Syria because of its alleged aid to Hussein loyalists and others battling the U.S. occupa-
tion of Iraq. Another event was Syria’s decision during summer 2004 to press the
Lebanese parliament for a three-year extension of the term of President Emile Lahoud,
widely viewed as pro-Syrian. Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri initially opposed the extension,
which would require amendment of the constitution’s mandate of a single, six-year pres-
idential term. Hariri backed down, however, after an August 27 meeting in Damascus
with the head of the Syrian intelligence service (The Iraq War, p. 504).
Seeking to somehow head off the reappointment of Lahoud, the United States and
France decided in late August to press for adoption of a long-discussed UN Security
Council resolution demanding Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. The Security Coun-
cil adopted Resolution 1559 on September 2, 2004, but with the bare minimum of
support: nine members voted for it, and six abstained, including China and Russia,
two of the council’s permanent members with veto power. The resolution called for
the withdrawal of “all remaining foreign forces,” a clear reference to Syria, which
according to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan was the only country with armed
forces—14,000, according to his estimate—in Lebanon. The resolution also demanded
international respect for the sovereignty and “political independence” of Lebanon and
called for the disarming of all militias there, a reference primarily to the armed wing
of the Shiite organization Hizballah (Party of God).
This unusual attempt by the Security Council to influence the political process in a
member country failed to accomplish its goal. The next day, September 3, the Lebanese
parliament voted overwhelmingly to amend the constitution to allow Lahoud to serve
three additional years. Hariri and his parliamentary supporters voted for the amendment,
and then he and his entire cabinet resigned on October 20, citing differences with Dam-
ascus among the reasons. It was speculated that Hariri would contest the next parlia-
mentary elections, in May 2005, and if successful use a popular mandate to challenge
Syrian hegemony. On February 14, 2005, however, a massive bomb exploded as Hariri
passed through central Beirut in a motorcade. The dead included Hariri, six bodyguards,
and fourteen others, including bystanders. Another 200 people were injured.
For more than a decade, Hariri, a billionaire contractor, had been the only
Lebanese political figure who had seemed capable of dragging the country out of its
violent, sectarian-driven past. The bomb that killed him ignited an explosion of domes-
tic and international protests. The burial of Hariri on February 16 sparked a series of
public demonstrations over the next month, most of them aimed against Syria, which
was widely assumed to have sponsored, if not directly carried out, the assassination.
Hizballah, which received support from Syria and Iran, countered these protests by
organizing explicitly pro-Syrian rallies. The largest single protest took place on March
14, when nearly 1 million people gathered in central Beirut to denounce Syria. One
of Hariri’s sons, Saad, later created the March 14 Coalition, an anti-Syrian political
alliance named after that event.
In February 15, the UN Security Council again demanded that Syrian forces leave
Lebanon. In addition, international pressure came down on Syria from other Arab
countries, notably Saudi Arabia, which early in March bluntly rejected Syrian presi-
dent Bashar al-Assad’s request for support. Assad then began signaling a willingness
to withdraw from Lebanon on a vague timetable. This prompted new international
pressure for an immediate withdrawal, resulting in more specific pledges by Assad.
On March 16, Syrian intelligence closed its Beirut seafront office, which Lebanese
360 LEBANON AND SYRIA