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had completely taken over west Beirut, dealing Siniora’s government a blow to its already embittered prestige.15 Siniora issued a statement calling the takeover a “bloody coup” aiming “to return Syria to Lebanon and extend Iran’s reach to the Mediterranean.”16 Fighting continued in and around Beirut for six days. The Lebanese Army stood by and watched, refusing to get involved. The reaction of both Damascus and Washington indicated that both wanted a negotiated settlement to the crisis. President Assad branded the eruption of violence an “internal matter,” while Secretary of State Rice simply said that “the United States stands by the Lebanese government and peaceful citizens of Lebanon through this crisis and provides the support they need to weather this storm.”17

Two weeks later in Qatar, Lebanon’s factions met face to face, along with representatives from Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. On May 21, 2008, an agreement was hammered out whereby General Michel Suleiman would immediately be elected president of Lebanon. Until the next parliamentary elections, which would be held in June 2009, the Lebanese cabinet would include eleven of the sixteen ministers from the Hezbollah-led opposition bloc, thus giving it a “blocking third plus one” of deputies and allowing them to veto any cabinet decision, most notably the Hariri tribunal.

As soon as word reached Beirut of the agreement, Hezbollah and its opposition supporters immediately began pulling down their tent cities in Beirut’s central Martyrs’ Square. The following morning, the army arrived, rolled up the barbed wire, and took down the opposition banners and posters. One of the last to be removed featured the head of Secretary of State Rice superimposed on the body of a school teacher; her eyes and mouth had been poked through. Sitting in front of her, wearing a dunce cap, was Fouad Siniora. The top of the poster read A LESSON IN THE NEW MIDDLE EAST.

As the Lebanese Army ripped down the barricades in Beirut, Israel announced that it would begin indirect peace talks with Syria under Turkish mediation. For months there had been rumors of Track II (civilian talks blessed by the authorities) and other secret talks between the two countries. A month before the showdown in Beirut, Assad had told the Qatari daily Al-Watan that Damascus and Jerusalem had been exchanging messages via Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan since April 2007. A statement from Prime Minister Olmert’s office in Israel said that “both sides have declared their intention to hold these talks openly…. They decided to hold a serious and continuous dialogue, with the intention of arriving at an embracing peace treaty, in accordance with the framework [laid down by the 1991] Madrid peace conference.”18

The first round of talks, held on June 15 and 16, reportedly ended with a “positive atmosphere.” Both sides played down talk of direct negotiations, as they needed to work on a number of technical issues concerning the border. While details of the talks remained restricted, a Turkish source told the Israel daily Haaretz that “the talks are being held on the basis of an agreement in principle that Israel will withdraw from the Golan Heights in return for normalization of relations between Syria and Israel. The nature of that normalization, its extent and stages will be discussed at a later stage.”

While the parameters of the potential agreement were nothing new—these more or less matched the last round of talks in Geneva in May 2000—the big news was that France was creating a diplomatic path for Assad to Washington. The Turkish source added that an invitation by President Sarkozy to the July 14 Bastille Day celebrations could be “a significant launchpad for furthering the process; however Assad is expecting American mediation and this can only happen following the presidential elections in the United States.”19

When Assad arrived in Paris, Syrian TV broadcast video footage of him and Asma walking along a line of bronze-helmeted honor guards with swords drawn. A day before the Syrian first family’s arrival