Syria congratulates Saad

Mohammed Naji Otri, Syria's prime minister, sent a message to Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri today, congratulating him on forming a new cabinet. This is the first message from Syria to Hariri -- who ran, after all, on an anti-Syrian platform, and blames the Syrian government for his father's assassination in 2005.

Hariri is expected to make a trip to Syria soon. Lebanon's president, Michel Sleiman, already did; he met with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad yesterday.

I've said this before, but the people meeting with Assad in this particular room -- sitting in those particualr chairs -- always appear to be in physical pain, don't they?

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