Beirut
THE IDEA THAT George Bush might be stopping in Lebanon during the course of his 9-day tour of the Middle East is one of the more far-fetched rumors I’ve ever heard in a land rife with speculation and hearsay. A Bush visit here is unlikely, for obvious reasons.

“Syria’s allies threatened to block the airport road if Bush shows up in Beirut,” says Eli Khoury, a Lebanese democracy activist and founder of New Opinion Workshop (NOW) Lebanon. And what about the rest of Lebanon? “Considering Syria’s strong presence in Lebanon through these allies, and the security threat it poses, there is a big difference between what the democratic public in Lebanon would want to do to welcome Bush and what they would actually do. People might not mass up, out of fear for their lives or militant intimidation.”