Pelosi and Damascus, part 2

When we left Nancy Pelosi earlier this week she was still in Damascus. Yesterday, she was in Saudi Arabia. (She said she raised with her Saudi governmental hosts the Kingdom’s lack of any female political figures.)
But the controversy continued to swirl around her visit to Damascus. When she was there she announced she had delivered a message to Pres. Bashar al-Asad from Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, whom she’d met with the day before, to the effect that Israel “was ready to engage in peace talks” with Syria. She also announced that she had found Asad ready to resume the peace talks, as well.
Olmert immediately undercut her, arranging for a message to be posted on his website saying that there was no way Israel could talk with Syria until Syria had met several preconditions including ending its support for what Israel calls terrorism, etc etc.
Was this a big humiliation for Pelosi? The WaPo editorial writers evidently thought it was (or, that it should be seen in that way.) They tried to rub in this humiliation by penning an editorial viciously critical of her, under the headline Pratfall in Damascus.
It declared,

    any diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority at the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off U.N. charges that he orchestrated the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. The really striking development here is the attempt by a Democratic congressional leader to substitute her own foreign policy for that of a sitting Republican president. Two weeks ago Ms. Pelosi rammed legislation through the House of Representatives that would strip Mr. Bush of his authority as commander in chief to manage troop movements in Iraq. Now she is attempting to introduce a new Middle East policy that directly conflicts with that of the president. We have found much to criticize in Mr. Bush’s military strategy and regional diplomacy. But Ms. Pelosi’s attempt to establish a shadow presidency is not only counterproductive, it is foolish.

One big problem: The editorial writers there seemed to have taken completely at face value Olmert’s claim that Pelosi had fabricated the content of the message he wanted to send to Damascus, and to have completely discounted her claim that she did not.
Why on earth would the editorial writers of the Washington Post choose to take the word of a foreign politician over that of the duly elected Speaker of the US House of Representatives?. (Also, why should they criticize her for seeking to lead the House of Representatives in exercising its completely constitutional power of the purse?)
There are many possible explanations of what happened re the “Pelosi message”. One is that she is a careful politician and proven good listener who conveyed exactly the message she had been asked to convey. The other is the WaPo/Olmert story that she dangerously bungled this small piece of discreet international communication… Then, of course, there is also the hand of the Bushites, who as we saw earlier were apoplectic that Pelosi should even dare to visit Syria at all.
Here are some possibilities worth considering:

    — Perhaps Olmert deliberately set Pelosi up from the get-go, as a presumed favor to his equally embattled buddy George Bush, or
    –Perhaps Olmert didn’t set her up beforehand; but after sher had made her (interesting but quite evidently non-operational) comments in Damascus about her various diplomatic contacts until then, the outraged Bushites called Olmert and asked him to issue the retraction? (This, remember, after several seemingly credible reports emerged late last summer that the White House intervened during the 33-day war in Lebanon to prevent Olmert from sending out peace feelers to Damascus…)

Anyway, whatever the truth of the back-story there, one thing seems fairly clear: Olmert has certainly not enhanced the way that this very experienced and politically significant Speaker we now have in Washington will view him in the future. And nor, for what it is worth, has the WaPo editorial board.

20 thoughts on “Pelosi and Damascus, part 2”

  1. The other possibility is this, that Olmert may have indicated his willingness to make peace and talk with Assad, but that he did not expect Pelosi to publicly trumpet it to the media in a way that makes it look like Olmert wanted to rush into Assad’s arms without Assad showing any good faith.
    It seems pretty bizarre that the Israeli government would use a highly publicized visit by a public official to convey such a message.
    In any event, I really don’t think Olmert undercut Pelosi very much, if at all. Olmert’s office stated that Israel is in fact interested in talking peace with Syria, but that it cannot conduct such negotiations while Syria is actively subverting the peace process.
    I think it’s fine that Pelosi went to Syria. However, I understand the concerns that opponents have raised, because Syria and several others are using this not to reciprocate with any goodwill gestures toward America, but instead to try and highlight and exploit political divisions between the Democrats and the Republicans.
    Anyway, the ball is in Syria’s court. If Syria can, say, procure the immediate release of the two soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah (as is called for by UNSC 1701), I’m sure this would be a good first step.

  2. Mr. Olmert is a corrupt thug whose priority is not peace with Syria (or with anyone else for that matter), but holding onto the colonized Golan Heights, as well as Israel’s other ill gotten territorial gains.

  3. Why on earth would the editorial writers of the Washington Post choose to take the word of a foreign politician over that of the duly elected Speaker of the US House of Representatives?
    Just out of curiosity, why should their respective nationalities matter? It isn’t as if foreign politicians always lie or American politicians always tell the truth. You’re the last person I’d expect to argue that a newspaper should automatically credit an American politician over a foreigner; I doubt you’d say so, for instance, if the “foreign politician” were Ahmedinejad and the “duly elected” American official were Bush.
    Anyway, I can’t imagine why Olmert would deliberately undercut Pelosi, given that (1) he needs Congressional support just as much as he needs the White House, and (2) she may well remain in office considerably longer than Bush will. The possibility of outraged Bushies demanding a retraction is more plausible. The option that requires the fewest strokes of Occam’s razor, though, is that there was a miscommunication concerning either the content of the message or (as Joshua suggests) whether the message was private. Miscommunication isn’t unheard-of or even rare in human communication, and good listeners (of which I consider myself one) aren’t immune to it.

