I came across this article on Reason.com by contributing editor Michael Young who is opinion editor at the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut. Its an interesting read so I thought I would share.

Free at Last?
Some Arabs welcome American democratic browbeating

On Monday, exactly a week after Lebanon’s prime minister, Rafik Hariri, was killed in a bomb blast in Beirut’s tony seaside hotel district, some 50,000 or so protestors met near the site, observed a minute of silence, and marched toward Hariri’s grave. As riot police brought up the rear, or stood by the roadside, protestors demanded a return to Lebanese sovereignty, shouted abuse against Syria and the pro-Syrian Lebanese government, and insisted that there be an impartial inquiry into Hariri’s death.

Young said he was there, and the "while protests are perhaps not as rare in the Arab world as some might think—particularly when directed against Israel or the United States—anti-Syrian protests in Lebanon are".

On the same day as the demonstration in Beirut, George W. Bush delivered a speech in Brussels where he again demanded that the Syrians remove their army and intelligence agents from Lebanon. (see below)

Writing in the Washington Post on Wednesday, David Ignatius offered up this quote from Lebanon’s paramount Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who, after siding with Syria for decades (he didn’t have much choice; they killed his father) and opposing the U.S. war in Iraq, has become the leading figure in the anti-Syrian Lebanese opposition: "It’s strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world . The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."

President Discusses American and European Alliance in Belgium
Speech by President Bush
For Immediate Release - February 21, 2005
Concert Noble - Brussels, Belgium

“A status quo of tyranny and hopelessness in the Middle East—the false stability of dictatorship and stagnation—can only lead to deeper resentment in a troubled region, and further tragedy in free nations. The future of our nations, and the future of the Middle East, are linked—and our peace depends on their hope and development and freedom.”

An excerpt from the speech that I thought was humorous:

“More than two centuries ago, Benjamin Franklin arrived on this continent to great acclaim. An observer wrote, "His reputation was more universal than Leibnitz or Newton, Frederick or Voltaire, and his character more beloved and esteemed than any or all of them." The observer went on to say, "There was scarcely a peasant or a citizen who did not consider him as a friend to human kind." I have been hoping for a similar reception—(laughter)—but Secretary Rice told me I should be a realist. (Laughter.)”