The past month has certainly been amazing. Following the death of Rafiq Hariri, Lebanese broke out in the streets and protested, eventually forcing their government to resign. Syrian loyalists struck back by staging a hoax rally large enough to break the momentum and dishearten even some of freedom’s most ardent supporters. Everyone, however, except the Lebanese. In a moment truly reminiscient of 1776, the people came together in numbers two and a half times that of their would-be oppressors.

And like I said, Assad must be shitting his pants, with Nasrallah quickly following. After Hizb’allah announced on Thursday that their rally represented the true voice of Lebanon, they were squashed. What we saw yesterday was a referendum on the lies and corruption of a useless regime. It was the foreshadowing of what’s to come in May’s parliamentary elections. In the aftermath of yesterday’s inspiring events, it is important to remain confident as well as intuitive. The political landscape has changed drastically once again, and the opposition is holding the cards. Step by step, let’s look at what has transpired since then.

Kharami today began consultations with oppositions MPs in order to form the new government, and the opposition is remaining resilient.

Karameh on Tuesday began consultations with opposition MPs in his quest for a government of national unity, a bid so far rejected by his oppoents.

Karameh was notably to see MP Fares Souaid and to receive a list of opposition demands.

“We’re calling for a transition government that will oversee the total pullout of Syrian military and intelligence units and free legislative elections,” Souaid told AFP.

“If our demands are not met, there is no question of our participating in the government. Monday’s demonstration showed that the majority of the country is with the opposition.”

Kharami has said that if he is not able to put together his national salvation government, that he will resign again. Not that many people have a problem with that possibility, as you can see. In fact, there is already a name being floated for the premiership in case he does leave. See below.

Speaking before the huge crowd, Bahia Hariri, Rafik Hariri’s sister and a member of parliament, urged national unity and sovereignty.

Bahia Hariri, the ex-Premier’s sister who is a member of parliament, stole the hearts of the Lebanese when she took the makeshift podium to address her slain brother at his nearby grave in the courtyard of Al-Amin’s mosque.

“You have accomplished Lebanon’s long-elusive miracle, the miracle of national unity, the miracle of Christian-Muslim unity that has been baptized by your blood,” Bahia Hariri said.

She then raised her right arm and urged the crowds to do the same, vowing “we pledge to be loyal to Lebanon, your Lebanon which you rebuild from the rubble of civil warfare. We pledge to you that Lebanon would never be torn by civil warfare again under any circumstance,” she said.

She was getting a huge response from the crowd from what I could tell on the livestream. This has happened before, and now she is being floated and the top pick for the prime ministership.

Bahia Hariri’s address to opposition activists who staged the biggest show of force on the streets of Beirut in Lebanon’s modern history on Monday was seen Tuesday as the policy statement of the future government she would probably head as the political heir of her slain brother, ex-Premier Rafik Hariri.
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She might even become Lebanon’s first-ever female prime minister before the May elections if President-Designate Omar Karami gives up on putting together a viable cabinet capable of navigating Lebanon out of its political and financial straits.

Karami began his consultations with parliament bloc leaders to form a national unity government on Tuesday. He is on record that he would quit if the opposition remains adamant about rejecting his premiership.

The opposition has declared it would ask Karami to pledge to sack State Prosecutor Adnan Addoum plus the six commanding generals of Lebanon’s principal intelligence and security services as a precondition to support or join his new government.

This demand is strongly opposed by President Lahoud, who had handpicked all seven men to their posts and defended them against opposition charges that they had created a “police state of secret service phantoms” during the past six years of a steady drift into a reign of terror in the country.

Bahia Hariri’s dialogue initiative came from a position of strength. She was thunderously cheered by more than 1.3 million opposition activists crowding Beirut’s downtown Martyrs Square at her brother’s graveside and the adjacent Riyad Solh Square. The size of the opposition demonstration was at least two times bigger than the crowds Hizbullah and Amal managed to assemble in support of Syria’s role in Lebanon a week earlier.

There’s a little piece of that article that I left out, and I did it because I wanted to give it a blockquote of its own. Hizb’allah was so intimidated by yesterday’s rallies that, well, read:

The main point she raised in her speech was an invitation to Hizbullah and Speaker Berri’s Amal Movement to join the opposition in a national reconciliation dialogue that chart Lebanon’s political course after Syria completes the withdrawal of its army and intelligence services from the country.

The speed with which Berri and Hizbullah’s leaderships welcomed her initiative have lent credence to Bahia Hariri’s prospects to form a salvation government after the upcoming parliamentary elections in spring, according to speculation making the rounds in Beirut.

