Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Syria and Lebanon

The general neocon position is that Lebanon used to be a vibrant democracy, then the nefarious Syrians started a civil war, used it as an excuse to occupy the country, and are now preventing Lebanese democracy from reasserting itself.

This is what Hack Kelly and Joseph Farah, are saying.
In fact, it has been a consistent refrain of Mr. Farah for a long time, that the democracy of Lebanon was stable, and that the Lebanon of the 1950s would return if only Syria were out of the way.

A more realistic look at the situation can be found from Steve Sailer and Gary Brecher.

The Lebanese democracy was never stable, and only existed because the Christians were numberous enough to maintain a three-sided power-sharing truce with the Sunnis and the Shia. This fell apart because the Shia (and I think the Sunni as well) got more numerous.

Seeing as the Syrians initially intervend in 1976 to protect the Christians from the Muslims, I wonder why Joseph Farah thinks that things will get better when the Syrians leave.

Presumably, his goal is not an independent Lebanon, but that Israel will wind up occupying it. I remember in 2000 that he was outraged when the Israeli troops left. (I'll get all of the links later).

Of course, Israel no longer wants Lebanon, it's too much trouble. So maybe Farah is hoping that Israel will cause Lebanon to be less trouble by killing all of the uslims there. Or maybe he is delusional enough to believe that without Syria, Lebanon will not put up any resistance.

Or maybe Farah just doesn't think.

That is all.

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