Revolution and Its Detractors

In the past few weeks there has been a definite move in the Middle East towards democracy. The responses in the West have varied - conservatives who advocated the liberation of Iraq as a first step in this process feel vindicated by what has so transpired so far and hopeful that it will continue, especially with the liberation of Lebanon and the fall of the Assad regime. This optimism, however, is not a blind optimism but a cautious one, as most still realize that lots can go wrong and that the process of democratization is a long and messy one.

Alternatively, the opposition - the left and the "realpolitik" right - has two explanations of the events and prescriptions for what should be done going forward. These explanations and prescriptions are decidedly retrograde. Krauthammer shows the thinking of the "realpolitik" group.

Revolution is in the air. What to do? We are already hearing voices for restraint about liberating Lebanon. Flynt Leverett, your usual Middle East expert, took to the New York Times to oppose the immediate end of Syria's occupation of Lebanon. Instead, we should be trying to "engage and empower" the tyranny in Damascus.

These people never learn. Here we are on the threshold of what Arabs in the region are calling the fall of their own Berlin Wall and our "realists" want us to go back to making deals with dictators. It would be not just a blunder but a tragedy. It would betray our principles. And it would betray the people in Lebanon who have been encouraged by those principles.

While the Left's prescriptions for the future are similar to the "realpolitik" crowd, adding only that now we need Europe (because they were so helpful up to now?) their explanation for the events that have transpired are simply intellectually dishonest. Their view can be seen on all the Left blogs and is perfectly described by Mark Steyn.

The other day in the Guardian Martin Kettle wrote: "The war was a reckless, provocative, dangerous, lawless piece of unilateral arrogance. But it has nevertheless brought forth a desirable outcome which would not have been achieved at all, or so quickly, by the means that the critics advocated, right though they were in most respects."

Very big of you, pal. And I guess that's as close to a mea culpa as we’re going to get: even though Bush got everything wrong, it turned out right. Funny how that happens, isn't it? In a few years’ time, they'll have it down pat - just like they have with Eastern Europe. Oh, the Soviet bloc [the Middle East thugocracies] was bound to collapse anyway. Nothing to do with that simpleton Ronnie Raygun [Chimpy Bushitler]. In fact, all Raygun [Chimpy] did was delay the inevitable with his ridiculous arms build-up [illegal unprovoked Halliburton oil-grab], as many of us argued at the time: see my 1984 column 'Yuri Andropov, The Young, Smart, Sexy New Face Of Soviet Communism' [see the April 2004 Spectator column 'Things Were Better Under Saddam: The coalition has destroyed Baathism, says Rod Liddle, and with it all hopes of the emergence of secular democracy' - and yes, that really ran in these pages, on 17 April, not 1 April.]

Once again proving that today's Left is completely bereft of any ideas.

Iran threatens, Saudis, Kuwaitis, and "the entire Mid East Oil"

In a move reminicent of the OPEC embargoes of the 1970's, Iran today has once again econimically threatened the West. In an article titled, Iran threat: Attack by West risks all 'Middle East oil', WorldTribune.com reports:

In the first such threat, a leading Iranian official raised the prospect of Iranian retaliation against Middle East oil exports. The official said such Gulf Cooperation Council oil states as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia could be threatened.

"An attack on Iran will be tantamount to endangering Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and – in a word – the entire Middle East oil," Iranian Expediency Council secretary Mohsen Rezai said on Tuesday.

About 40 percent of the world's crude oil shipments pass through the two-mile wide channel of the strategic Straits of Hormuz. Iranian forces are deployed at the head of the channel. Oman and the United Arab Emirates are located on the other side.
Teheran could easily block the Straits of Hormuz and use its missiles to strike tankers and GCC oil facilities, according to the new edition of Geostrategy-Direct.com. Within weeks, the rest of the world would be starving for oil and the global economy could be in danger.

