Syria seeks Arab solution in Lebanon

With Lebanese opposition groups stepping up their confrontation with Syria, Arab leaders are scrambling to find a diplomatic solution that will allow Damascus to disengage from its tiny neighbor.

Accused of willfully ignoring international demands to withdraw its troops and intelligence apparatus from Lebanon, Syria has begun dispatching top officials to key Arab states to seek a face-saving resolution.

In Saudi Arabia Thursday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was told bluntly that Syria must withdraw all its troops "soon" from Lebanon. Mr. Assad promised to consider a partial withdrawal later this month, the Associated Press reported.

Some analysts say Syria has decided to pull out most of its 14,000 troops and is sounding out Arab leaders on the best way of withdrawing. "I think that what they [the Syrians] are doing now with the Saudis and the Egyptians indicates that they are now aware of the crisis," says Samir Kassir, a columnist for the newspaper An-Nahar.

Assad traveled to Saudi Arabia with his foreign minister, Farouq al-Sharaa, who has already visited Egypt and Saudi Arabia in the past week.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Aboul Gheit said on Wednesday after meeting with his Saudi counterpart, Prince Saud al-Faisal, that they had discussed how to "find a mechanism to implement" last year's United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls on Syria to withdraw from Lebanon.

"The Saudis and Egyptians are getting more and more angry after the assassination [of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri] and they are trying to avoid a total internationalization of the crisis and to provide an Arabic way to translate 1559 into some concrete steps," Mr. Kassir says.

On Wednesday, President Bush applauded remarks by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier in London earlier in the week. "Both of them stood up and said loud and clear to Syria, 'You get your troops and your secret services out of Lebanon so that good democracy has a chance to flourish,' " he said during an appearance in Maryland.

The world, Mr. Bush added, "is speaking with one voice when it comes to making sure that democracy has a chance to flourish in Lebanon."

Simon Karam, former ambassador to the United States and a member of the Qornet Shehwan opposition group, says he would like to see further international pressure on Syria. "Syria has a capacity for mischiefmaking, and they are exercising this so far without constraints," he says. "They should be restrained from bringing havoc to Lebanon the same way Indonesia brought havoc to East Timor."

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