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Last Updated: Jul 13, 2008 - 7:15:25 AM |
The "handshake roulette" between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Syrian
President Bashar Assad, which has been keeping the Union for the
Mediterranean and the Middle East preoccupied for weeks, will stop
today. But even if a Syrian handshake does take place with an Israeli
lame duck, or cooked goose, it will produce no thrill. French President
Nicolas Sarkozy has been working on the real thrill for almost two
months: bringing Assad back into the international fold and replacing
the U.S. president as the intermediary in the peace process.
Now that a Lebanese government has been formed, Assad and Sarkozy will
be free to discuss the peace process with Israel, the international
trial of the suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese
prime minister Rafik Hariri, and advancing the Israel-Palestinian
negotiations.
It's a two-way deal: Assad will push the peace process with Israel and
Sarkozy promises to make a state visit to Damascus in September or
October. Assad will see to the functioning of the Lebanese government
and open an embassy in Lebanon, and Sarkozy will send a delegation of
high-level business people and legislators to Syria in August. A deal
to sell Airbus planes to Syria is also in the offing. American
sanctions on Syria are clearly breaking down.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a last-minute decision
to come to the conference, despite concerns that the Union for the
Mediterranean will leave his country at sea, far from the warm shores
of the EU. Turkey, also an intermediary in the Syrian-Israeli process,
will push in two directions at the conference: toward direct talks, and
bringing in Washington as a partner. A Turkish source told Haaretz
Saturday that he did not discount the presence of an American
representative at the coming round of talks.
"The Americans must accept that we are part of the solution not only in
Lebanon but also in Iraq and Palestine," Assad told Le Monde
diplomatique. The Americans apparently realize that if they don't
hurry, Sarkozy will take the whole pot.
According to Arab press reports, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the
conference's co-chairman, has invited Assad to dinner. Yes, this
inter-Arab conflict must also be solved if Egypt wants to advance
negotiations between Israel and Hamas. So must the bad blood between
Saudi Arabia and Syria, after the Hariri assassination in 2005 and
Assad's calling the Saudis "half men" for not sufficiently supporting
Hezbollah in the Lebanon war. And Mubarak and Saudi King Abdullah are
not on speaking terms. If feathers can be smoothed over dinner, Assad
can receive Arab approval and Sarkozy can chalk up another success in
the face of American feebleness.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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