Two potentially crucial votes faced Lebanon last week. Oddly, its people took part in neither, and neither vote produced obvious change. Yet the voting tallies did serve to clarify where the battle lines lie, in what has until recently been a smoke-shrouded struggle over the long-troubled country's fate. the UN Security Council voted, with nine in favour against six abstentions, to ask Syria to remove the troops it has kept in Lebanon for 28 years, to ask Lebanon to hold a proper presidential election according to its constitution and to get it to disband all irregular militias. In other words, the UN told Lebanon to start acting like a normal, sovereign state.
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