USA House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The Democrat from Cal-If-Or-Knee-Yah.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Speaker Pelosi's Most Excellant Adventure ...
... also known as Cheney's Newspaper does it again.
This is the editorial from The Washington Post.
Pratfall in Damascus
I won't waste the space to put the entire editorial here as it is riddled with errors in facts and judgement. Basically, Halliburton's Dick Cheney barks 'greed of power' from the Map Room and the Washington Post snaps a salute.
The Washington Post never questions whether Cheney is telling lies or abusing power when it jumps at Cheney's voice, it only questions how high it should jump.
The Road to Damascus ... started in Germany with a USA ally, the President of the European Union. The lies of Cheney is that Speaker Pelosi is telling tales out of school about Israel.
"W"rong.
Let's take a look. I think it is a widely held belief that The Bush/Cheney State Department is not about diplomacy so much as 'setting the rules' that leads to invasion and war.
Yes?
Yes.
Cheney accuses Pelosi of 'bad behavior' on Middle East trip
By Reuters
Vice President Dick Cheney accused U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday of "bad behavior" on her Middle East trip, saying she bungled a message for Syria's president that was later clarified by Israel.Cheney harshly criticized Pelosi's visit to Syria this week and declared in an interview, "The president is the one who conducts foreign policy, not the speaker of the House."
...Pelosi, the top House Democrat and next in line to the U.S. presidency after Cheney, is the most senior U.S. official to visit Syria in more than two years.
Pelosi's spokesman, Brendan Daly, asked to respond to Cheney's criticism, said the speaker accurately relayed the message from Olmert to Assad."
The tough and serious message the speaker relayed was that, in order for Israel to engage in talks with Syria, the Syrian government must eliminate its links with extremist elements, including Hamas and Hezbollah," Daly said, referring to the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, and Lebanon's Hezbollah, which Israel fought in a war last year....
The Washington Post has ASSUMED as this editorial from The Arabic Media Internet News...was that Arabic Media ? Yep, yep, that is what it was ... that all Prime Minister Olmert does politically is posturing. War into Southern Lebanon is posturing? Oh, I see. This editorial as does The Washington Post would like to view the events with Merkel and Pelosi and Assad as a mistake. A mistake? Posturing? By the President of the European Union, the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the USA and the Prime Minister of Israel. Mistake? Posturing. Hm.
I don't think so.
A false assumption
Ehud Olmert was indeed posturing when he stood last week next to visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel inviting Arab leaders, including King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, to join him in talks at a regional peace meeting in Occupied Jerusalem.
It is doubtful that his empty gesture was taken seriously by the visiting German leader, the current president of the European Union, which had just announced that it would maintain contacts with moderate members of the Palestinian government who are not members of Hamas, contrary to Israel's hopes that countries would boycott the new Palestinian government.
Olmert must know better that no Arab leader would consider accepting such an empty gesture. Although his spokeswoman described it exaggeratedly as a "new initiative", it is unlikely that any Arab leader would respond positively to such an off-hand invitation, particularly since it did not include a serious counteroffer that matched the one adopted at the Arab summit conference a few days earlier. Even the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated for making that trip, is believed to have received prior assurances in secret meetings in Morocco with then Israeli defence minister Moshe Dayan that the late Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, was prepared to give back all of the Sinai Peninsula.
Sadat? Dayan? Begin? My, my the Arabs must be scared to death that Isreal might actually accept the peace offered it and Speaker Pelosi the facilitator. Could Cheney be as scared that peace in The Middle East is actually possible and his cronies could find themselves holding worthless contracts?
Sounds like it.
In reality, which escapes the Condi Rice State Department, the 'idea' that a change in leadership in Syria could actually cause a great deal of destabilization is a profound reality. Where Arab countries practice democaray rather than hierarchy there is always a chance of destabilization or anarchy. Perhaps it is that reality that also plagues The Speaker. A stable Middle East regardless of the ethnic volitility would be almost too good to be true.