Appeasement

Iran today announced that it will begin construction of a new heavy water "research reactor". This reactor will be able to produce enough Plutonium for approximately one bomb per year. This move is contrary to the urging of the IAEA, and the EU-3. So what solution do they propose to curb Iran's weapons pursuit?

Separately, the 35 nations on the IAEA's board of governors urged Iran on Thursday to step up cooperation with U.N. inspectors and backed the EU's offer of incentives if Tehran ends all sensitive nuclear work.

It would be a grave mistake for the US to participate in this kind of appeasement. Have we already forgotten the lessons of trying to bribe North Korea? It is a fact that tyrannies rarely stay bribed.

"Uno momento senor"

Those were the last words Adolf Eichmann heard as a free man, before being tackled into a ditch and then shoved into a waiting car. The man who uttered those words, Peter "Zvika" Malchin, died yesterday in New York.

"He was an ambassador of extraordinary and clandestine Israeli might," journalist and long-time friend Uri Dan told The Jerusalem Post.
[...]
"Zvika was one of the greatest Jewish heroes of the past 100 years. There was never another like him," Dan said. "He was a mensch."

The Domino Effect in Action

More and more it seems that the Iraq elections really were the turning point in the Middle East - the falling of the Berlin Wall, as Jumblatt called it. And the ripples from this event continue to spread.

DAMASCUS, Syria -- Demonstrations that brought down the government of neighboring Lebanon on Monday inspired Syria's intellectuals and activists to issue new calls yesterday for greater political participation in their own country -- a nation known for its strict limits on dissent.

"What happened [in Lebanon] was a huge victory not only for the Lebanese people, but for the people of this region," said Wael Sawah, a Syrian political analyst and activist. "This is the first time a Cabinet resigns under popular pressure."

The Pressure Continues

The US today has increased pressure on Iran by stating that the IAEA needs to report Iran to the UN Security Council because of it non-compliance with the NNPT.

Bush's envoy Jackie Sanders told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors that Iran was "willing and apparently able to cynically manipulate the nuclear non-proliferation regime in the pursuit of nuclear weapons."

The U.N. nuclear watchdog had a "statutory obligation" to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions, she said, according to a text of her speech.

This is contrary to the EU-3 idea of continuing to offer carrots to Iran in the hope that they will agree to drop their nuclear program. Raul Marc Herecht argues that Iran has the potential to cause another huge rift between the US and Europe, and that the actions of the EU-3 have contributed to that possibility.

But the EU3, in all probability, has done the opposite of what it intended. It has actually made it more likely that the Bush administration will take a tougher, more unilateral approach to the Islamic republic than if it had not tried to assert a European role in halting clerical Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapons capacity. The Europeans have forced the Bush administration to focus more acutely and sooner on the Iran conundrum than it would have if it were merely the International Atomic Energy Agency issuing its usual reports alluding to Iran's past duplicity and promises of confessional behavior in the future. Consumed with Iraq, the Bush administration would have had more difficulty unilaterally developing a diplomatic movement against the mullahs. The administration has certainly been complicit in European actions toward Iran--U.S.-European discussions have been close, which is why the EU3 has so shaped the administration's thinking. Many in the Bush administration wanted to pass the Iran problem to the Europeans, hoping that EU-Iran negotiations would allow Washington to continue ignoring the conundrum. Some still hope the Europeans can be converted to a big-stick approach; others, uncomfortable with the grand rhetoric about transforming the Middle East, hope the president will adopt the EU3's Libyan scenario.

The "Ceasefire" Continues

As was to be expected, Palestinian terrorists are not sitting back during this alleged ceasefire. After Friday's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, the IDF found a car bomb that was meant to be used in another attack. And yesterday the IDF uncovered a bomb lab near Jenin with equipment and tools to make Qassem rockets, as well as one Qassem that was being readied for test-firing. All who think that this ceasefire is anything but a regrouping chance for the terrorists are deluding themselves. Unless Abbas actively cracks down on the terrorists my guess is that we will see a return to at least the same level of conflict that existed before this ceasefire.

