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Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/26/AR2005042601399.html
Back to Syria - and Beyond
(Washington Post) David Ignatius - The Syrians were driven from Lebanon not by force of arms but by a nonviolent Lebanese independence movement, a UN diplomatic effort and a broad coalition of allies organized by the U.S. and...yes, France. The U.S. had its hands full in Iraq, so the French took the lead in rounding up support for what became UN Security Council Resolution 1559. They persuaded the Arab representative on the council, Algeria, to abstain, and also lobbied China and Russia. A new Lebanon would be a model for the secular, multi-ethnic democracy that is proving so difficult to establish in Iraq. But without a strong Lebanese army (which the French and other Europeans could help train) and a gradual disarmament of the Shiite militia Hizballah, this new Lebanon will be stillborn.