■"Syria Turns Over A Top Insurgent, Iraq Officials Say: Half-Brother of Hussein Seen as Financing Insurgent Attacks," by John F. Burns, New York Times, 28 February 2005, p. A1.
■"How Lebanese Drive To Oust the Syrian Finally Caught Fire: Killing of Ex-Prime Minister Capped Events With a Link To U.S. Mideast Initiatives," by Bill Spindle, Wall Street Journal, 28 February 2005, p. A1.
■"Lebanon's Pro-Syria Government Quits After Protests," by Hassan M. Fattah, New York Times, 1 March 2005, p. A1.
■"Mideast Mix: New Promise of Democracy and Threat of Instability: A ripple effect of Iraqi and Palestinian elections is seen," by Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 1 March 2005, p. A10.
■"Allah and Democracy Can Get Along Fine: Iraq's neighbors show how Islamic politics is evolving," by Dilip Hiro, New York Times, 1 March 2005, p. A23.
None of this would happen, we would told by regional experts galore. The Big Bang was fantasy. There would be no ripple effect, just blowback and another Vietnam/Afghanistan. Bush and his neocons were reckless and unmindful of history. Imperial hubris, we were told.
Tell me those troops die in vain when you watch what's happened in the Middle East since the start of the year: elections in Palestine, elections in Iraq, elections in Saudi Arabia, the pullouts beginning by Israel, a cabinet half full of PhDs for Palestine, negotiations between a duly elected Iraqi government and Sunni insurgents, Syria promising to pull out of Lebanon, Syria handing over Saddam's half-brother, Mubarek calling for multiparty elections in Egypt this year, Lebanon's pro-Syria government shouted out of power.
How did Lebanon catch fire?:
The vocal surge, so sudden it astonished even those who helped stir, is the biggest challenge to the Syrian presence in Lebanon since the occupation began three decades ago. How it happened shows the way more-aggressive U.S. policies in the Middle East—from the invasion of Iraq to President Bush's rhetoric about fostering democracy—are mingling with local politics to jostle once-unquestioned realities in the region.
Now the pro-Syrian PM has resigned and:
Lebanese opposition leaders say they feel that the Damascus government in more vulnerable than ever and that this is the moment to act, especially as Lebanon's wary communities of Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, Christians and Druse have grown more united in their demands for the Syrians to leave.
Read this and I dare you not to find some real hope:
In scenes reminiscent of protest in the United States in the 1960's, protesters rushed to get to the site of the demonstration, just yards away from Mr. Hariri's grave, and camped through the night, waving Lebanese flags as anthems played on. Many handed flowers to the soldiers and beseeched them to cooperate with them. Despite orders to prevent demonstrators from entering the area, soldiers eventually relented to the flood of largely young protestors on Monday, and the demonstration carried on peacefully.
Will this all work out in our favor? Hardly. But that wasn't the point of the Big Bang, simply setting in motion change was.
Yes, there will dangers along the way. But tell me that any of this happens when it does without the invasion of Iraq. Bush is engineering his own serious change in the Middle East, with the simplest and most direct form of political connectivity there is: the ballot box.
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