Detail Syria: Has it won?   Oleh:  [s.n] Jenis: Article from Bulletin/Magazine Dalam koleksi: The Economist (http://search.proquest.com/) vol. 393 no. 8659 (Nov. 2009), page 45. Topik: Syria; President Bashar Assad; Walid Jumblatt Ketersediaan Perpustakaan Pusat (Semanggi) Nomor Panggil: EE29.58 Non-tandon: 1 (dapat dipinjam: 0) Tandon: tidak ada     Lihat Detail Induk Isi artikel SIX years ago, President Bashar Assad looked weak, stumbling and isolated. In the words of the neoconservatives dominant in Washington after the conquest of Iraq, his regime was “low-hanging fruit”. Its fall would complete a circle of Western influence in the area, with Turkey, a NATO member, to the north-west and Israel to the south. The decline of Syria seemed to hasten when, after it was widely blamed in 2005 for the murder of Lebanon’s five-times prime minister, Rafik Hariri, it ignominiously lost its place as master of its small neighbour. Only Iran, among Syria’s friends, stood fast against the West. Yet now the position has drastically changed. Mr Assad is increasingly viewed as an essential part of the region’s diplomatic jigsaw. He is fast coming back into the game. Even America would like to embrace him. Nothing illustrates this better than the recent flip-flop of Walid Jumblatt, hereditary head of Lebanon’s Druze minority. He has cause to loathe Syria. Its agents were thought to have killed his father in 1977, a crime that eased Syria’s penetration of Lebanon as a peacekeeper whose forces lingered long after the end of its civil war of 1975-90. Still, Mr Jumblatt reconciled himself to Syria’s then president, Hafez Assad, Bashar’s father, for many years doing his bidding. But the Druze chieftain broke openly with Mr Assad’s filial successor after the murder of Mr Hariri, an old ally. Championing the movement that ousted Syria from Lebanon, Mr Jumblatt drew applause in Washington for calling it “a country hijacked by a family and a mafia”. Opini Anda Klik untuk menuliskan opini Anda tentang koleksi ini! Kembali

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