Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, for Whom?

It is almost a shame to criticize French President Sarkozy on Bastille Day. But it is his own fault for feting Bashar Assad this week in Paris – at the expense of Lebanon, Israel and the French army, not to mention the United States and large parts of the Arab world.

It is almost a shame to criticize French President Sarkozy on Bastille Day. But it is his own fault for feting Bashar Assad this week in Paris – at the expense of Lebanon, Israel and the French army, not to mention the United States and large parts of the Arab world.

Sarkozy claims a victory for inducing Syria and Lebanon to announce plans to establish embassies in one another’s capitals – from the birth of Lebanon in 1943, Syria has maintained that it is simply an extension of Greater Syria, not a separate country. Claiming historic rights, Syria has stationed troops and intelligence officers in Lebanon, used the Bekka Valley for drug cultivation, chosen a long line of Lebanese presidents, and been the pathway for Iranian access. So isn’t it good that Syria will now recognize Lebanon as an independent country?

No. The technicality of an embassy will only make it easier for Syria to run the parts of Lebanon it cares to run, like the government. The announcement was made at almost precisely the moment that Hezbollah was taking its unelected, violently assumed place in a new Lebanese cabinet, ensuring continued and deeper Iranian and Syrian control. And Hezbollah’s “blocking third” in the new cabinet ensures that the UN probe of the murder of Rafik Harriri will find only dead ends. Surely this was not what France intended.

Sarkozy claimed victory for bringing Junior Assad and Prime Minister Olmert together. According to Reuters, “a Reuters photographer captured (Olmert) casting glances toward the Syrian leader. But Assad turned away, raising one hand to his face as if to block off any eye contact with the Israeli. It was the first time they had ever been in the same room together.” Sarkozy and Reuters seem to think it is newsworthy when an Arab breathes the same air as an Israeli; we think it is disgusting that they think so.

Perhaps worst, Assad was an honored guest next to Sarkozy at the Bastille Day Parade, and, according to a German newspaper, the French government banned a planned protest by French veterans who blame Syria for the deaths of 58 French members of a UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon in 1983.

Sarko abased France – and Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite – by elevating a dictator who clearly has no interest in giving up his political, military and financial arrangements with Iran; who is violently repressive at home (where is the outrage over the killing of more than 100 inmates in a Syrian prison last week?); who was building a nuclear reactor with North Korea; who raped Lebanon and continues to allow Hezbollah to import arms into the south despite UN resolutions to the contrary; who rebuffed American friends in the region; and who harbors terrorists in Damascus and allows terrorists to infiltrate Iraq.

Assad let Sarko take him to the prom and show him off as a friend of France, if not the West. But Junior is hoping to go home with a different date. Assad’s goal is to bring American attention and money to Syria – and maybe American pressure on Israel to cede the Golan Heights without a serious quid pro quo. Indeed, one longtime region-watcher said he was “auditioning for the next President.” Surely that is not what France intended either, but that is what it got.