ASSAD IN PARIS

Syrian President Achieves Diplomatic Coup in Paris as Sarkozy Takes a Diplomatic Gamble

On July 12 French President Nicolas Sarkozy held a four-way press conference with Syrian President Bashir Assad, Lebanese President Imad Michel Sulayman and Qatari Prince Hamid bin Khalifa II which marked a major step in the international rehabilitation of the Syrian president, who among other things is widely considered responsible for an assassination campaign in Lebanon that began with the murder of Rafiq Hariri. Sarkozy is seeking to pull Syria away from Iran through engagement, although the French opposition has been critical - his own socialist foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, is said to be "troubled." (See
La France Aide Assad a monter sur la scene internationale.)

This extended hand to Assad, just before the opening of the Union for the Mediterranean, marks a major break in French foreign policy, which has been cold to Assad since the Hariri killing. Sarkozy could not do this for nothing, and he did extract two concessions from Assad:

• Syria agreed to formally recognize Lebanon through the exchange of ambassadors for the first time since the country's formation over six decades ago, and


• he allowed for the formation of a government in Lebanon, as political paralysis there coincided with continued violence, especially in the Tripoli area. I do not believe that it is a coincidence that the Syrian-aligned opposition reached an agreement to form a new government, after weeks of wrangling, just two days before this meeting.

If Sarkozy succeeds in this, he will be a diplomatic master; otherwise he will come off as a dupe. Either way, Assad has handled this very well. He had previously demanded that a government of "national unity" be formed in Lebanon as a condition of exchanging ambassadors, and this in practice meant institutionalizing its allies within the Lebanese government in order to be able to enforce his "veto" over the Hariri investigation which was the reason for the breakdown of the government back in 2006. As for the exchange of ambassadors, Syria has always claimed that it respected Lebanese sovereignty, so this was a formality, and so in practice one of his "concessions" to Sarkozy was something he wanted anyway (the unity government), and the other was simply a matter of ceremony.

Nevertheless, this is being trumpeted as a triumph of French diplomacy (see Rapprochement diplomatique libano-syrien sous l'égide de la France and Rapprochement «historique» entre la Syrie et le Liban). This is something that the U.S. and others have long demanded of Syria.

French officials even defended Syria against the accusation that it was responsible for the October 23, 1983 Drakkar attack in Beruit that killed 58 French soldiers (Attentat du Drakkar: l'Elysée défend la Syrie). Instead, they insist now, it was Iran that planned and supported the Hizbullah terrorist attack. They do confirm that Syria was culpable in the 1981 attempt on the life of the French ambassador Louis Delamare in Lebanon.

As I have suggested before, I suspect that the current Syrian-Israeli negotiations - which were loudly announced by Syria a couple of weeks before the outbreak of violence in Lebanon - is more than anything a geopolitical PR campaign. There are moves one could look for in Syrian actions collaterally which would indicate a willingness to part with its ally Iran and its sponsorship of various terrorist groups, and I have seen none as of yet. This will certainly be necessary before Israel is willing to even consider parting with the Golan Heights. Yet even talking so much about "la paix au Proche-Orient" ("Peace in the Middle East") is quite helpful to Assad in terms of his international position (see, for example, his interview with Le Figaro,
Bachar el-Assad : «La France doit jouer un rôle direct pour la paix au Proche-Orient»).

The primary implication for this internally for Lebanon is to reinforce the weakness of Imad Aoun, something I've noted over the past few weeks. Aoun wanted to be president of Lebanon, but was blocked from that, and then failed to get a power ministry like defense, interior or finance, and ended up as the new communications minister. This is important in Lebanon, but it is a major step down for Aoun. He struggled for weeks for a better deal, but caved when Assad told him it was time.