Reply #82: Bear in mind that Karimi is/was pro-Syrian

[Vladimir]

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Syria's grip over Lebanon appears to be slipping under international pressure and increasingly bold Lebanese calls for Damascus to pull its army out. With the calls growing increasingly belligerent, Syria gave a pointed reminded that it still wields control, with its 15,000 troops deployed across the country. "The opposition has crossed all the lines," warned Lebanon's pro-Syria prime minister, Omar Karami. "If they think that Syria is now weak, this is not true. ... We will show them," Karimi told reporters, without elaborating. Still, there is an obvious change in the air. The U.N. Security Council has demanded a Syrian troop withdrawal. Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa recently said Syrian troops could be out of Lebanon in two years. Lebanese opponents of Syrian domination - emboldened by international scrutiny of Syria's actions by the United States, France and the U.N. Security Council - have made unprecedented calls for Damascus to extract its army and intelligence agents after nearly three decades of deployment in Lebanon, Syria's much smaller Arab neighbor.

http://www.10452lccc.com/daily%20news%20bulletin/aaaafebenglish6.05.htm

This seems to me lot more complex than the reports are suggesting so far. Obviously there is a groundswell of anti-Syrian sentiment in parts of Lebanese society, and evidently the assasination has been extremely convinient in heaping prssure on Damascus. It is fair to ask why Syria would bother killing someone who it already ousted from office, when the result was ever-so-predictable. It is also fair to ask what the opposition's agenda is exactly, and to what extent these protests reflect public opinions (and of which segments of the public). I suspect the next few weeks will be instructive in this regard...