MER 236 Table of Contents

For immediate release, September 1, 2005

In the most dramatic and consequential events of the "Arab spring," a campaign of popular pressure in Lebanon brought down a government and compelled the exit of an occupying army. The fall 2005 issue of Middle East Report, "Inside Syria and Lebanon," looks at the changes wrought by the Syrian withdrawal in both countries-and identifies some continuities as well.

Political scientist Bassam Haddad lays out the dimensions of the "curious dilemma" facing the regime of Bashar al-Asad following Syria's hasty departure from Lebanon. The Baathist clique in Damascus has lived with political and economic stagnation for decades, but "what has changed rather decisively is the world around Syria's cocoon." The regime has a choice: either it concedes to external demands about Palestinian militant groups and Hizballah, thus preserving itself, or it bends to internal demands for reform, thus reducing its own power. This dilemma may be "curious," Haddad argues, but it will not be too puzzling.

Meanwhile, says political scientist Bassel Salloukh in his critical history of Syria's entanglement in Lebanon, Damascus maintains a toehold in the affairs of its western neighbor. However, "the aura of omnipotence that once surrounded Syria's position in Lebanon is gone."

For all its drama and consequence, Lebanon's "independence intifada" also shone a light on problems in the Lebanese polity and society that will not disappear along with the Syrian military and intelligence "presence." The country's enduring hopes and disappointments run through the entries in the diary kept by Rasha Salti, a writer and curator, during April's celebrations of Lebanese "national unity." Labor historian John Chalcraft demonstrates the irrelevance of the furious controversy over Syrian migrant workers in Lebanon to the reasons why they came-and why they are already coming back. As anthropologist Laleh Khalili writes, the 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon were also sometimes scapegoated, and certainly excluded from the celebrations, during the tumult of the spring. Subsequent events have only slightly ameliorated the refugees' state of dispossession.

Also featured: Anne Marie Baylouny shows how Jordan's Ministry of Political Development is designed to avert political liberalization; Waleed Hazbun surveys recent books on how US culture and identity shape US Middle East policy; and more.

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For further information, contact Chris Toensing at ctoensing@merip.org.

Middle East Report is published by the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), a progressive, independent organization based in Washington, DC. Since 1971 MERIP has provided critical analysis of the Middle East, focusing on political economy, popular struggles and the implications of US and international policy for the region.