- WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
President
Bush on Tuesday demanded Syria pull troops out of Lebanon before Lebanese
parliamentary elections in May and give way to a democracy movement he
said is providing hope in the broader Middle East.
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- "The Lebanese people have the right to determine
their future free from domination by a foreign power. The Lebanese people
have the right to choose their own parliament this spring free of
intimidation,"
Bush said.
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- The U.S. president used a wide-ranging speech at the
National Defense University to lend support to what he called a trend
toward
democracy in the Middle East and away from authoritarian rule, which he
called the "last gasp of a discredited past."
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- "Across the Middle East, a critical mass of events
is taking that region in a hopeful new direction," he said.
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- Syria's ambassador to the United States vowed Syria would
complete the withdrawal of its troops from Lebanon before the Lebanese
hold parliamentary elections in May.
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- "They are actually being withdrawn today. We will
do this as soon as possible, even a long time before May," the
ambassador,
Imad Moustapha, told CNN.
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- In the past six months, a budding democratic movement
has gathered strength in the region, seen in the overthrow of the
pro-Syrian
government in Lebanon, democratic elections in Afghanistan, Iraq and the
Palestinian territories, as well as some voting in Saudi Arabia.
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- Bush pressured Arab governments to allow greater
freedoms.
He applauded what he called "small, but welcome steps" toward
competitive elections in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, two key U.S. allies that
have benefited from American support but now are facing pressure for
reform.
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- Democratic progress had been frozen for decades, Bush
said, "Yet at last, clearly and suddenly, the thaw has
begun."
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- Bush paid particular attention to Lebanon, where the
government fell to protests over the Feb. 14 assassination of former
Lebanese
Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, and where Syria is under international
pressure to withdraw 14,000 troops as well as intelligence
personnel.
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- In a development that did not fit the U.S. script of
events, however, hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Lebanese flooded
central Beirut on Tuesday for a pro-Syrian rally called by Hizbollah,
Lebanon's
last armed militia that is backed by Syria and Iran and dubbed a terrorist
group by Washington.
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- It dwarfed previous protests demanding Syrian troops
leave Lebanon. Bush did not mention the pro-Syrian rally but White House
spokesman Scott McClellan said it did not change U.S. demands.
-
- Bush said Syria must "end its nearly 30-year
occupation
of Lebanon or become even more isolated from the world." He dismissed
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's pledge to shift Syrian troops to eastern
Lebanon by March 31, calling it a delaying tactic and half measure.
-
- "All Syrian military forces and intelligence
personnel
must withdraw before the Lebanese elections for those elections to be free
and fair," Bush said.
-
- McClellan said if Syria refused "then, obviously,
you have to look at what the next steps are." Options could include
a new U.N. Security Council resolution and the threat of international
sanctions.
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- A bipartisan bill was introduced in the U.S. House of
Representatives to toughen sanctions on Syria unless it withdraws
completely
from Lebanon, and to impose sanctions on companies and countries that
provide
"destabilizing weapons" to Syria.
-
- Bush made the advance of freedom worldwide the central
tenet of his Jan. 20 inauguration speech. On Tuesday, he said the movement
will take time, and that U.S. policy was no longer geared toward propping
up authoritarian leaders in the name of stability.
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- "The advance of hope in the Middle East requires
new thinking in the region. By now it should be clear that authoritarian
rule is not the wave of the future. It is the last gasp of a discredited
past," he said.
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- Bush also urged Iran to give up nuclear ambitions, which
it denies having, and called on Iran to see Iraq's elections as an example
of what could be in Tehran.
-
- (Additional reporting by Adam Entous, Caren Bohan and
Patricia Wilson)
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- © Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
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