Just Talk

Today Tony Blair hosted a one day conference to discuss the "window of opportunity" for peace in the Middle East. Aside from the Palestinians getting pledges of $1.2 Billion in aid, the conference went pretty much as one can expect. There was lots of words about the need for Palestinians to crack down on terror, and the need for Israel to make concessions. Of course Abbas promised that he would track down the perpetrators of Friday's suicide bombing and that of course Palestinians were committed to preventing further attacks. Basically, everyone said all the right words, and the net result will be zero. The reason I am so certain that like all previous conferences this will not take us one step closer to peace is because of stories like this

A militant brazenly challenged the new Palestinian security chief Tuesday, firing his weapon outside police headquarters in this West Bank town as the commander was holding meetings in the building. The chief ordered the gunman's arrest, but quickly backed down and let him walk away.

The "militant" in question is Zakariye Zubeydi, the leader of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in Jenin, and the self-proclaimed ruler of the city.

Zubeydi said he was upset that Yousef had not coordinated the meeting with him and demanded the security chief leave. "Every city has its own gate, and Nasser Yousef did not come through the proper gate of Jenin," Zubeydi said.

After threatening to arrest Zubeydi, Yousef backed down and left the city. The story goes on to say that

Some say the Palestinian security forces do not have the strength to take on the militants, who are heavily armed and seen as heroes by many Palestinians.

"The Palestinian Authority has no ability to enforce the law and to control the streets," Cabinet Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh said. "It needs rebuilding. It needs retraining."

The question then is why negotiate with the Palestinian Authority. If they are unable to fulfill their obligations, then its pointless talking to them. And if they are able but unwilling, then once again it is pointless talking to them. Simply put, until Abbas cracks down on the terror organizations as he has agreed to do there can not be any progress towards peace. This is not a maximalist position, it is a realistic one. Otherwise, all that is happening is, as Aluf Benn points out, a replay of Oslo. And Oslo did not turn out well for anyone involved. Do we really need to repeat it?

Syria Leaving

After all the pressure applied to them in the past couple of weeks, Syria has announced that it will withdraw its 14,000 troops from Lebanon in the next few months. More important will be to see if it also withdraws the equal number of intelligence agents operating in Lebanon.

Undoubtedly we will now hear from the left, which has completely ignored this occupation, that now that it is over the only occupation left in the Middle East is of the West Bank and Gaza, and that Israel must withdraw immediately.

More Acknowledgements

It must have really hurt the editors of the New York Times to say this

Still, this has so far been a year of heartening surprises - each one remarkable in itself, and taken together truly astonishing. The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances. It boldly proclaimed the cause of Middle East democracy at a time when few in the West thought it had any realistic chance. And for all the negative consequences that flowed from the American invasion of Iraq, there could have been no democratic elections there this January if Saddam Hussein had still been in power.

But then in the last paragraph they seem to take up the new leftist meme that Bush was not really responsible for all this, he just happened to be President at the time. Kind of like Reagan was not responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Over the past two decades, as democracies replaced police states across Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America, and a new economic dynamism lifted hundreds of millions of eastern and southern Asia out of poverty and into the middle class, the Middle East stagnated in a perverse time warp that reduced its brightest people to hopelessness or barely contained rage. The wonder is less that a new political restlessness is finally visible, but that it took so long to break through the ice.

Having now lost the debate about democracy for the Arab world, and the positive consequences from invading Iraq, expect to hear a lot from the left about the inevitability of democracy in the Middle East and the lucky George Bush who happened to be President while it was happening around him.