There are far reaching consequences of destabilization of the Middle East that have been lost during the Bush/Cheney Administration and reaches beyond the crony politics of American media as noted in The Washington Post. Those consequences actually are in the serious business of governing. Maintaining an interest, an active interest in the Middle East. One of trust and not division. If Syria's leadership would fall, Cheney's first answer would be to invade and deal with the aftermath later. No different than Iraq.
Israel, the minority Shia or the USA and EU can afford a full blown war in the Middle East. Iraq's destabilization and the unresolved nation of Afghanistan is quite enough. The answer the two major parties have as solutions to the instability within Arab nations today outreaches American politics as it exists today. It reaches directly into the issue of the lack of competency exhibited by Bush, Cheney, Rice's State Department and this adminisration's failed diplomacy.
Syria: Identity Crisis
Hafez-al Assad has so far prevented the Balkanization of his country, but he can't last forever
by Robert D. Kaplan
...How could the Syrians ever acknowledge the 1967 loss of the Golan Heights when they don't really accept an older loss—one that, unlike the Golan Heights, has long been officially recognized by the world community?
The answer is simply that they can't. As the example of the Hatay suggests, the loss of the Golan Heights was merely the latest of several territorial truncations that underpin an explosive and unmentionable historical reality: that Syria—whose population, like Lebanon's, is a hodgepodge of feuding Middle Eastern minorities—has always been more identifiable as a region of the Ottoman Empire than as a nation in the post-Ottoman era. The psychology of Syria's internal politics, a realm whose violence and austere perversity continue to baffle the West, is bound up in the question of Syria's national identity. The identity question is important: events inside Syria reverberate throughout the Middle East....
....A myth persists about Syria, perpetuated in part by the American media, which seem to lack historical memory, and in part by supporters of Israel, who wish to distinguish starkly between the democracy of the Jewish state and the nondemocracy of Arab states. The myth is that Syria's Arab inhabitants have experience neither with democracy nor even with the rule of law. This is not true: Syria gave democracy a try, against enormous odds....
...Indeed, Syria wishes to return to a world where, as Daniel Pipes says, it could be subsumed into an even larger whole and become "a region that exists outside politics." This, after all, is what lies behind its calls for "Arab unity." And nothing of the sort will happen.
For the moment, then, Assad staves off the future. It is Assad, not Saddam Hussein or any other ruler, who defines the era in which the Middle East now lives. And Assad's passing may herald more chaos than a chaotic region has seen in decades.
While realizing the amusement of American politics to entertain the interest of the electorate over and above the serious issue of governing, come to terms with this. American media can't even maintain a respectable focus on Speaker Pelosi past the oppressive media environment of the FCC.
Bigotry against women. Did the American media care what happened after Assad? Not a bit.
Nancy Pelosi sits on the chair of the vice chairman of Saudi Shura Council, in Riyadh.
Pelosi raises issue of women politicians in Saudi Arabia
AP
Riyadh: US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday visited Saudi Arabia's unelected advisory council, the closest thing in the kingdom to a legislature, where she tried out her counterpart's chair - a privilege no Saudi woman can have because women cannot become legislators.
Pelosi, the first US woman house speaker, said she raised the issue of Saudi Arabia's lack of female politicians with Saudi government officials on the last stop of her Mideast tour, but she refrained from criticising the kingdom over it.
"It's a nice view from here," said Pelosi as she sat in the chair, facing the ornate chamber with its deep blue and yellow chairs and gilded ironwork. "This chair is very comfortable." US Representative Tom Lantos, the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who was travelling with Pelosi, looked at the gavel in front of her and quipped: "It's a small gavel, madame speaker. You may want to wield it."
Speaker Pelosi was welcomed in Arabia. She enjoyed the attention and priviledge of someone of her stature in American politics. We only go around once and I applaud her ability to find joy in her work while accomplishing good will. She made a wonderfully good impression on the Arab leaders along the way. I wish her all the joy her position can bring her that will bring the USA back to prominence as an advocate for peace.
Shoura Raises Visa Issue
Javid Hassan, Arab News
RIYADH, 6 April 2007 - US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, paid a visit to the Shoura Council yesterday where leaders of the two political bodies pledged to exchange information and conduct more bilateral visits.
