Posted on April 5, 2007
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met yesterday with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to discuss issues concerning Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations, making her the most senior-ranking official to visit the country since relations began to collapse in 2003.
Bush is not happy.
Syria has consistently been viewed as a threat by the U.S. government for actions that have consistently unnerved the Bush team — from accusations of providing Iraqi militants with a safe haven, to critiquing Syrian involvement in Lebanese politics after the withdrawal of its troops in 2005, to condemning it for its support of organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. Syria does not appear to be our friend.
Essentially, the Bush administration views Syria as a terrorist supporter — which explains Bush’s less-than-elated response to Pelosi’s trip.
Democrats and Republicans generally agree on the importance of establishing peace in the Middle East, but can’t seem to decide on the best approach. Bush favors the deep-freeze method and saw Pelosi’s visit as a step backward rather than one to establish a favorable relationship with the Syrian government.
“Sending delegations hasn’t worked,” Bush told reporters Tuesday. “It’s just simply been counterproductive.”
The problem with Pelosi’s visit was not the visit itself, but rather the mixed message it sent to the Syrian administration. If Bush has one thing going for him, it’s consistency. There is much credit to the argument that his uncompromising nature is ruining U.S. foreign relations, but how can we expect nations to listen to us when we say one thing and do another?
Syria will become like the child of divorced parents, knowing just how to play mom against dad to get what it wants. It is one thing to play one nation against another; that is the art of foreign relations. But it is not effective for the United States to begin diplomatic efforts that are not an organized and unified course of action.
Additionally, despite Pelosi’s statement that her talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert indicated that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks with Syria, Olmert was quick to release a statement indicating that he wasn’t exactly ready to jump into bed with Syria yet.
A statement released on Olmert’s Web site stated: “In order to conduct serious and genuine peace negotiations, Syria must cease its support of terror, cease its sponsoring of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations, refrain from providing weapons to Hezbollah and bringing about the destabilizing of Lebanon, cease its support of terror in Iraq, and relinquish the strategic ties it is building with the extremist regime in Iran.”
Despite Pelosi putting her best face forward, the visit was mostly fluff and probably to the detriment of U.S. relations rather than a step in the right direction.
The efficiency of Bush’s cold-shoulder policy toward Iran and Syria can be debated until we’re blue in the face, but pitting the Speaker against the president makes the United States look childish and amateur.