The Age of Revolution

Michael Ledeen, the ardent Iran-watcher, has written a very interesting article today about "Freedom, our most lethal weapon against tyranny." Ledeen echoes Mark Steyn's analysis that "The Middle East is too stable." Steyn's main argument is:

Three years ago, those of us in favour of destabilising the Middle East didn't have to be far-sighted geniuses: it was a win/win proposition. As Sam Goldwyn said, I'm sick of the old clichés, bring me some new clichés. The old clichés - Pan-Arabism, Baathism, Islamism, Arafatism - brought us the sewer that led to September 11.

Ledeen helps put this all in perspective by providing a lesson in the history of democratic revolution in the 20th century:

We are living in a revolutionary age, that started more than a quarter century ago in Spain after the death of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. At that time, hardly anyone believed it possible to go from dictatorship to democracy without great violence, and most Spaniards feared that the terrible civil war of the 1930s — which ended when Franco seized power and installed a military dictatorship — would begin anew. Instead, thanks to a remarkable generation of political leaders, some savvy priests, and the grossly underrated King Juan Carlos, Spain passed smoothly and gracefully into democracy.

It was the beginning of the Age of the Second Democratic Revolution. Spain inspired Portugal, and the second Iberian dictatorship gave way to democracy. Spain and Portugal inspired all of Latin America, and by the time Ronald Reagan left office there were only two unelected governments south of the Rio Grande: Cuba and Surinam. These successful revolutions inspired the Soviet satellites, and then the Soviet Union itself, and the global democratic revolution reached into Africa and Asia, even threatening the tyrants in Beijing.

The United States played a largely positive role in almost all these revolutions, thanks to a visionary president — Ronald Reagan — and a generation of other revolutionary leaders in the West: Walesa, Havel, Thatcher, John Paul II, Bukovsky, Sharansky, among others.

There was then a pause for a dozen years, first during the presidency of Bush the Elder, who surrounded himself with short-sighted self-proclaimed "realists" and boasted of his lack of "the vision thing," and then the reactionary Clinton years, featuring a female secretary of state who danced with dictators. Having led a global democratic revolution, and won the Cold War, the United States walked away from that revolution. We were shocked into resuming our unfinished mission by the Islamofascists, eight months into George W. Bush's first term, and we have been pursuing that mission ever since.

The Deterioration of Fear

Tonight on FOX News Amabassador Dennis Ross, former special Middle East coordinator under President Clinton, had a few great lines regarding the deterioration of fear in certain parts of the Middle East, and compared this to the atmosphere in Eastern Europe in the 1990s:

The most profound thing that we're seeing is the loss of fear. In Syria, everything is governed by fear, and the Syrians use coercion and intimidation to get thier way in Lebanon. And what we've seen in Lebanon looks an awful lot like what we saw in Kiev. In the end, people are not prepared to accept this kind of a process any longer. And they saw in their numbers (in a kind of collective approach), they saw strength. And the more they saw strength, the more they gained confidence. ... What they saw in Iraq was people who were in a position when they were told "you vote - you die," they went and voted anyway. Fear was not going to rule out an Iraqi voice. And that was the lesson for the Lebanese: "If it could work there, it can work for us as well." ... I do believe that the most profound thing that we're seeing in the Middle East today is in Lebanon. More than elections, it's the empowerment of people by being willing to go on the street and make it clear that they will no longer be intimidated - they will no longer be coerced and live by fear.

No link (it was on TV) ... No commentary (that quote says it all) ... It's just a great point. It's a Sharansky "Fear Society" (and collapse thereof) meets David Pryce Jones "Honor / Shame" kinda thang. :)

The Crumbling Wall

Mark Steyn takes a victory lap for his predictions of a few years back on the positives that would come from the invasion of Iraq.

Consider just the past couple of days' news: not the ever more desperate depravity of the floundering "insurgency", but the real popular Arab resistance the car-bombers and the head-hackers are flailing against: the Saudi foreign minister, who by remarkable coincidence goes by the name of Prince Saud, told Newsweek that women would be voting in the next Saudi election. "That is going to be good for the election," he said, "because I think women are more sensible voters than men."