Shoura members also broached the subject of the difficulties in Saudis obtaining visas to visit or study in the United States, a process that in the best situation usually takes four or five months.
The tour of Saudi Arabia's appointed legislative advisory council by the third-highest ranking elected US official took place after a meeting with Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah. Pelosi said that in her meeting with the king, which followed her controversial visit to Syria, the two discussed primarily the situation in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Pelosi came to the Kingdom with a delegation that included Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim elected to the US Congress. Saleh Bin-Humaid, the chairman of the Shoura Council, briefed Pelosi and her delegation on the functioning of the 150-member advisory.
...When asked to reflect on the fact that the Shoura Council has no women members, Pelosi, a staunch feminist, seemed to steer away from provocative comments. "I am very pleased that after 200-plus years in the US, we finally have a speaker (who is a woman)," she replied. "It took us a long time."...
...Al-Kurdi said Pelosi told Shoura members that she recognizes this role and considered the Saudi peace initiative - first floated by King Abdullah when he was crown prince in 2002 - a positive step. He added that the Kingdom is able to leverage its strength in relations with the US for the cause of peace and stability in the region."...
..."She recognizes the important role King Abdullah plays in the Middle East and the Muslim world," said Al-Kurdi. "She also appreciated the Arab peace initiative and hoped that the international community will take it forward."
Saudi Arabia led the drive to re-launch the peace initiative amid growing concern in the Kingdom about sectarian violence in Iraq. Analysts have said the king's description of the "occupation of Iraq" reflected his belief that the US administration's strategy in Iraq was doomed and his frustration over President George Bush's rejection of a Saudi-brokered power-sharing deal between US-backed Palestinian moderates and Hamas.
This is the clincher. It would seem Speaker Pelosi has struck a nerve at the White House because Arabia has been grossly neglected as Bush and Cheney pursue war over peace. Stabilization of the Middle East has to start somewhere and at some time, Speaker Pelosi decided it was going to start now and with her. I applaud her for her bravery and perseverance. I am grateful she is there. The American media needs to take this opportunity to get it's heads screwed on straight and realize peace in the Middle East isn't just blood sport. The Washington Post should be ashamed of it's role in this issue. If nothing else is reeks of bias, misinformation, misdirection of governance all leading to liable against the character of Speaker Pelosi.
Editorial: Policy of Petulance 6 April 2007
Washington's silence at the visit to Riyadh by Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the US House of Representatives, contrasts starkly with the stinging criticism of her stopover in Syria, which President Bush again last week called a "state sponsor of terror" and not part of the mainstream international community. It is sheer petulance. He cannot abide the fact that Pelosi, the third-most senior official in the US, refuses to dance to his tune. Not that his tune is anything other than a shrill cacophony.
There is no consistency in Washington's policy toward Syria. In January, Bush tore into the report by the US Congress-appointed Iraq Study Group calling for engagement with Syria and Iran. But then, at the end of February, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that the US would do precisely that by joining in talks with Iran and Syria on the future of Iraq. Last month, a senior US official was in Damascus, ostensibly as part of a UNHCR visit but known to have had talks with Syrian officials on US-Syrian relations. Now we have Bush again apparently opposed to engagement. His irritation with Pelosi's gall in going to Damascus serves only to underline how his policy vis-à-vis Syria is as dysfunctional as his policy toward the region as a whole.
Confronted with the reality of Pelosi's visit, it would have been wiser to say nothing and see if she could draw Damascus out of its shell. It is no secret that Syria wants to improve its relations with the US. Moreover, there is likelihood that if the country were taken more seriously by Washington, rather than constantly excluded from the political limelight, it would pursue policies more to the White House's liking. As it happens, it seems that Pelosi's visit has built bridges with Damascus and laid the grounds for possible renewed peace talks between it and the Israelis.
