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The UN Security Council should not fall for Syria's pullback, which is very different from a pullout. First there is the fact that only the military forces will eventually be pulled back. There is no mention of intelligence services or the use of its proxies Hezbollah. What is surprising about Hezbollah recently announcing its support for Syria is not that it was made, but that it took so long. Security Council Resolution 1559 calls for Hezbollah to be disarmed so they have every reason to want the Syrians to stick around.

One observation that I could not help but notice was that the photos of opposition rallies in Beirut all seem to prominently feature young women. In the NY Times story there is a picture of pro-Assad demonstraters and they are almost exclusively male. Just for the record my favorite part of the Times story on the Syrian pullback was protestors yelling "Bush sends his greetings." Kind of similar to what soldiers said to Saddam Hussein when he was found. Coincedence, I think not.

By the way the Christian Science Monitor has a helpful timeline tracing Syrian involvement in Lebannon and a detailed Q&A along with a handy map on the same topic.