Abstract

The Syrian Dilemma

The article focuses on the impact of Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon on the Baath Party. Former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in February 2005, assumingly by Syrian agents. If assassinations sometimes accelerate history, Hariri's brutal but popularly unifying demise was surely one of them. At a stroke it unleashed, in a great and very public torrent, all the anti-Syrian sentiments that had been surreptitiously building over the years. Ever-growing street demonstrations, unprecedented in modern Arab history, culminated in one on March 14 that drew perhaps a million people, a quarter of the population, to Beirut's Martyrs' Square. For the Baathists it was surely the death throes of One Arab Nation. Perhaps even more dangerous to Syrian Baathism than the loss of this priceless Lebanese asset would be the potential domino effect inside Syria of the Lebanese "people power" that chiefly brought it about.