Bush, however, doesn't seem interested. He keeps his head firmly stuck in the sand, willfully ignoring the reality that without Syria there is no chance of a Middle East settlement. The policy has all the sanity of that pursued by Washington in the 1950s and 60s toward China, trying to pretend that it was not there. It wasn't until Richard Nixon that the US recognized the folly of ignorance. Bush, in contract to Nixon, doesn't seem to recognize the importance of statesmanship.
It is fatuous to say, as present Republicans are doing, that Pelosi's Syrian trip has undermined the president's Middle East policies. That suggests that the president's policies are working. Who can name a single one? They are all a wreck. Bush has the opposite of the Midas Touch in the Middle East: Everything he handles turns from a potential golden opportunity into a treacherous liability. Yet when someone tries to bring some common sense back into the US' Middle East thinking, the White House takes umbrage.
It shows how far the Bush administration has lost the plot in the Middle East.
This is the editorial from The Washington Post.
Pratfall in Damascus
I won't waste the space to put the entire editorial here as it is riddled with errors in facts and judgement. Basically, Halliburton's Dick Cheney barks 'greed of power' from the Map Room and the Washington Post snaps a salute.
The Washington Post never questions whether Cheney is telling lies or abusing power when it jumps at Cheney's voice, it only questions how high it should jump.
The Road to Damascus ... started in Germany with a USA ally, the President of the European Union. The lies of Cheney is that Speaker Pelosi is telling tales out of school about Israel.
"W"rong.
Let's take a look. I think it is a widely held belief that The Bush/Cheney State Department is not about diplomacy so much as 'setting the rules' that leads to invasion and war.
Yes?
Yes.
Cheney accuses Pelosi of 'bad behavior' on Middle East trip
By Reuters
Vice President Dick Cheney accused U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday of "bad behavior" on her Middle East trip, saying she bungled a message for Syria's president that was later clarified by Israel.Cheney harshly criticized Pelosi's visit to Syria this week and declared in an interview, "The president is the one who conducts foreign policy, not the speaker of the House."
...Pelosi, the top House Democrat and next in line to the U.S. presidency after Cheney, is the most senior U.S. official to visit Syria in more than two years.
Pelosi's spokesman, Brendan Daly, asked to respond to Cheney's criticism, said the speaker accurately relayed the message from Olmert to Assad."
The tough and serious message the speaker relayed was that, in order for Israel to engage in talks with Syria, the Syrian government must eliminate its links with extremist elements, including Hamas and Hezbollah," Daly said, referring to the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, and Lebanon's Hezbollah, which Israel fought in a war last year....
The Washington Post has ASSUMED as this editorial from The Arabic Media Internet News...was that Arabic Media ? Yep, yep, that is what it was ... that all Prime Minister Olmert does politically is posturing. War into Southern Lebanon is posturing? Oh, I see. This editorial as does The Washington Post would like to view the events with Merkel and Pelosi and Assad as a mistake. A mistake? Posturing? By the President of the European Union, the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the USA and the Prime Minister of Israel. Mistake? Posturing. Hm.
I don't think so.
A false assumption
Ehud Olmert was indeed posturing when he stood last week next to visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel inviting Arab leaders, including King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, to join him in talks at a regional peace meeting in Occupied Jerusalem.
It is doubtful that his empty gesture was taken seriously by the visiting German leader, the current president of the European Union, which had just announced that it would maintain contacts with moderate members of the Palestinian government who are not members of Hamas, contrary to Israel's hopes that countries would boycott the new Palestinian government.
Olmert must know better that no Arab leader would consider accepting such an empty gesture. Although his spokeswoman described it exaggeratedly as a "new initiative", it is unlikely that any Arab leader would respond positively to such an off-hand invitation, particularly since it did not include a serious counteroffer that matched the one adopted at the Arab summit conference a few days earlier. Even the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated for making that trip, is believed to have received prior assurances in secret meetings in Morocco with then Israeli defence minister Moshe Dayan that the late Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, was prepared to give back all of the Sinai Peninsula.
Sadat? Dayan? Begin? My, my the Arabs must be scared to death that Isreal might actually accept the peace offered it and Speaker Pelosi the facilitator. Could Cheney be as scared that peace in The Middle East is actually possible and his cronies could find themselves holding worthless contracts?
