WASHINGTON - Freeing Lebanon from its more than quarter-century old Syrian occupation should be the next a foreign policy goal in the Middle east, Lebanese opposition members and policy experts say.With all eyes focused on Iraq and Iran, two members of President Bush's "axis of evil," attention to Lebanon has withered.
But as media reports hint at an increase in tensions between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters along the Lebanese-Israeli border, the issue may rise to prominence again, especially after the war in Iraq.
Reinvigorating democracy in Lebanon was the subject of a packed seminar Friday, co-hosted by the Hudson Institute and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Participants included a former Lebanese prime minister, General Michel Aoun; Rep. Eliot Engel, a Democrat of New York; the president of the Center for Security Policy, a Washington-based think tank, Frank Gaffney Jr., and the president of the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon, Ziad Abdelnour.
Panelists lamented the decline of Lebanese culture and civic life - Beirut was at one time known as the Paris of the Middle East - the marginalization of the country's Christian population and the increased presence and power of the Syrian- and Iranian-backed terrorist organization, Hezbollah.
Mr. Aoun, now a principal figure in the Lebanese opposition movement, spoke of Lebanon as "the first victim of terrorism" when it was taken over by Syria and lamented about the past. "Lebanon was an oasis of freedom in the midst of the human desert that surrounded it," General Aoun said. "Since 1990, the Syrian regime has been undertaking the systematic destruction of the very infrastructure of Lebanese society."
"Syria claims to sponsor reconciliation between the Lebanese, when in fact it prevents them from dialoguing and meeting. Syria continues to play the role of the pyromaniac fireman, sowing discord between the Lebanese in order to secure the perpetual need for its presence," he said. General Aoun said he welcomes American initiatives to help liberate Lebanon and to build democracy there.
Mr. Engel, a long-time critic of the Syrian regime, gave a rousing address, calling for considerable reforms in the American-Syrian relationship; calling for the Syrian government to extradite Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader based in Damascus who was recently indicted with terrorist suspect Sami Al-Arian, and denouncing the State Department for its handling of Syrian issues. "There are still apologists for Syria at the top levels of the State Department. It frustrates me to no end," Mr. Engel said.
Mr. Engel announced his intention to reintroduce the Syria Accountability Act, a get-tough bill that would, among other measures, help to end Syria's occupation of Lebanon, with Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican of Florida. Mr. Engel sponsored the bill in the last Congress with the now-retired Majority Leader, Rep. Richard Armey, a Republican of Texas, but it never made it to the floor of the House for a vote.
Mr. Gaffney called
the Syrian occupation "one of the last colonial outrages of the 20 th
century.""One of the most urgent of the American post-Saddam goals should be the
end of Syrian occupation of Lebanon," Mr. Gaffney said. The panel was convened amid a
controversy over one of its scheduled panelists. Earlier last week, a prominent
Beirut-based dissident, Jean Aziz, withdrew from participating under mysterious
circumstances. Speculation emerged that Mr.Aziz may have withdrawn due to pressure from
officials inside Lebanon.
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