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Source: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=95682
Beware, the Friends of Bashar Are Here
[Daily Star-Lebanon] Michael Young - Meeting Thursday in Damascus was a new fraternity, the Friends of Bashar. It includes the emir of Qatar, the prime minister of Turkey, and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and their aim is to ensure that the Assad regime remains in power and breaks out of the international and regional isolation imposed on it after the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Sarkozy has proven to be the most destructive of opportunists. On Tuesday he declared that peace in the Middle East "went through France and Syria," and that his aim was to see Syria "regaining its place in the concert of nations." The Syrians want their peace talks with Israel to be a highway to Washington. Sarkozy is willing to broker that rapprochement if France is given a seat at the negotiating table too. However, Syria will only play seriously on the peace front if it can reimpose its hegemony over Lebanon. Therefore, France will look the other way as Assad rebuilds in Beirut what he was made to abandon in 2005.