Remember the “Cedar Revolution” of 2005? That’s when Lebanon supposedly kicked Syria out of its country and reclaimed its independence, a move hailed as a victory for democracy in the Middle East.

That revolution has died. Syria’s reassertion of control over Lebanon—not to mention that of Iran—is taking firm hold.

Commenting on a visit by Lebanon’s president to Syria to take place Wednesday, and increased discussion of diplomatic relations being normalized between the two countries, Jonathan Spyer writes for Global Politician:

The formation of the new Lebanese government after the Beirut clashes in May represented a very significant gain for the pro-Syria element in Lebanese politics. Hezbollah now controls a blocking 11 of the 30 cabinet seats. With a Lebanese government of this type, there is no reason for Syria to be in dispute there. The short period when Damascus felt the need to express its will in Lebanon solely in a clandestine way is drawing to a close. …[O]ne may glimpse the contours of Syrian strategy in the next stage. The election of May 2009 will be conducted under the shadow of Hezbollah’s independent and now untouchable military capability.Intimidation will go hand in hand with the real kudos gained by the movement and its allies because of recent events—including the prisoner swap with Israel, and the Doha agreement that followed the fighting in May. The result, the Syrians hope, will be the establishment of a government more fully dominated by Hezbollah and its allies, in which the pro-Western element will have been marginalized.Such a government would mark the effective final reversal of the events of the spring of 2005, when the Cedar Revolution compelled the Syrian Army to leave Lebanon. Damascus would then go on to conduct friendly and fraternal relations with the new order in Beirut. Mission accomplished.If this strategy plays out, however, it will represent not the normalization of Syrian-Lebanese relations, but rather the enveloping of Lebanon into the regional alliance led by Iran, of which Syria is a senior member.

The much-hailed “Cedar Revolution” that was to bring Lebanon a new era of democracy and freedom from outside national interests, has instead given more power to a terrorist organization—and its foreign sponsors. Read “The Democracy Paradox” from our May 2005 print edition of the Trumpet for what we wrote then about the probable outcome of democracy in Lebanon—and elsewhere in the Middle East.