Bush losing control of the agenda?

Sen. Bill Nelson (Dem., of Florida) is the first of four U.S. senators who plan to visit Syria over the congressional break. (The others are Kerry of Massachusetts, Dodd of Connecticut, and Spector of Pennsylvania. The first two dems, and Spector a Republican.)
Nelson is there now, and has met with Pres. Bashar al-Asad. After the meeting he called reporters in the US

to say Assad was willing to help control the Iraq-Syrian border…
“Assad clearly indicated the willingness to cooperate with the Americans and or the Iraqi army to be part of a solution” in Iraq, Nelson told reporters… The U.S. says foreign fighters often enter Iraq across that boundary.
Syrian officials have indicated a willingness before to engage the U.S. in discussions about Iraq, which the Bush administration has treated with skepticism. Nelson said he viewed Assad’s remarks as “a crack in the door for discussions to continue. I approach this with ” to say Assad was willing to help control the Iraq-Syrian border.”

Bush spokesman Tony Snow-job is not happy that Nelson has gone to Damascus:

“We don’t think that members of Congress ought to be going there,” White House press secretary Tony Snow said, adding that the United States continues to denounce Syria’s meddling in Lebanon and its ties to terrorist groups.
Snow noted the existing diplomatic ties between U.S. and Syria. “I think it’s a real stretch to think the Syrians don’t know where we stand or what we think,” he said.

The AP reporter there, Anne Plummer Flaherty, noted that originally the State Department had tried to dissuade Nelson from making his trip. But he said he

ultimately received logistical support from the State Department in what he called a “fact-finding trip” across the Middle East, being transported by embassy officials from Jordan’s capital city of Amman to Damascus. Prior to heading to Damascus, Nelson met with top Israeli and Palestinian officials; in coming days, he plans to visit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iraq.
Nelson said he was not interested visiting Iran “at this time” and did not say why.
However, the senator did say that he raised the issue of a nuclear-armed Iran to Assad, saying “he ought to understand that that’s not only a threat to him, Syria, but to the entire world. . . . He took note,” Nelson said.
The senator said he also expressed to the Syrian leader the problems caused by Hezbollah and Hamas and urged Assad to support the release of captured Israeli soldiers. Nelson said the Syrian president responded by saying
Israel had 20 Syrians in captivity, one of whom died recently from leukemia.
The senator shrugged off suggestions he was challenging Bush’s authority by sidestepping administration policy that the U.S. have no contact with Syrian officials.
“I have a constitutional role as a member of Congress,” Nelson said.
Meanwhile, Bush criticized Damascus anew and called on it to free all political prisoners…

Yes, I’d like the government of Syria to free all its political prisoners. But I’d also like President Bush to free– or bring before a fair tribunal– all the political prisoners held by the US. That includes the 450-plus people held at Guantanamo, some 7,000 or so reported prisoners held by the US in Iraq, and others held in secret CIA detention facilities in Bagram, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
I note that many of the people held in Guantanamo have now been deprived of their liberty for more than five years without having any charges brought against them,. and have been subject to often terrible abuse and/or outright torture at the hands of their captors…
Be that as it may… I think a big part of the picture here is that Bush is fairly rapidly losing the capacity he has exercized since January 2001, to completely control the US national agenda and the workings of all three branches of the US government (ok, the Supreme Court only since Justice O’Connor’s resignation last year… But she and the rest of ’em gave him a mighty nice prresent back in December 2000, if you recall.)
Here, anyway, is a little of what Syria’s ambassador to Washington Imad Moustapha wrote in the op-ed he had in the WaPo on Sunday:

if the Bush administration comes to realize that truly engaging consists of an honest dialogue in which all parties are involved, then positive results will be possible — for Iraq, the United States, Syria and the entire region.
Contrary to what many in Washington believe, past Syrian-American collaboration has yielded many beneficial outcomes, a fact that several former U.S. officials could confirm. These include, among other things, Syrian cooperation on the Middle East peace process, on al-Qaeda and, yes, on Iraq.
What motivates Syria to engage on Iraq? Let us be clear: Syria is not looking for a “deal” with the U.S. administration on any issue. The situation in Iraq is a matter of paramount concern to Syria, particularly the unprecedented levels of death and destruction and the possibility of Iraq’s disintegrating, which would have terrible repercussions for the entire Middle East.
Thus Syria has the will and the capacity to assist in Iraq. This help is imperative to Syrian national interests. Syria can cooperate on security issues with the Iraqis and can give considerable support to their political process. The visit of our foreign minister to Baghdad, and the resumption of diplomatic ties between Damascus and Baghdad after a 25-year lapse, clearly illustrates our commitment to a free, peaceful and unified Iraq.
But Syria recognizes that no magical solution exists to instantaneously achieve the desired objectives. A rigorous and comprehensive approach is required. This approach should include a reconsideration of U.S. policy in Iraq, starting with the recognition of the necessity to include all parties involved: neighboring countries and all factions of the Iraqi political and social spectrum.
No party should feel defeated or excluded. All stakeholders in the future of Iraq should feel that it is in their own interest to help stabilize the situation.
A solution should also include U.S. acknowledgment that the majority of Iraqis regard the occupation as only exacerbating the situation and causing further violence and instability. A U.S. plan for withdrawal should be on the table. Only such a step will prove to the various parties involved that the United States genuinely plans to return Iraq to the Iraqis.

This position looks very compatible with the recommendations of the ISG.
The idea of dealing constructively with Syria is, of course, completely anathema to most US neocons, who still want to keep the administration pointed toward “regime change” in Damascus. (Just what the world doesn’t need: another US military-political offensive, leading to the destabilization of yet another significant Middle Eastern power.) These neocons, operating out of Cheney’s office and elsewhere, have gotten Bush so much in their grip that when, toward the end of Israekl’s 33-day war against Hizbullah in the summer some Israelis started suggesting that perhaps Israel should start to revive its peace talks with Syria as a way of stabilizing the region some, they reported that they received a big slapdown from the Bushites.
Can you believe that? That US officials would be actively discouraging the Israelis from engaging in exploratory peace feelers with Syria?
There is also the point of view heard among some conseravtives (as exeplified in this op-ed in today’s CSM by John Hughes) that urges, in a kind of faux-Machiavellian bravado, that okay, well maybe the Syrians are really bad, “but we could get some leverage by trying to split them off from the Iranians.”
To which all I can say is: Ain’t going to happen.
I don’t know if perhaps Nelson or some of the other Senators visiting Damascus may be trying to test that “split them from the Iranians” approach. Well fine, if they want to try. But more important than pushing that particular line, they would do much better to sit down and brainstorm with the Syrians what they, the Iranians, and all the other powers neighboring Iraq can do to work with Iraqis and Americans to avoid a complete catastrophe from enveloping everyone in the region.
And yes, that includes the 147,000 US troops now in Iraq. Look for my CSM column on the topic tomorrow.