BEIRUT — In March 2013, with almost 100,000 dead in the then two-year Syrian revolution against President Bashar Assad, a Muslim cleric who headed the Syrian opposition was welcomed to take the country's seat at the annual summit of Arab leaders.
"History will bear witness to who stood with the Syrian people in their ordeal, and who failed them," said then-Qatari Prince Hamad bin Thani in his speech introducing Ahmad Moaz Khatib to the delegates.
On Friday, 13 years after his government's Arab League membership was suspended, Assad returned to the Arab Summit on Friday, the strongest signal yet of his diplomatic rehabilitation within the Arab fold.
