The dominos continue to teeter towards democracy and reform in the Middle East.
BEIRUT, Feb 28 (AFP) - Two weeks after the assassination of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, some 10,000 people massed in the streets of Beirut early Monday in defiance of a ban as the government faced a tough test in parliament where the opposition planned to present a censure motion to bring it down.The Lebanese opposition vowed to defy the pro- Syrian regime on the streets and in parliament on Monday, amid claims of ministerial resignations, after a top US envoy upheld demands for an immediate Syrian troop pullout from Lebanon.
Waving the Lebanese flag and shouting "Syria out!" the protesters ignored a ban on demonstrations and converged on the central Martyrs' Square as hundreds of heavily armed but good-natured troops aided by police deployed jeeps and trucks to the main crossroads leading to the square.
Publius is collecting reports, and Caveman In Beirut reports crowds could be as high as 200,000.
It's going to be a rough ride, though, as evidenced by this report of a blogger's arrest in Bahrain. Jeff Jarvis is watching Egyptian bloggers, who have justifiably mixed confidence in election reform under Mubarak.
Update - breaking reports that the Syrian-backed government has resigned.
Via Instapundit this email published at Belgravia Dispatch;
On Friday evening I headed down to the mosque where Hariri and his body guards are buried. A mosque still under construction, the outside protective walls of the site are covered with urban graffiti, people writing condolences and messages for freedom, truth and independence. At the grave site itself, the earth is still fresh over the coffins, and has become home to shrines, covered in flowers, images of christianity, verses of the koran, all of it alight with burning red and white candles. Throughout the evening and during the following day people have been streaming through paying their respects. At the foot of the mosque is the Place des Martyres, a Statue erected by the French. Since the 15th of February, the day after the assassination, a steady number of Lebanese have been setting up tents around the statue and now expanding outward in the square. Essentially a political squat, inhabited by activists making up the faces of the 8 anti-syrian coalition parties have congregated in a similar way to those involved in the Orange Revolution which just took place in the Ukraine.
Update: Photos here.
All this democracy is Evil Chimpy Bushitlers fault! If he would only stop doing what he says he's going to do and would stop praying to his so-called "God" I'm sure that the enlightened philogynist homo-lover Islamists who currently run the Middle East would be able to lovingly care for their populations through selective mass murder and genocide. How dare that dumb Chimpy impose his values of freedom and tolerance on these Islamist truth-seekers in our post-modern times. Satan himself (Karl Rove) must be behind this pulling Bushitler's strings! And the Jooooooos are pulling Rove's strings. Yeah, that's it. It's Bush's fault being controlled by Israel.
Hizzbollah has lost control of the army and security services,and if butchers like Imad Mugneyaih aren't fleeing to Syria or Iran right now, they will get picked off very soon.A Syria without access to the drug ports of Lebanon, will implode.
Incredible how the whole superset (the Middle East) is imploding on itself, when one subset (Iraq) moves into democracy. It's not all over yet - the old tribal patriarchy won't disappear in a blink - but, what this is revealing is that the tribal system doesn't have the authoritarian might that it had before. Iraq, Afghanistan, ..and soon Egypt..will have held elections. Syria..on the verge. Libya. There's still Saudi Arabia. And Iran and Lebanon. But that sense of immutable hereditary power is vanishing...