Delay of Lebanese Election Will Be Setback for U.S.-Syria Relations
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The expected delay of Saturday’s Lebanese presidential election will be a setback for recent American and French attempts to renew diplomatic ties with Syria, as Presidents Bush and Sarkozy say they have lost patience with the Assad regime and its interference in its neighbor’s affairs.
On the eve of a Middle East trip that will include his first visit to Israel as president, Mr. Bush yesterday singled Syria out as an obstructionist force in Iraq and the Palestinian Arab territories, and said he has “worked with the French to get Syria out of Lebanon.”
“My patience ran out on President Assad a long time ago, and the reason why is because he houses Hamas, he facilitates Hezbollah, suiciders go from his country into Iraq, and he destabilizes Lebanon,” Mr. Bush said at his year-end press conference in Washington. “Syria needs to let the process in Lebanon work.”
For his part, Mr. Sarkozy said he has concluded that the logic of dealing with Syria diplomatically has reached its “end.”
In a move widely interpreted as a step toward a diplomatic thaw with the West, Syria sent its deputy foreign minister to the international gathering last month at Annapolis, Md. Hopes that the new diplomatic opening would lead to cooperation with America on Lebanon were dimmed yesterday, however, when the Syrian foreign minister, Walid Moallem, said America should be “sidelined” in Lebanon’s politics.
Mr. Sarkozy told Arab reporters that he called Mr. Assad on Sunday and asked him to use “all the means of your influence to allow” the Lebanese presidential election to talk place, according to the Arabic newspaper al-Hayat. Now, he added, “I see that I have reached the end of this logic. I will no longer make do with talk. I expect action and the last opportunity is Saturday, and if the election does not happen I will clearly state my analysis of what happened.”
The presidential palace in Lebanon has been vacant since November 23, when President Lahoud’s term ended; Saturday’s parliamentary vote in Beirut is the 10th attempt to choose a new leader. According to Lebanon’s constitution, the president acts as both head of state and civilian authority over the army.
In a gesture toward Syria, the pro-independence parliamentary majority — with the tacit approval of its Western backers — agreed that the current army chief, General Michel Suleiman, would be elected president. That concession assured large parliamentary support for General Suleiman. But the pro-Syrian factions, led by Shiite and some Christian Maronite politicians, then added to their demands a larger representation for their allies in the new government. The majority voting bloc known as the March 14 coalition has yet to agree to such a concession, leading the Shiite speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri, to block the presidential vote.
“I appreciate the sides trying to work on a common ground for a president,” Mr. Bush said yesterday. “But if they can’t come for agreement, then the world ought to say this: that the March 14th coalition can run their candidate in their parliament, majority plus one ought to determine who the president is, and when that happens, the world ought to embrace the president.”
In a visit to Lebanon earlier this week, the State Department’s Middle East point man, David Welch, urged the most prominent pro-Syrian Maronite politician, Michel Aoun, a former army general, to allow the presidential election to take place. But Mr. Moallem, the Syrian foreign minister, yesterday accused the Bush administration of interfering in Lebanon’s affairs. “The American role in Lebanon should be sidelined because it is not balanced,” he said.