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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/12/opinion/12YOUN.html
The Road to Democracy, Via Damascus
(New York Times) Michael Young - The U.S. and the EU should put Lebanese sovereignty at the top of their agenda - even if they have few means of enforcement. How can the international community help? First, by calling, after years of indifference, for the peaceful carrying out of UN and other resolutions demanding foreign troop withdrawals from Lebanon. This would include a renewed commitment to the 1989 Taif accord that ended the civil war and outlined a Syrian redeployment to the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon within two years. While the wording of the accord is open to interpretation, its spirit is not: the Syrians are asked to move their troops with the implicit promise of a total withdrawal.