Four-time Egyptian election winner - and with 90 per cent of the vote! - President Mubarak announced that next polling day he wouldn't mind an opponent. Ordering his stenographer to change the constitution to permit the first multi-choice presidential elections in Egyptian history, His Excellency said the country would benefit from "more freedom and democracy". The state-run TV network hailed the president's speech as a "historical decision in the nation's 7,000-year-old march toward democracy". After 7,000 years on the march, they're barely out of the parking lot, so Mubarak's move is, as they say, a step in the right direction.

Meanwhile in Damascus, Boy Assad, having badly overplayed his hand in Lebanon and after months of denying that he was harbouring any refugee Saddamites, suddenly discovered that - wouldja believe it? - Saddam's brother and 29 other bigshot Baghdad Baathists were holed up in north-eastern Syria, and promptly handed them over to the Iraqi government.

And, for perhaps the most remarkable development, consider this report from Mohammed Ballas of Associated Press: "Palestinians expressed anger on Saturday at an overnight suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that killed four Israelis and threatened a fragile truce, a departure from former times when they welcomed attacks on their Israeli foes."

After the events of the past few weeks, it is hard to argue with those who believed that freedom and democracy could actually be imposed from outside. And it seems that more and more of those who argued against the benefits of the invasion are acknowledging the success, even if they still try to not give credit to President Bush, the man responsible for all this.

Their Peculiar Institution

All too often we hear the trite and morally equivalizing adage that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Most often we hear this from Europe and the American Left regarding Palestinian terrorists, or "militants" as they like to call them, especially comparing them to Jewish groups during the end of the Palestine Mandate. Lee Harris, in this excellent essay, tears down those arguments.

Samuel Johnson once remarked, in a moment of irritation, "I will have no cant in defense of savagery." Well, if he had lived today, he would have had to put up with something even worse than cant in defense of savagery, and that is cant in defense of terrorism. But what would have been guaranteed to push him beyond the limits of his patience would have been the Western school of cant that, for over a half century, has been employed to defend and apologize for one particularly brutal, pointless, and politically self-defeating forms of terrorism: Palestinian terrorism.

What makes Palestinian terror uniquely privileged among all other forms of terror, even among those people who find other form of terrorism unacceptable? And why do so many well-meaning people in the West observe a double standard when it comes to the terrorism used by the Palestinians and the terrorism used by al Qaeda?
[...]
My reason for spending so much time dissecting the cant surrounding Palestinian terror is simple. I am convinced that the West shares much, if not most, of the blame for the most startling fact of our epoch, namely, the political triumph of Islamic terrorism.

His argument boils down to a simple fact - Palestinian terrorism does not have a political goal, i.e. it is not being used to create something but merely to destroy. And as such, it is entirely illegitimate. Yet, by the West's acceptance of Arab propaganda - the "cycle of violence", "the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people", and the Zionist occupation" - the West has made Palestinian terrorism an acceptable form of political expression and has in this way brought on itself more and greater Islamic terrorism.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad Promises More Attacks

In a report today by the SITE Institute titled The Al-Quds Brigades, the Military Wing of the Islamic Jihad in Palestine, Claims Responsibility for the Suicide Operation in Tel Aviv, it is reported that:

The communiqué also promises more attacks to follow: “This heroic attack is a clear message to the leaders of the Zionist enemy, who speak of the ‘defeat’ of the Palestinian people, that our people has not been defeated and that its willpower has not, and with the help of Allah, will never be broken; it is capable of crossing all roadblocks of the Zionist security system and of carrying out harsh, qualitative attacks in the heart of the enemy.”

The SITE Institute (SITE stands for the Search for International Terrorist Entities) is a non-profit organization founded by Rita Katz, author of TERRORIST HUNTER: The Extraordinary Story of a Woman who Went Undercover to Infiltrate the Radical Islamic Groups Operating in America.

Little Assad is freaking out ...