Sounds like it.
In reality, which escapes the Condi Rice State Department, the 'idea' that a change in leadership in Syria could actually cause a great deal of destabilization is a profound reality. Where Arab countries practice democaray rather than hierarchy there is always a chance of destabilization or anarchy. Perhaps it is that reality that also plagues The Speaker. A stable Middle East regardless of the ethnic volitility would be almost too good to be true.
There are far reaching consequences of destabilization of the Middle East that have been lost during the Bush/Cheney Administration and reaches beyond the crony politics of American media as noted in The Washington Post. Those consequences actually are in the serious business of governing. Maintaining an interest, an active interest in the Middle East. One of trust and not division. If Syria's leadership would fall, Cheney's first answer would be to invade and deal with the aftermath later. No different than Iraq.
Israel, the minority Shia or the USA and EU can afford a full blown war in the Middle East. Iraq's destabilization and the unresolved nation of Afghanistan is quite enough. The answer the two major parties have as solutions to the instability within Arab nations today outreaches American politics as it exists today. It reaches directly into the issue of the lack of competency exhibited by Bush, Cheney, Rice's State Department and this adminisration's failed diplomacy.
Syria: Identity Crisis
Hafez-al Assad has so far prevented the Balkanization of his country, but he can't last forever
by Robert D. Kaplan
...How could the Syrians ever acknowledge the 1967 loss of the Golan Heights when they don't really accept an older loss—one that, unlike the Golan Heights, has long been officially recognized by the world community?
The answer is simply that they can't. As the example of the Hatay suggests, the loss of the Golan Heights was merely the latest of several territorial truncations that underpin an explosive and unmentionable historical reality: that Syria—whose population, like Lebanon's, is a hodgepodge of feuding Middle Eastern minorities—has always been more identifiable as a region of the Ottoman Empire than as a nation in the post-Ottoman era. The psychology of Syria's internal politics, a realm whose violence and austere perversity continue to baffle the West, is bound up in the question of Syria's national identity. The identity question is important: events inside Syria reverberate throughout the Middle East....
....A myth persists about Syria, perpetuated in part by the American media, which seem to lack historical memory, and in part by supporters of Israel, who wish to distinguish starkly between the democracy of the Jewish state and the nondemocracy of Arab states. The myth is that Syria's Arab inhabitants have experience neither with democracy nor even with the rule of law. This is not true: Syria gave democracy a try, against enormous odds....
...Indeed, Syria wishes to return to a world where, as Daniel Pipes says, it could be subsumed into an even larger whole and become "a region that exists outside politics." This, after all, is what lies behind its calls for "Arab unity." And nothing of the sort will happen.
For the moment, then, Assad staves off the future. It is Assad, not Saddam Hussein or any other ruler, who defines the era in which the Middle East now lives. And Assad's passing may herald more chaos than a chaotic region has seen in decades.
While realizing the amusement of American politics to entertain the interest of the electorate over and above the serious issue of governing, come to terms with this. American media can't even maintain a respectable focus on Speaker Pelosi past the oppressive media environment of the FCC.
Bigotry against women. Did the American media care what happened after Assad? Not a bit.
Nancy Pelosi sits on the chair of the vice chairman of Saudi Shura Council, in Riyadh.
Pelosi raises issue of women politicians in Saudi Arabia
AP
Riyadh: US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday visited Saudi Arabia's unelected advisory council, the closest thing in the kingdom to a legislature, where she tried out her counterpart's chair - a privilege no Saudi woman can have because women cannot become legislators.
Pelosi, the first US woman house speaker, said she raised the issue of Saudi Arabia's lack of female politicians with Saudi government officials on the last stop of her Mideast tour, but she refrained from criticising the kingdom over it.
"It's a nice view from here," said Pelosi as she sat in the chair, facing the ornate chamber with its deep blue and yellow chairs and gilded ironwork. "This chair is very comfortable." US Representative Tom Lantos, the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who was travelling with Pelosi, looked at the gavel in front of her and quipped: "It's a small gavel, madame speaker. You may want to wield it."
