Music to my ears.

When Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon back in April, it was pretty obvious to the world that it left behind a thick residue of intelligence agents. The several bombs that have gone off, and the targetted assassination of an anti-Syria journalist, are part of a general pattern of political intimidation. Earlier in the week, the U.S. government reported that it had received a intelligence of a Syrian hit list made up of Lebanese opposition politicians.

The assassination of anti-Syria journalist Samir Kassir has relaunched the campaign to drive Syria away. Because of the great public outcry, the UN is sending a team to probe the Syrian presence in the country. Naharnet also reports that the UN delegation, backed completely by Washington (and likely France), will serve Assad his notice that should another assassination occur, he’ll be held responsible.

The United Sates and United Nations are serving a joint ultimatum on President Assad that Syria would be taken to ‘harsh international reckoning’ if a single other political assassination occurs in Lebanon, diplomatic sources reported from Washington and the U.N. secretariat in New York.

“This is the gist of the message U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen will be conveying to President Assad when they meet in Damascus on Sunday,” one diplomat said at the U.N. building. “It’s an ultimatum the deadline of which is any new political assassination in Lebanon.”

The Bush administration has thrown its entire weight behind the U.N. ultimatum, which focuses on ex-Premier Hariri’s assassination in Beirut Feb. 14 and the booby-trap car murder of An Nahar’s renowned journalist Samir Kassir June 2.

No word what action this would be, however. I wrote last week about the lackluster Ba’ath conference in Syria, meant to discuss and propose reforms for the decaying system. The premise of my argument was that they will try to reform their economy so that the government doesn’t cave in, but any political reforms would be cosmetic at best. The purpose of this would be to take advantage of the lull in political pressure since the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, and then thwart the pressure altogether. It looks, however, that irrelevant of any reform (real or fake), the free world has a clear goal in mind with Syria: pressure, pressure, pressure, until the regime can’t handle the weight.