Syrian President Says Attack By U.S. Possible

Syrian President Bashar Assad says in a newspaper interview that he suspects the United States might eventually take military action against Syria.

Assad told the Rome-based daily "La Repubblica" that he has seen the possibility of an attack on his country since the end of the initial invasion in Iraq.

Assad said he does not believe an attack is imminent. But he said "the language used by the White House indicates a campaign similar to the one that preceded the attack on Iraq."

Maybe now the Syrian handover of Saddam's half brother to Iraq makes a little more sense. Little Assad is scared ... and he's freaking out!

This may be the first time in ages that Assad has not miscalculated.

The Blood of Patriots and Tyrrants ...

"From time to time, the tree of liberty needs to be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrrants."

Thomas Jefferson's immortal words today reverberate through the streets of Beirut. Chants of "freedom, sovereignty and independence" fill the air. And in this case, a "Red and White" revolution has broken out, with the only shots fired coming from a scared puppet government, who fired themselves.

So how did we get here?

It was the willingness of the Lebanese people to stand up and defy thier government - to push through the military lines to get to the central square in Beirut - and the refusal of Lebanese troops to fire on thier own people.

If you ask certain key figures in the Middle East, they would claim that this all started with the US invasion of Iraq, as reported here on The Nudnik File last week:

And even the most radical are starting to feel the winds of change in this "New Arab Revolution." Take Walid Jumblatt, for example. He is the leader of the Druze, a Lebanese minority group that has supported the Syrian occupation of Lebanon for the past 20 years. Jumblatt is also the head of the Lebanese Progressive Socialist Party, a self-described Marxist group founded by his father, Kumal Jumblatt. Historically, the Jumblatt clan has not been much of a friend to the US or Israel.

[David] Ignatius interviewed Jumblatt the Younger this week, and made a startling discovery:

[S]omething snapped for Jumblatt last year, when the Syrians overruled the Lebanese constitution and forced the reelection of their front man in Lebanon, President Emile Lahoud. The old slogans about Arab nationalism turned to ashes in Jumblatt's mouth, and he and Hariri openly began to defy Damascus.

"It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq," explains Jumblatt. "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." Jumblatt says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. "The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."

Thursday February 24 2005: Syrians Announce Pull Back

Lebanon: Syrian troops pulling back

Lebanese Defence Minister Abd al-Rahim Murad has told Aljazeera that Syria has started pulling back its troops in Lebanon into the eastern Bakaa Valley of the country. ...

"They took the decision to start the redeployment in the next few hours. After this redeployment, all the Syrian forces will be in the Bakaa," he said.

Further meetings would take place to "define the number of the troops which will remain in the Bakaa and to define the spots where they will be stationed in that area", he added.

Friday February 25 2005: UN Demands Syrian Withdrawl ... and then Denies Making Such Demands

UN chief warns Syria over Lebanon

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called on Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon by April.

In an Arab satellite television interview, Mr Annan warned that the Security Council might take action if Syria fails to pull out by then.

UN denies Annan demanded Syria pullout of Lebanon or face sanctions

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's spokesman has denied an Al-Arabiya television report that Annan had demanded a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon by April or sanctions would be imposed if they do not comply.

Sunday, February 27, 2005: Syria Renegs, Threatens Leading Arab TV Station, Protestors Defy Ban

Syria says Lebanon Taif deal meets UN demands

Syria said on Sunday implementing the Taif agreement that called for redeploying and later withdrawing Syrian forces from Lebanon would indirectly meet demands set out in UN Security Council resolution 1559.

The United States and France have been piling pressure on Syria for a complete withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, in line with resolution 1559. They have said that talk of redeployment is not enough.

The 1989 Taif Accord ending Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war called for redeploying Syrian troops to eastern Lebanon, followed by agreement on a timetable for a full withdrawal. Syria still has 14,000 troops in Lebanon. ”Resolution 1559 does not have a Lebanese consensus. The overwhelming majority reject resolution 1559, despite respecting this international law. But there is complete consensus about the Taif agreement in Lebanon,” Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq Al-Shara said in Cairo.