Speaker Pelosi was welcomed in Arabia. She enjoyed the attention and priviledge of someone of her stature in American politics. We only go around once and I applaud her ability to find joy in her work while accomplishing good will. She made a wonderfully good impression on the Arab leaders along the way. I wish her all the joy her position can bring her that will bring the USA back to prominence as an advocate for peace.
Shoura Raises Visa Issue
Javid Hassan, Arab News
RIYADH, 6 April 2007 - US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, paid a visit to the Shoura Council yesterday where leaders of the two political bodies pledged to exchange information and conduct more bilateral visits.
Shoura members also broached the subject of the difficulties in Saudis obtaining visas to visit or study in the United States, a process that in the best situation usually takes four or five months.
The tour of Saudi Arabia's appointed legislative advisory council by the third-highest ranking elected US official took place after a meeting with Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah. Pelosi said that in her meeting with the king, which followed her controversial visit to Syria, the two discussed primarily the situation in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Pelosi came to the Kingdom with a delegation that included Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim elected to the US Congress. Saleh Bin-Humaid, the chairman of the Shoura Council, briefed Pelosi and her delegation on the functioning of the 150-member advisory.
...When asked to reflect on the fact that the Shoura Council has no women members, Pelosi, a staunch feminist, seemed to steer away from provocative comments. "I am very pleased that after 200-plus years in the US, we finally have a speaker (who is a woman)," she replied. "It took us a long time."...
...Al-Kurdi said Pelosi told Shoura members that she recognizes this role and considered the Saudi peace initiative - first floated by King Abdullah when he was crown prince in 2002 - a positive step. He added that the Kingdom is able to leverage its strength in relations with the US for the cause of peace and stability in the region."...
..."She recognizes the important role King Abdullah plays in the Middle East and the Muslim world," said Al-Kurdi. "She also appreciated the Arab peace initiative and hoped that the international community will take it forward."
Saudi Arabia led the drive to re-launch the peace initiative amid growing concern in the Kingdom about sectarian violence in Iraq. Analysts have said the king's description of the "occupation of Iraq" reflected his belief that the US administration's strategy in Iraq was doomed and his frustration over President George Bush's rejection of a Saudi-brokered power-sharing deal between US-backed Palestinian moderates and Hamas.
This is the clincher. It would seem Speaker Pelosi has struck a nerve at the White House because Arabia has been grossly neglected as Bush and Cheney pursue war over peace. Stabilization of the Middle East has to start somewhere and at some time, Speaker Pelosi decided it was going to start now and with her. I applaud her for her bravery and perseverance. I am grateful she is there. The American media needs to take this opportunity to get it's heads screwed on straight and realize peace in the Middle East isn't just blood sport. The Washington Post should be ashamed of it's role in this issue. If nothing else is reeks of bias, misinformation, misdirection of governance all leading to liable against the character of Speaker Pelosi.
Editorial: Policy of Petulance 6 April 2007
Washington's silence at the visit to Riyadh by Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the US House of Representatives, contrasts starkly with the stinging criticism of her stopover in Syria, which President Bush again last week called a "state sponsor of terror" and not part of the mainstream international community. It is sheer petulance. He cannot abide the fact that Pelosi, the third-most senior official in the US, refuses to dance to his tune. Not that his tune is anything other than a shrill cacophony.
There is no consistency in Washington's policy toward Syria. In January, Bush tore into the report by the US Congress-appointed Iraq Study Group calling for engagement with Syria and Iran. But then, at the end of February, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that the US would do precisely that by joining in talks with Iran and Syria on the future of Iraq. Last month, a senior US official was in Damascus, ostensibly as part of a UNHCR visit but known to have had talks with Syrian officials on US-Syrian relations. Now we have Bush again apparently opposed to engagement. His irritation with Pelosi's gall in going to Damascus serves only to underline how his policy vis-à-vis Syria is as dysfunctional as his policy toward the region as a whole.
