Word: beirutization
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Tuesday's car bomb attack on U.S. embassy vehicle in northern Beirut was relatively ineffective by today's gruesome standards of political violence: The blast killed four people and wounded 20, but none of the American diplomats who were its presumed targets was harmed. Even so, as the first attack targeting U.S. officials in Lebanon since the end of the civil war in 1990, the bombing will send a nervous shudder through the small but growing American community in Beirut...
...leader today deserves to be called a democrat, it's Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a humble economist by training who bravely continues to hoist the banner of the 2005 Cedar Revolution against domestic as well as foreign opponents. Bush won't have time for a stop off in Beirut, however. It could have been a powerfully symbolic show of support for Arab democrats; but Bush will be too busy after departing Israel meeting with oil sheikhs in the Gulf countries...
...friend on the other side of the Atlantic. French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced last week that Paris was severing contacts with Damascus until Syria facilitates an election in Lebanon. Sarkozy's ultimatum effectively ended an intense bout of diplomatic mediation in December, when senior French envoys shuttled between Paris, Beirut and Damascus to attempt a compromise deal between feuding Lebanese factions. Although the U.S. is recognized as the most powerful broker in the Middle East, France's historical ties to Lebanon and Syria grant it considerable influence in those two countries...
...Syria since Damascus participated in the Annapolis peace summit two weeks ago. An international coalition headed by the U.S. and France is heavily engaged in mediating an agreement over the presidency. France has been particularly active, with Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner spending much of the past three weeks in Beirut shuttling between bickering Lebanese politicians while other French officials have consulted the Syrian leadership. In reaction to the bomb attack, a clearly exasperated Kouchner said it was a "cowardly attack that shows a clear intention to cause instability," adding that the correct response is to proceed with the presidential election...
...police colonel involved in the Hariri murder investigation who survived a roadside bomb attack in September 2005. "All Lebanese agree that the army must be kept united as it is seen as the only institution that is keeping the country together," said Timur Goksel, a Mideast security consultant in Beirut and former U.N. official in south Lebanon...