Friends with benefits: Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, right, and his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi giving a joint press conference in Damascus on May 3, 2023. — AFP
IN more than two decades of covering the Middle East, I have rarely seen diplomacy provide forward movement toward solving the region’s problems. More often that not, it brings to mind two cliches about momentum: Wheels spinning in mud and a slow-motion train wreck. Syria’s readmission to the Arab League falls in the second category.
Last Sunday, after months of diplomatic manoeuvres – sometimes in the dark, but mostly in plain sight – the 22-member bloc moved to bring Bashar al-Assad in from the cold. Next week, a head-of-states summit in Riyadh is expected to formalise the process.
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