Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar Assad (AP)
The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has deployed three of his top advisers—Claude Gueant, Jean-David Lavitte and Boris Boillon—as well as his foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, and a special envoy, Jean-Claude Cousseran in pursuit of the goal of helping Lebanon through the presidential election and establishing a new basis for dealing with Syria.
Syria ostensibly has much to gain. France is in a position to revive the stalled process of approving an EU Association Agreement, which would pave the way for a big increase in economic aid, and Mr Sarkozy has indicated that he is prepared to promote a resumption of Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations, either as part of the proposed Annapolis conference, scheduled for late November, or in parallel to it. …
In order to realize these benefits, Syria is expected to do what it can to prevent any untoward events occurring in Lebanon over the next two weeks… However, there are some large flies in the ointment. The Hariri tribunal poses a serious threat to the internal stability of the regime of Syria’s president… Syria would have the means to torpedo the tribunal if it were to re-establish critical levers of control over the Lebanese government…Another formidable obstacle in the way of the French efforts to coax Syria into co-operation is the likely reaction of Iran and Hizbullah, neither of which are beholden to instructions from Damascus. Access the full article>>