Will European ambassadors return to Syria?
According to one Syrian official, European ambassadors might be returning to resume their functions in Syria, as the West has started to realize that the Syrian army is the only one able to fight terrorism.
DAMASCUS, Syria — One cannot help but smile at the sight of a Syrian traffic policeman standing behind his radar gun, looking for violators of the speed limit indicated on the new sign on the side of the Beirut-Damascus highway.
That smile might become even broader when the driver taking you from Beirut to Damascus says that you are passing through the city of al-Zabadani, where armed opposition militants are stationed on both sides of the road, even if Syrian army units have managed to push them a few meters away from it. The first idea that crosses your mind is to ask the driver to speed up, because you couldn't care less about the policeman who is registering the plate numbers of the cars exceeding the speed limit!
Perhaps the speed radar has been carefully and deliberately placed there to detect the speed of cars, a few minutes after they enter Syrian territory. It is the best way to convey the message that the Syrian state is doing well and that you are entering the scope of a fully sovereign state, regardless of the turn of events that have marked the past 3½ years.
Before you cross the Masnaa border crossing, you discover that for the first time since the outbreak of the Syrian war, the decision of the Lebanese authorities to stop the influx of Syrians into Lebanon is relatively serious.
