Returning to Beirut from a trip to Damascus, I recalled what I once heard: “Damascus and Baghdad paid in recent decades the price of reckless decisions, while Beirut paid the price of a lack of ability to take decisions.” It has been 15 years since I last took this road, and I remember ...
The decision, the risks and the adviser · Ghassan Charbel · September 08, 2025 15:15 · Follow · Ghassan Charbel · September 08, 2025 15:15 · Ghassan Charbel · September 08, 2025 15:15 · Short Url · https://arab.news/rbzu3 ·Returning to Beirut from a trip to Damascus, I recalled what I once heard: “Damascus and Baghdad paid in recent decades the price of reckless decisions, while Beirut paid the price of a lack of ability to take decisions.” It has been 15 years since I last took this road, and I remember the difficulties these capitals had to endure.At the time, some believed that Assad’s best course of action after the US invasion of Iraq was to speed up internal reforms and mend his country’s international ties, especially with the West. But he ended up heading in the opposite direction. They believed that Assad took a decision that Syria’s composition could not support for long — and that was joining Iran’s regional agenda.How difficult it must have been for an adviser to not even dare to make Mr. President aware of the dangers of his decisions. One day, I booked a meeting with Assad. I arrived a day earlier and decided to pay a courtesy visit to then-Foreign Minister Walid Muallem.