How the tables turn! Trust me, I am having a hard time finding just about anything about Hizb’allah in the news, because they simply aren’t the news anymore. Wait, I found something. Hundreds, you heard me right, hundreds of pro-Syria Hizb’allah supporters protested outside the U.S. embassy. Scary.

Hundreds of Syrian loyalists denouncing U.S. interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs marched toward the fortress-like U.S. Embassy in Aukar Tuesday, but were stopped by scores of riot police and soldiers who blocked the approaches to the compound.

The protesters, waving Lebanese flags and chanting, “Ambassador get out, leave my country free,” stopped at the barbed wire the troops used to block the road about 500 meters from the fortified hilltop compound. The crowd did not attempt to break through.

Syrian loyalists have blamed the United States for pressuring Syria into deciding to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. They also reject the U.S.-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution 1559 that demands the Syrian withdrawal as well as the disarming of Hizbullah.

The protestors sang Lebanon’s national anthem as speakers denounced the United States. Three men climbed an electric pylon and waved Lebanese flags.

“America! America! You are the great Satan,” the crowd roared after an organizer shouted through a loudspeaker.

Hizbullah’s al-Manar television, reporting from the scene, said the demonstrators’ voices would be heard by the ambassador in the “den of spies,” referring to the embassy.

Demonstrators carried placards reading, “America is the source of terrorism” and “No to foreign interference.” One bore a picture of Iraqi prisoners tortured by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison and the words: “This is the American democracy.”(AP-Naharnet)

This rhetoric is going to get them nowhere now. As if it were backed into a corner, the desperate attempts to grasp on to power are only going to get more ridiculous, and come May, I am willing to bet they will lose a significant amount of parliamentary power. That is why they are so eager to join in working with the opposition, because if they don’t, they will be left behind just as the sick remnants of Lahoud’s government has been. (This article says 2000, which is not much. But what is worse is that it was the top item on Google World News.)

A pro-Syria newspaper also recognized that Hizb’allah had taken a blow.

An editorial in the pro-Syrian newspaper As-Safir said Tuesday that “the opposition has imposed its unambiguous superiority.”

“The demonstration by Hezbollah made clear its conception of Syrian-Lebanese relations as well as the balances of power within Lebanon … Yesterday, powerful Lebanese forces open to the Arab world and the international community sought to disrupt Hezbollah’s vision.”

And Walid Jumblat and other opposition MPs, with their new authority, are starting to call these people out big time.

Opposition leader Walid Jumblatt in a television interview after Monday’s rally argued that “Hezbollah must know where Lebanese independence lies and put an end to its political ambivalence.”

Another opposition figure, who asked not to be named, said he did not expect positive results from a dialogue with Hezbollah until after a full Syrian withdrawal.

“Nasrallah, who defends Damascus, cannot carry the torch for the Syrians after their departure without the risk of alienating the majority of the Lebanese, whose support constitutes the best protection for Hezbollah.”

Addressing the throng Monday in central Beirut’s Martyrs Square, just steps away from where brother is buried, Bahiya Hariri, a deputy from the southern city of Sidon, reached out to Nasrallah and Hezbollah, crediting them with leading a campaign to drive Israeli troops from southern Lebanon.

“Let us merge the two struggles into one,” she said, “resistance to occupiers and the construction struggle to build Lebanon.”

Jumblat is even shaking the stick at Lahoud, saying that he must leave on the last Syrian tank.

“We consider this president, whose term in power has been extended by Syria, illegitimate. We hold him with his intelligence service commanders responsible for Hariri’s assassination and Marwan Hamadeh’s attempted assassination. We ask all of them to leave on the last withdrawing Syrian tank. It’s better for them,” Jumblat said.

“Lahoud’s extended regime is over and out. Hariri was the victim of his extension. His martyrdom has generated this massive Lebanese energy that expressed itself in the biggest-ever demonstration at his graveside,” Jumblat said. “The Lahoud regime is totally bankrupt. It has to go and a new president must be elected.”

Jumblat warned against procrastination in Syria’s ongoing withdrawal from Lebanon, saying the Syrian army and intelligence apparatus must be out of Lebanon altogether before the spring elections. “The elections must not be held under Syrian army bayonets. They have to be free from intimidation.”

Speaking of Syrian intimidation, I want to add a note to that. Something I found interesting that compared to the former rallies, much more people came from the north. They came by boat, bus, just about every means possible. This can directly be attributed to the withdrawal of Syrian troops and intelligence just before the huge rally yesterday. In short, the less Syria, the more freedom! The opposition to Syria has become so visible, in fact, that they are even In fact, Syria and its supporters are getting so left behind that they’ve actually started to pull out faster.

BEIRUT – Syrian military intelligence units began pulling our of positions in Beirut Tuesday in what appeared to be a bid by Damascus to demonstrate a clear commitment to quitting Lebanon militarily once and for all.