Al-Arabiya TV reports 'threats' against Beirut staff amid row with Syria

Al-Arabiya television said some of its staff in Beirut had received "threats" amid a Syrian media campaign against an interview it carried out with UN chief Kofi Annan urging Syria to pull out of Lebanon.

"Al-Arabiya is deeply worried by the (implicit charges of) treason made against it by the (Syrian government) newspaper Tishrin, which was coupled with threats directed against some of our colleagues in Beirut by like-minded sides," the Dubai-based satellite news channel said in a statement received by AFP.

The statement did not elaborate, but a source at the news channel told AFP that "threats have been received from sides believed to be linked to Syrian intelligence".

Lebanon headed for showdown as thousands defy protest ban

Lebanon was headed for a showdown between the opposition and the security forces as thousands of demonstrators massed late Sunday in Beirut in defiance of a ban on protests by the pro-Syrian government.

Shouting "Syria Out!" and waving the Lebanese flag the protesters converged on the central Martyr's Square as hundreds of heavily armed troops aided by police deployed jeeps and trucks to the main crossroads leading to the square.

An opposition member of parliament told the demonstrators that three members of the pro-Syrian Lebanese government had resigned.

The energy minister, economy and commerce minister and the junior minister for administrative development had all quit, Nayla Moawwad told the crowd to loud applause.

Pro-government parties, including the Shiite Islamist movement Hezbollah, have called their supporters from Monday on to the streets for counter-demonstrations, raising fears of violence that the government used to justify its ban.

"All security forces are asked to take all necessary measures to protect security and order, and to ban demonstrations and gatherings on Monday," Interior Minister Suleiman Frangieh said.

Monday, February 28, 2005: Lebanese Cabinet Resigns, People Celebrate in the Streets

Lebanese Government Resigns Amid Protests

Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karami announced the resignation of his pro-Syrian government Monday, two weeks after the assassination of his predecessor, Rafik Hariri, triggered protests in the streets and calls for Syria to withdraw its thousands of troops.

"I am keen that the government will not be a hurdle in front of those who want the good for this country. I declare the resignation of the government that I had the honor to head. May God preserve Lebanon," Karami said.

Let Freedom Reign!

The Revolution IS BEING televised ...

... on Al Jazeera of all places!



This picture of the Lebanese people conducting non-violent protest to topple the Syrian puppet regime is worth a thousand words, especially to the "Arab Street" throughout the Middle East watching Al Jazeera right now.

Editor's note: For those of us who can't or won't tune into Al Jazeera, FOX News is televising the revolution as well! :)

Jihad Winning in Holland

Holland has always been known as the most tolerant of all the European countries. In terms of Islamic immigration, they may have been too tolerant. A disturbing article in the New York Times shows that many Dutch just do not have it in the to fight, and are instead choosing to emigrate from their country.

This small nation is a magnet for immigrants, but statistics suggest there is a quickening flight of the white middle class. Dutch people pulling up roots said they felt a general pessimism about their small and crowded country and about the social tensions that had grown along with the waves of newcomers, most of them Muslims."The Dutch are living in a kind of pressure cooker atmosphere," Mr. Hiltemann said.

There is more than the concern about the rising complications of absorbing newcomers, now one-tenth of the population, many of them from largely Muslim countries. Many Dutch also seem bewildered that their country, run for decades on a cozy, political consensus, now seems so tense and prickly and bent on confrontation. Those leaving have been mostly lured by large English-speaking nations like Australia, New Zealand and Canada, where they say they hope to feel less constricted.

It is still a question which European country will be the first to adopt Sharia. It seems that Holland is now in the lead for that dubious distinction.

Lebanese Government Resigns

Under pressure from the US, Lebanese opposition groups, and the 50,000 protesters in the street today, the pro-Syrian government has resigned.