Posted on 03/10/2005 4:17:19 PM PST by Ooh-Ah
...There were 500 buses carrying Syrian workers actually from the Bekka Valley into...
... Arab TV stations were interviewing members of these demonstrations. And they proudly said that they were Syrians coming in solidarity with the Hezbollah. But more over, they were Palestinians from the Palestinian camps. They put all their strength — it is true, that Hezbollah has 40,000 members. Forty thousand times four, each one brought four. This is the maximum that Hezbollah and the Syrians could muster. The problem is that they cannot do it every single...
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Pinging...
Argh, I read that as "Wild Phares" at first. Then I read the content.
Does Assad realize this makes him appear every bit as much the evil, grasping, empiromaniac that we've been saying he is?
Strength, no. Intimidation, yes. Assad was trying to raise the specter of civil war with that little street party but all it did was rub the Lebanese's noses in the fact that they are occupied and robbed by Syrian guest workers. But as Phares said, Hezbollah is Iran's to the tune of $30-40 million a year, and that connection is imperiled if the Syrians leave the Bekaa valley. Will Hezbollah turn down that kind of money and depend solely on increasing its political representation in parliament from its current 12 members? It seems a bit unlikely, but I suppose anything's possible.
Phares is very well informed, and was very optimistic about the potential for freedom in Lebanon.
It was encouraging to hear him!
Now I see....
For answers, we turn to Walid Phares, a professor at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, who is also secretary general of the World Lebanese Cultural Union.
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