Does the regime of Bashar al-Assad hold the key to Americas problems in the Middle East?
Some in Washington like to think so, but they are probably wrong. By Christopher Dickey Holed up in the grand Serail, the center of government in the heart of Beirut, five surviving members of Lebanon’s cabinet have been living in fear. Just last year they were leaders of a mass movement that forced Syrian troops out of the country and seemed to open the way for a thriving democracy. But those memories now seem as old and fragile as shards of Phoenician glass. One by one, brutally and spectacularly, Syria’s high-profile opponents in Lebanon have been eliminated. The most recent: Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, the son of a former president, gunned down in November. Since then, no minister has been sure if, or when, he’ll be next. As its enemies cower, the Syrian regime crows even as it denies responsibility for the murders. “Our relations with Lebanon will be stronger than when we had our Army in that country,” Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa boasted in the Arab press earlier
