WELCOME TO THE BIG BOSS, read a new sign in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley along the Beirut-Damascus highway. In case any traveler did not recognize the big boss, the sign was surrounded by photographs of Syrian President Hafez Assad. Last week the highway was completely open for the first time in nine months—and free of marauding gangs that robbed and killed travelers—as Assad's troops moved into Beirut to unite and pacify the Lebanese capital.
Traveling in three columns, Syrian tanks moved down to the city's battered port and financial district, bulldozing roadblocks as they...