The evacuation came a day after a huge opposition rally here intensified public pressure for a Syrian pullout and followed a weekend commitment to a UN envoy by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to call home all his troops and intelligence operatives.

Members of the intelligence service loaded a truck with furniture and personal effects from a building along the Mediterranean coast, a photographer reported.

Military intelligence officers in civilian clothing supervised the evacuation of three Syrian intelligence offices in the area, with streets closed off by Lebanese gendarmes.

Another intelligence facility, located on Hamra Street in the commercial district, was also being abandoned, with cartons loaded aboard a small truck in an operation watched by police.

And portraits of the Syrian leadership are being taken down.

There has been reports by Robert Fisk that the UN will be unveiling a damning report against the Lebanese and Syrian intelligence services, and if true, would certainly force their resignation and withdrawal.

LONDON – A United Nations investigation into the death of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri will report that Lebanese and Syrian authorities are behind a cover-up of evidence from the February 14 blast, The Independent newspaper said on Monday.

“The UN investigators have become convinced that there was a cover-up of evidence at the very highest levels of the Lebanese and Syrian intelligence authorities,” the British daily said.
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The UN team, comprised of Irish, Egyptian and Moroccan investigators and recently joined by Swiss bomb experts, have discovered that many of the vehicles from Hariri’s convoy were moved from the scene of the blast only hours after it happened, Fisk said.

The Independent also published a photo of the bomb site taken 36 hours before the bombing, and suggested that a “mysterious object” seen near a drain pipe indicated that explosives could have been planted beneath the avenue.

This would contradict initial reports that Hariri was killed by a car bomb, Fisk said.

“If (investigators) successfully recover parts of (one remaining destroyed) vehicle, they may be able to discover the nature of the explosives,” he wrote.

I guess we’ll see if this develops, however, the points that are made are very plausible. I commented in a much earlier Lebanon roundup the importance of determining the nature of the explosives.

This is actually something very much needed in this case. Determining if the bomb was planted in the car that exploded or if it was planted in the ground would correlate to the style of a particular government *cough* or specific militant group.

Some other news of the day regarding international diplomacy on this affair are that Mubarak and Assad are meeting, the Saudi crown prince is visiting Chirac, and King Abdullah of Jordan is visiting Bush. And controversial ex-PM Aoun is looking to return to Lebanon in two weeks from France, while the U.S. urges them to put Hizb’allah on the terrorist list.

Blogging:
Let’s take a look at what the blogs are saying, and first off, I want to start off with Tony who has just updated. He does the numbers on the rallies, and certainly does a number on those supporting Hizb’allah.

For a quick example, take a look at your reliable third-worldists. The consistently repulsive Helena Cobban is one such commentator. In one of her most recent gems, she wrote that the opposition’s massive rally today “may equal that pulled together by Hizbullah last Tuesday…” (Emphasis mine. In fact, it was at least double in size if not more). Another is the pitifully hilarious As’ad AbuKhalil, who has derided the opposition as hapless “Hummus” revolutionaries, who don’t quite live up to the proletarian standards set by his hair.

This is a must read post, as it deals with why Hizb’allah is going to lose.

The Angry Arab notes that the opposition used its big turnout to swing Hizb’allah to their side when it came to the speeches. Very interesting. Along with this, The Lebanese Bloggers has a post on understanding the political maneuverings in Lebanon. Definitely recommended.

Roy Saad has a personal anecdote of his experience at the rallies, along with some amazing pictures. You know those 5 km traffic jams they talked about? See them here!

Last but not least, Syria Comment tips us in the direction of some new legislation proposed in the House called the Lebanon and Syria Liberation Act. Take a look:

To strengthen sanctions against the Government of Syria, to establish a program to support a transition to a democratically elected government in Syria and the restoration of sovereignty and democratic rule in Lebanon, and for other purposes.

That’s it everyone! Let’s continue to hope for the best.

UPDATE: Bush got out of of his meeting with King Abdullah and told the press that Hizb’allah can be legitimate if it lays down its arms.

“We view Hizbollah as a terrorist organization and I would hope that Hizbollah would prove that they’re not by laying down arms and not threatening peace,” Bush told reporters with Jordan’s King Abdullah at his side.

He said a major concern, discussed by him and Abdullah, was that Hizbollah may try to derail the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

But in a possible olive branch to the group, Bush pointedly noted that “Hizbollah has been declared a terrorist organization by the United States because of terrorist activities in the past.”

White House spokesman Scott McClellan later said, “It would change the dynamic if they disarmed and renounced terrorism.”

“This isn’t about Hizbollah. This is about supporting the Lebanese people. The president believes that the future of Lebanon is in the hands of the Lebanese people,” he said.