Confronted with the reality of Pelosi's visit, it would have been wiser to say nothing and see if she could draw Damascus out of its shell. It is no secret that Syria wants to improve its relations with the US. Moreover, there is likelihood that if the country were taken more seriously by Washington, rather than constantly excluded from the political limelight, it would pursue policies more to the White House's liking. As it happens, it seems that Pelosi's visit has built bridges with Damascus and laid the grounds for possible renewed peace talks between it and the Israelis.
Bush, however, doesn't seem interested. He keeps his head firmly stuck in the sand, willfully ignoring the reality that without Syria there is no chance of a Middle East settlement. The policy has all the sanity of that pursued by Washington in the 1950s and 60s toward China, trying to pretend that it was not there. It wasn't until Richard Nixon that the US recognized the folly of ignorance. Bush, in contract to Nixon, doesn't seem to recognize the importance of statesmanship.
It is fatuous to say, as present Republicans are doing, that Pelosi's Syrian trip has undermined the president's Middle East policies. That suggests that the president's policies are working. Who can name a single one? They are all a wreck. Bush has the opposite of the Midas Touch in the Middle East: Everything he handles turns from a potential golden opportunity into a treacherous liability. Yet when someone tries to bring some common sense back into the US' Middle East thinking, the White House takes umbrage.
It shows how far the Bush administration has lost the plot in the Middle East.
The story the Washington Post conveniently forgot - April 3, 2007
LEBANON
chancellor calls on Syria to stop weapons smuggling across its border with Lebanon, normalise relations with Beirut and stop opposing the establishment of an international tribunal into the Hariri assassination. US House Speaker Pelosi stresses the importance of dialogue, arrives in Damascus this afternoon.
Merkel and Pelosi see Damascus as key to a solution in Lebanon’s crisisGerman chancellor calls on Syria to stop weapons smuggling across its border with Lebanon, normalise relations with Beirut and stop opposing the establishment of an international tribunal into the Hariri assassination. US House Speaker Pelosi stresses the importance of dialogue, arrives in Damascus this afternoon.
Beirut (AsiaNews) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel and United States House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who were in the Lebanese capital yesterday, are convinced that the key to solving the Lebanese crisis lies in Damascus.
Chancellor Merkel, who is also the current EU president, demanded that Syria stop the smuggling of arms across its border into Lebanon, establish diplomatic relations with Lebanon, and agree to an international tribunal into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
House Speaker Pelosi and her 27-member delegation, which includes members of Congress and the Iraq Study Group, arrive in Damascus today. Unlike Merkel she wants “dialogue” with Syria.
During her two-day visit, she is scheduled to meet President Bashar al-Assad, his deputy Faruq al-Sharaa and Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallim.
“We all know that the settlement of some problems in the region must come through Damascus and we are going with a clear intention to make our stances very clearly to the Syrian leadership," Syria’s state news agency SANA quoted Pelosi as saying.
In Washington the White House has lambasted the speaker’s visit saying that it plays into the hands of the Syrian regime.
“We are ready for a dialogue with Washington without preconditions,” said a high-ranking government sources quoted in al-Hayat this morning. “Pelosi’s visit represents for us an opportunity to show that Syria is not part of the problem, but part of the solution,” the same source said.
Chancellor Merkel took instead a firmer stance, excluding Damascus altogether from her Middle East trip, and not meeting Lebanon’s President Émile Lahoud during her stop in Beirut.
Syria must do its part to stabilise the Lebanese situation by “stop[ing] the smuggling of arms, establish[ing] diplomatic relations with Lebanon and demarcat[ing] a common border,” she said.
The chancellor pledged support for the UN-backed tribunal that should try suspects in the Hariri assassination and called on Damascus to “co-operate fully” with the UN probe into the event.
“We will do our best to establish this court without any excuses,” Merkel said.
The chancellor also held talks with Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri and, according to press reports, told him of the importance of the tribunal suggesting that he recall parliament for that purpose.
Members of Lebanon’s ruling coalition also called on Berri to reconvene parliament, something he has refused to do for months. Mr Berri heads the opposition Shia Amal movement. (PD)
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