Bashar Assad Blinks

Syria has come to the realization that most other Arab dictatorships have; Bush is not screwing around. I guess boy Assad took a look in his rearview mirror and finally took note of the fact that 150,000 battle-hardened US troops are sitting across his eastern border. Here's an update:

A United Nations envoy said Saturday that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria had agreed to carry out a Security Council resolution calling for a complete Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, and offered to set a timetable for the pullout as well.
The envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, announced the agreement after he and Mr. Assad met in Aleppo, Syria. The official SANA news agency also reported the agreement.
A commitment to a full troop withdrawal would be a shift in policy. Just over a week ago, Mr. Assad committed to moving Syrian troops toward the border but left the time frame vague. Then on Monday, he issued a joint statement with the Lebanese president, Émile Lahoud, saying that a Syrian pullout would have to wait for further negotiations with a future Lebanese government.

The Lebanese democracy seeking opposition also made another appearance today and seem to be a serious threat to Bashar and his Hizballah-backed thugocracy.

Update: Omar has an interesting first-hand story on a shop owner/consumer Iraqi boycott of Syrian products:

After what we've seen on TV, we thought that it's totally unpatriotic to trade with that country; the Syrian government is benefiting from trade with Iraq and using the money they get to fund the criminals who slaughter our people. Not only that; the ordinary people themselves started to prefer products from other origins over Syrian products so we thought that it's better to search for alternatives for the boycotted items.
Frankly speaking the story amazed me because for the 1st time I see merchants putting economic benefit in the second place and the decision was made spontaneously, unlike Saddam's orders of boycotting western products back in the early 90's which forced wholesalers as well as small shop keepers who depended on those products for a great portion of their incomes to adopt a high level of secrecy in their exchanges.

In other regional news, the worst kept secret in the world has been revealed:

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans for a combined air and ground attack on targets in Iran if diplomacy fails to halt the Iranian nuclear programme.
The inner cabinet of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, gave “initial authorisation” for an attack at a private meeting last month on his ranch in the Negev desert.
Israeli forces have used a mock-up of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant in the desert to practise destroying it. Their tactics include raids by Israel’s elite Shaldag (Kingfisher) commando unit and airstrikes by F-15 jets from 69 Squadron, using bunker-busting bombs to penetrate underground facilities.
The plans have been discussed with American officials who are said to have indicated provisionally that they would not stand in Israel’s way if all international efforts to halt Iranian nuclear projects failed.

Shhh, don't tell anyone. I suspect the US is aiding the Israeli's in all possible ways, although as they proved at Osirak, they don't exactly need it.