The Western melody is irresistably brought back to its root chord by the dominant chord, a major triad based on the perfect fifth of the scale; in Baroque and Classical the progression of chords to a perfect cadence, V-I, is so consistent as to be gracefully mathematical. The V-chord's diatonic suggestion can be pressed by the addition of a note set a minor third above the major triad, the major fourth of the scale known as a dominant seventh — the seventh slips to three, the third and fifth merge to one, the base an unswerving dominant spire, all in effortless resolution.

The dominant chord can also be garnished with a minor sixth above the dominant base, the minor third of the scale. Those unfamiliar with theory would instantly recognize the sound of this last chord, more by picture than ear, a window into high-life club flash and pizzazz of the Twenties: in a word, the Yiddish tag for contrived sentimentality, schmaltz. George Gershwin's 1924 masterpiece Rhapsody in Blue has its dominant sevenths ridden with that sixth, and it may be that one is inclined to think the piece criminally overplayed on commercial television and radio because schmaltz is strictly a convention, that of specific and narrow use; the modified dominant has really nowhere else to take the music but the root, and always with a big, stupid grin on its face. It comes and goes with little surprise.

A strongman is hardly music, certainly not beauty; but he is formulaic and with only a brief account of history quite predictable. Most authoritarians are tactically inclined, most comfortable with the physical realm and the reality of brute force to conquer, take and possess. A few are strategic but even the most wily, like the Third Reich's demented architect, who weaved about Germany's aristocrats and bureaucrats and militarists to tie the Weimar Republic's noose, telegraph their intentions by word or deed and — compelled by an animal nature — do not much deviate. If the devil calls the torment and domination of men art, he judges it by how well a predator can conceal himself and his intentions, and deceive both his adversaries and his dinner.

So it follows that the work of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, an imitator of a dead movement, is stilted and traced and punk; comedic, maybe, if it weren't responsible for and capable of so much suffering.

The presentation of a United Nations probe into the Valentine's Day bombing assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri is a little behind but few doubt that at least one of Lebanon's illegitimate power brokers, Syria or its terrorist client Hezbollah, was directly responsible. Swept to their feet by the murder of an admired man and motivated by the success of peaceful assembly from Ukraine to Iraq, the Lebanese began demonstrations as massive as they were determined — too quickly and too loudly for Damascus to stamp out. The world had long been waiting on Syria to release its tiny neighbor, and with the Near East an egg cracking open for a newborn Bashar Assad was faced with an order carrying potential consequences for the first time.

Enter the plodding choreography of the unoriginal despot: stall, obfuscate, intimidate, lie and beg to a stiff and awkward rhythm. We've seen the ply-off; the parley; the refusal; the grudging half-step; the backhand; the backstab; the whimper and the hiss. After five weeks and seven exchanges with the world's major power and its French ally, Bashar Assad is as good as one can be in a rut, apparently safe from imminent collapse but with no clear way of keeping his stolen Lebanon. He's succeeded in evading a schedule for withdrawing some ten thousand Syrian troops from the neighboring country, most recently changing last week's promise to United Nations envoy Terje Roed-Larsen of a timetable within days to something of the kind as late as April. The bait-and-switch, done with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's nod of assent, might be troubling if Washington's May deadline for withdrawal weren't so palpably immutable. The White House's lowered voice these days seems less resignation than a desire to avoid wasting capital on a loser. Beirut's puppet government plays defense, explaining to the world why neither President Emile Lahoud nor Prime Minister nominee Omar Karami should be shown the door while a resolute, broad-based opposition has not conceded an inch, thumping the butts of its pitchforks on the ground in steady time. Assad adjunct Hezbollah tried and failed to win the battle of Martyrs' Square, and while it is suspected that the terrorist group is turning to its most comfortable methods of public persuasion.

From Beirut to Brussels, to Washington to Secretariat in New York, few doubt Syria will not go quietly nor buck at the first relaxation of the free world's grip — yet a sense of inevitability to Lebanese independence pervades. As Dave Frum intoned three weeks ago, "it's a war the United States can and must win."

And on comes Syria's next set of ploys; the eighth exchange. It was reported that Damascus hoped to try again where it failed two weeks ago, and assemble a chorus of despot capitals at the Arab summit in Algeria today to match against the Washington-led alliance protecting Lebanon's Cedar Revolution. No luck: press out of Algiers today told a story of no-shows and confusion, as much a sign of the crumbling dictatorial order as Bashar Assad's folly to hide behind it. According to one paper, Jordan's Abdullah, absent from the meeting, took an opportunity to further expose Damascus.

Lebanon's Cedars began bracing for Syrian violence as soon as they took to public protest. But even as bulletins report tonight that a second bomb has with at least one dead inaugurated Damascus' murderous reformation many suspected, the speed and audacity with which House Assad idols have been ripped down by Lebanese hands speak of an inner strength that, matched with Washington's resolve, is impervious to bloodshed.

Syria's played out: it has only polemy and polemics, stale rhetoric that circles endlessly in the mid-20th-Century fantasia of anti-semitic, Hegelian Pan-Arabism. Israel this; Great Satan that. The farce has shown in the public square, and badly. The litany of old slogans no longer engenders; and may not even reassure. But Bashar Assad's henchmen are so tone-deaf they haven't realized how unintelligible their fascist dogma is to this age.

The Cedar Revolution is precisely today's motif, a separation from Lebanon's history. Frances Z. Brown, an American teacher in Beirut, writes that her students are savvy to the information age broadcasting botht their plight and vigor, and are no longer a party to Bashar Assad's rule of force:

After the shocking assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri last month, the anti-Syria movement has become big, brash and unapologetic. "Why should we be afraid of Syria now?" one protest organizer in Martyrs' Square asked me. "The world is watching us on television."

At the international school where I now teach, I've come to expect that a mini-rally may erupt at any moment among my sixth-graders, who largely come from wealthy, educated Lebanese families. A usually reticent student bounds into class one day exclaiming, "Miss, I'm proud to be Lebanese!" He summons public speaking skills I'd never seen in him before and begins addressing the class: "Freedom! Sovereignty! Independence!" It's nearly impossible to get this bunch to do anything simultaneously (I should know), yet my student's outburst inspires an impassioned and united response. He takes advantage of the soapbox to intone, "We must disarm Hezbollah, or they will cause another civil war, and we must make peace with Israel." I gasp; the sixth grade applauds in unison.

What Heaven conceives hell can only fake; the Cedars thrive on a spontaneity and elan Syria's drab columns are forced to mimic, but only a bit, lest they stray from the party rehearsal. It's a pitiful match, utterly in the Cedars' favor, made unpredictable only by Syria's bestial will. The world knows what old tripe Bashar Assad has to offer from today until his inevitable fall — terrorism, propaganda, suppression, ruin, and nothing else.