But that was then and now it's a different world. Nobody seems capable of stopping Iran and as the Islamic Republic casts a shadow over the region, someone must have thought that dialogue and engagement might win Damascus back over to the West. Chirac's successor had little personal attachment to the victims of Syrian assassins and figured that - to paraphrase one of France's shrewdest kings - Damascus might well be worth a Mass. And that's how Assad got to sit next to the great and the good in Paris on Bastille Day and how President Nicolas Sarkozy travelled to Damascus in September to have lunch with Syria's dictator, despite Assad's insistence that he will "never give up on Hizbollah".

So forget that Syria's many mouthpieces have already said their alliance with Iran is not one of convenience but strategic. Forget that Syria is behind every political murder in Lebanon. Forget that, had it not been for the Israeli Air Force's raid deep inside Syria on September 6 last year, Damascus might well be building nuclear weapons today. Forget that Syria continues to pour jihadis into Iraq and to supply Iranian, Russian and Chinese weapons to Hizbollah. Forget that after Russia crushed Georgia, Assad rushed to Moscow to congratulate Russian imperial aggression, seek offensive weapons and offer military bases as if it were the Cold War all over again. And most of all, forget that Syria's consistent misbehaviour reflects her strategic interests, which are not ours.

Europe - against all the evidence - is prepared to go to Damascus under the illusion that our persuasive arguments will budge Assad in ways that nothing else has so far. It may work - but at what price? Hariri's tragic fate still demands justice. A deal with Damascus will have to mute that - and then some. For despite Western diplomacy's insistence, the prize for Damascus is not the Golan Heights, it is the formalisation of Lebanon's status as a vassal of Syria and a playground for Iran, and the West's acquiescence in the Syria-Iran axis as the rising power in the region. So as Europe under Sarkozy's leadership takes the road to Damascus yet again, it might ask: what's Syrian slang for "Munich"?