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during the civil war and was now just covered in gravel. The Lebanese, never a people to take authority too seriously, circled around the long lines of soldiers, searching for ways to sneak through alleyways leading into the square. For my part, I scaled the wall at the back of the French coffee house, called Paul, that was adjacent to Martyrs’ Square. So did several of the notoriously beautiful Lebanese women, who did their best to overcome the same obstacle in stiletto heels and skin-tight clothes. The American media described the protests as the “Cedar Revolution,” in reference to Lebanon’s famous cedar trees, an imprint of which is in the middle of the Lebanese flag. My friends in Damascus sent me text messages saying that it looked more like the “Gucci Revolution” on TV.

The opposition was organized. The party banners of February 18 had been replaced with Lebanese flags and red banners that read independence ‘05. To energize the crowd, the Hariri-owned TV channel Al-Mustaqbal (Future) and the Maronite-Christian Lebanese Broadcasting Company (LBC) focused their TV cameras on well-lit, concentrated patches of protestors waving anywhere from two to four Lebanese flags apiece. To a casual viewer wondering whether to defy the government’s ban on the protest, it seemed clear that the protests were on and worth attending. People just kept coming.

At the beginning of the parliamentary session discussing the murders, Future and LBC television coverage featured split screens, the right-hand side showing the parliament session and the left showing the gathering protestors. Future set up two large-screen TVs adjacent to the protestors’ main podium, which allowed the crowd to react to the heated parliamentary debate.

As deputies took their seats in parliament, even more Lebanese poured into the square. Expecting a long, drawn-out fight, dedicated members of the opposition were pitched in makeshift tents in the town center around the Martyrs’ Statue, the recently restored symbol of Lebanon’s struggle for independence from France. “We will wait here as long as Syria remains on Lebanese soil,” one die-hard protestor screamed. “We are willing to lose our jobs and our lives for this cause.”

After intense parliamentary debate, a beleaguered Omar Karami stood and said, “Out of concern that the government does not become an obstacle to the good of the country, I announce the resignation of the government I had the honor to lead.”1 The crowd roared. Chants of “Syria, get out!” and “Freedom, sovereignty, and independence!” rang throughout the crowd.

After the initial shock wore off, pro-Syrian parties struck back. On March 8, the anniversary of the Baathist revolution in Syria, Hezbollah launched a massive counterdemonstration in nearby Riad al-Solh Square to avoid confrontation with the anti-Syrian protestors camped out in Martyrs’ Square. Since the estimated headcount surpassed that of the opposition protests of late February, Omar Karami accepted the invitation of the pro-Syrian president, Émile Lahoud, to form a “rescue government” to unite the country.

In response, the anti-Syrian opposition staged a rally on March 14, 2005, the one-month anniversary of Hariri’s death. Standing on the bridge atop Martyrs’ Square, I and a group of journalists watched as busloads of people from all over Lebanon descended on the Lebanese capital. An estimated one million protestors filled the square—the biggest single protest I had ever witnessed in more than a decade of journalism in the Middle East. A week later, Karami resigned. On April 3, President Assad announced that Syria would withdraw its forces from Lebanon.

The day finally came. On April 27, at a surreal military ceremony at the Riyaq air base in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Syrian and Lebanese military top brass and political leaders read out speeches praising Syria’s role in stabilizing Lebanon. The chief of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, Rustom Ghazaleh, sat pale faced in the grandstand. Under a clear blue sky, squads of Lebanese and Syrian soldiers, dressed in green and red berets,