April 9, 2007

One Enemy at a Time for Pelosi: Bush First

One of the Bush administration’s least appreciated accomplishments is the marginalization of malevolent actors on the world stage. That achievement is now in jeopardy because members of Congress – some treacherous, some cowardly – have run out of domestic arenas in which to distance themselves from the resolute but unpopular president.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Syrian President Bashar Assad – with members of Congress from both parties in tow – has no chance of accomplishing anything that relates to America’s foreign policy or national security objectives. Assad is not going to stop funding or arming Hamas and Hezbollah. The Bush administration has already talked to him about that. Nor will Assad stop sending insurgents across the border into Iraq to kill American and Iraqi troops. Already tried that one too. Not happening.

Assad is not going to come clean about his regime’s complicity in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Nor will it likely refrain from murdering future democratic figures who emerge in Lebanon – a nation Syria views as its de facto property, to be used as Damascus wishes to launch terrorist attacks against Israel.

President Bush declared Pelosi’s trip counterproductive – he was being polite – because the administration realized long ago that talking to Assad is a fool’s game. He has no interest in peace, and has no intention of keeping any promises. Gracing him with America’s presence only enhances his prestige at a time when he ought to be coughing some of it up.

For all the hand-wringing from Democrats about how America’s image has supposedly been diminished abroad, it is still a feather in the cap of any foreign leader to receive an official visit from a high-ranking U.S. official.

Pelosi has taken it upon herself to start handing out the feathers, and why not start with one of the biggest troublemakers in the region? And why not bring along, as your political cover, Republican members of Congress who have their own political motives for embarrassing the president?

“I don't care what the administration says on this,” Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Virginia, told the Chicago Tribune. “You've got to do what you think is in the best interest of your country. I want us to be successful in Iraq. I want us to clamp down on Hezbollah.”

And where did Rep. Wolf get the idea that success in Iraq and clamping down on Hezbollah would result from propping up the Baathist creep who is actively working against both? Maybe he got it from the fools who comprised the Iraq Study Group. ISG Co-Chairman James Baker, the former secretary of state in the George H.W. Bush administration, never saw a diplomatic photo op he didn’t like. No one should be surprised that the man who infamously toasted the Chinese butchers of Tiananmen Square would lecture the administration to “engage” the maniacs who call the shots in Damascus and Tehran.

President Bush rightly rejected that preposterous notion, but he helped create the ISG monster in the first place, and now the notion that we need to talk to Bashar Assad possesses a certain absurd credibility within the Washington establishment and the media.

What an opportunity for congressional Democrats looking to put the final nails in George W. Bush’s political coffin. What an opportunity for congressional Republicans who are scared to death that Bush’s poor approval ratings may impact their own popularity and fundraising ability.

We need to talk to the Syrians! James Baker said so! Let’s repair the damage done by George W. Bush to this important international relationship!

So hit the road to Damascus, folks. Sit with Bashar Assad, restore the international credibility he had so crucially lost until you idiots came along – and in the process send a message not just to America but to the entire world that it’s now George W. Bush who has been marginalized.

Pelosi may as well have told Assad, “Just mind your P’s and Q’s for 21 months and when we take the White House, we’ll reward you.” Maybe she did say that. It may come as a shock to her when her new pal continues his pattern of sending terrorists and weapons to attack Americans in Iraq and Jews in Israel – and she realizes she doesn’t command any troops with whom to launch a response.

The guy who does command those troops is now irrelevant, at least to the extent that Speaker Pelosi and her willing Republican co-conspirators can make him so. That could prove to be a complication for our newly self-appointed secretaries of state, but one enemy at a time. The focus right now to finish off the one in the White House.