The road to Damascus

THE RESIGNATION yesterday of Lebanon's pro-Syrian government marks a victory for those Lebanese who have been protesting Syria's occupation of their country since the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. If Syria's handover to Iraqi officials of 30 top Iraqi Ba'athists wanted for financing and directing the violence in Iraq was intended to relieve pressure on Syria for a withdrawal from Lebanon, the fall of its client government in Beirut suggests that Syria may not be able to go on thwarting the Lebanese quest for independence much longer.

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As in the past, the Ba'athist regime in Damascus is trying to weasel out of any commitment to a true withdrawal from Lebanon. Syrian officials speak of redeploying their 15,000 soldiers to the Beka'a Valley in the east of Lebanon. They argue that under the 1989 Taif Accord, which gave Syria a temporary right to enforce a Pax Syrianna on the fractious Lebanese, Syrian troops are not required to leave Lebanon until formally asked to do so by a Lebanese government. Since their Syrian masters have made sure that successive Lebanese governments dare not disobey orders from Damascus -- as Hariri had begun to do -- there has been little cause to fear a Lebanese demand to end the Syrian occupation.

That occupation has brought considerable economic benefits to Syria, particularly to members of President Bashar Assad's family and inner circle. In the past, Syria's control of Lebanon was also treated as a strategic asset, one that could offer a buffer against Israel. The theory was that careful Syrian regulation of cross-border harassment of Israel by Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese Shi'ite proxy militia, would pressure Israel to seek a peace deal with Damascus. And in any such deal, Syria would be able to trade security guarantees along Israel's northern border for a return of Syrian land on the Golan Heights.

But today, as brave Syrian intellectuals are calling on Assad to withdraw from Lebanon and as Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah are proposing a withdrawal under Arab auspices as a face-saving way to avoid seeming to yield to the demand of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, the strategic value of Lebanon to Syria is no longer self-evident. Indeed, Assad must now calculate whether the survival of his regime is threatened more by staying in Lebanon or by withdrawing.

This is the right time to exert pressure on Assad, as the UN's secretary general, Kofi Annan, did last Friday when he called for ''a full withdrawal of the troops deployed in Lebanon, not a redeployment to the east of the country." He warned Assad that ''the Security Council would take measures against Syria if it does not implement the resolution." This is a pledge that must be kept.