Word: syrian
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...comes in the wake of his controversial decision to host Syria's President Bashar al-Assad as an honored guest at France's Bastille Day celebration on July 14. Sarkozy had campaigned for the presidency on a promise of a move toward human-rights centered foreign policy, and the Syrian leader is hardly a poster boy for the liberty France celebrates on its national day. Indeed, Chirac, hardly an acolyte of the Bush Administration, had been every bit as vehement as Washington on the need to punish Syria over its alleged involvement in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese premier Rafik...
...justifying his July invitation to Assad, Sarkozy noted that Damascus had signaled a willingness to work to end its isolation following the Hariri killing. Ahead of Wednesday's visit, meanwhile, French officials cited other examples of improved Syrian behavior, including its hosting of Lebanese prime minister Michel Suleimane last month, and plans for Syria to open its first-ever embassy in Beirut...
...invented in the 1970s by Jimmy Carter. In fact, it was all the rage in the 19th century. European powers intervened on behalf of the Greeks against the Ottoman Empire (the poet Lord Byron died while taking part in that particular adventure); they sent troops to Beirut to aid Syrian Christians against the Druze; they helped the Bulgarians against the Ottomans (again)--and on and on. In Freedom's Battle, Bass tells the strange, bloody tales of these now nearly forgotten campaigns with extraordinary verve and wit, especially for a Princeton political-science wonk. But the book's real payoff...
...weekend, quoted an unnamed official warning that Israel needed "to be very careful and sensitive these days. The Russians are selling many arms to Iran and Syria, and there is no need to offer them an excuse to sell even more advanced weapons." As if on cue, on Wednesday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad arrived in Moscow hoping to persuade Russia to sell him sophisticated air-defense systems - and reportedly offering the Russian navy the use of one of its Mediterranean ports. Late on Wednesday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev...
...well-informed Syrian source told TIME that Suleiman's death could be connected to the fallout surrounding the assassination in Damascus last February of Hizballah's top military commander, Imad Mughniyah, who was killed by a car bomb. Regime insiders indicate that the Mughniyah killing, which caused the Syrian leader serious embarrassment with his Iranian and Hizballah allies, touched off a purge in the senior ranks of Syria's intelligence services. Some speculate that these purges may have created a revenge motive for Suleiman's killing...