syria Vows Swift Lebanon Pullout in 'Historic' Move.

The first footnote is buried deep in the article:

U.N. special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen is expected to go to Beirut and Damascus this week to discuss the "full, complete and immediate implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559."

What is not mentioned is that U.N. Resolution 1559 was adopted in September 2004 and required the Secretary General to report back to the Security Council within 30 days.

So why did it take six months for the U.N. to start talking about "full, complete and immediate implementation?" Or the better question might be: Would the U.N. even be talking about "full, complete and immediate implementation" if it were not for the pressure created by President George W. Bush?

The second footnote concerns Iran's response to Syria's withdrawl plan:

An Iranian spokesman said Tehran respected any joint Syrian-Lebanese decision: "But the pressure on the Syrian government, with the withdrawal from Lebanon as an excuse, seems to be a pre-designed plan by the Zionist lobbies to safeguard Israel's survival and its expansionist policies."

Think about that for a second. It's not the will of the Lebanese people - it's not the international outrage of Hariri's assassination - that's all an "excuse!" It's really all a just a cover for this "pre-designed plan by the Zionist lobbies to safeguard Israel's survival and its expansionist policies."

Can you say "the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?"

And what a coincidence! I just happened to stumble across this: Syria Releases a New Edition of The Protocols

A new Syrian edition of the anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion hit the stands in the Arab world in January. The publisher says that the book obtained the approval of the Syrian Information Ministry in May 2004.

For anyone who doesn't know about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia describes them as:

The Protocols of the (Learned) Elders of Zion is a fraudulent document purporting to describe a plan to achieve Jewish global domination. Written by a German forger in the mid-19th-century, by the early 20th-century it was published by the Imperial Russia secret police, the Okhranka, in order to blame the Jews for Russia's problems during the period of revolutionary activity.

Get ready to hear a lot about how the Lebanese need the Syrians and Hizbollah to protect them from the evil Zionists.