  4. Ms Pelosi was naive in the extreme in publicising she was the bearer of a message from one head of govt to another and then revealing its contents to the media. One dreads to think what she’s been saying in her private conversations with Assad and Abdullah.

  5. (( Mostly for Mr. Edelstein ))
    “[W]hy should their respective nationalities matter?”
    You ask as if the editorial direction of The Washington Post were conducted impartially by glacially indeferent Martians, with no old buddies and no back channels and no antecdent preconceptions and no specially privileged “insiders”, with each and every dawning news day to be lived and reported as if it were one’s journalistic organ’s first.
    Probably that is an admirable ideal — although I’m really not quite altogether sure — but in any case, the real world seems to work rather differently.

  6. “why should their respective nationalities matter?”
    Indeed, why should they? Imagine that it is Asad and not Olmert who occupies and is colonizing territory outside its internationally recognized national boundaries, and who on an hourly basis violates the most fundamental human rights of the residents there. What would be the reaction? Imagine that it was Asad, and not Olmert who last summer launched a devastating and protracted attack on a neighboring country, killing more than a thousand civilians, and systematically destroying much of the vital infrastructure. Imagine that it was Asad and not Olmert who first ordered residents to flee their villages, left only one route open to them, and then slaughtered them as they fled? Imagine that it was Asad, and not Olmert who, in the eleventh hour before the ceasefire went into effect, showered the ground of its neighbor with millions of cluster bomblets – the gift that keeps on killing. What would be the reaction? Imagine that it is Asad and not Olmert who openly takes hundreds of innocent people, many of them children, and held them as hostages – aka bargaining chips – sometimes for years. Suppose it is Asad and not Olmert whose troops regularly force civilians, some of them children, to act as “human shields” to protect them when they go on house raids. What would be the reaction?
    Wouldn’t it be lovely if it were people’s actions that mattered, and not their respective nationalities. What a much more fair and reasonable world we would live in.

  7. I am not prepared to say that the differential treatment of Israel is based solely on the personal characteristics of Israelis, although antisemitism certainly plays a role in the way that many view the conflict. Nevertheless, despite Sherry’s rant, I don’t think anyone can deny that Israel has received more criticism and vitriol than other countries who also have engaged in occupation or warfare on significantly worse scales.
    There is very little coverage of China’s continuing occupation of Tibet, and indeed some people try to gloss over the fact by saying that the UN doesn’t consider Tibet occupied (which of course begs the question, WHY does the PRC get a free pass on it’s belligerent administration of a territory that has claimed sovereignty and self-determination). There is a virtual blackout on media coverage of Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara. Nor is there regular coverage of Russia’s occupation of Chechnya. And there is very little coverage of the occupation of the Kashmir province.
    Similarly, when it comes to actual wars, one hears virtually nothing of the bloodshed in Darfur, the Congo, or areas with infinitely higher casualties than the Israeli-Arab dispute.
    Of course no nation is perfect in how it conducts warfare. But Israel has, in fact, been remarkably restrained in it’s dealings with its neighbors, even though the enemies’ tactics are designed to make it impossible to distinguish between military and civilian (and whose offensive tactics are explicitly DESIGNED to maximize civilian casualties).
    One can talk alot about the reasons for disparate coverage and treatment, whether it’s Helena’s off the cuff remark about Olmert being a untrustworthy foreigner or Sherry’s vitriolic and hateful rant against. Antisemitism can be a factor, as can the coercive power of the “Arab lobby,” as can certain viewpoints of journalists which are very well criticized in the links below.
    http://iraqpundit.blogspot.com/2007/03/iraq-and-arab-strategic-vision.html
    http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com/2007/04/friendship-and-hope.html

  9. Joshua wrote :
    “Nevertheless, despite Sherry’s rant, I don’t think anyone can deny that Israel has received more criticism and vitriol than other countries who also have engaged in occupation or warfare on significantly worse scales.
    You are absolutely right, America should get much more critique for invading and occupying Iraq. Pelosi’s and the Dems should follow a much clear line : it’s not enough getting out of Iraq, as for instance Juan Cole proposed recently. The US has to recognize her error and to offer right compensation to the Iraqis which she spoiled and whose wealth and state she destroyed. What we need is a Nurnberger like trial of all the US authorities who have to recognize and assume their guilt.
    The same is valid for the Israeli in the Occupied Territories.

  14. Pelosi, who pays the Lords and Masters of the AIPAC homage every year (here is an example of the embarrassing subservience she shows during those ceremonies: http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/Pelosi-AIPAC-Speech23may05.htm, thought she was the messenger girl of Olmert, though she’s only speaker of the House, while Bush – who is against peacetalks with Syria – is still President. As speaker of the House Pelosi only can give lip service to Olmert and AIPAC; Bush is the one who delivers the real services. Only after Hillary (another AIPAC admirer) has won the elections, Pelosi can become the real messenger girl for Olmert (or his successor).

  15. For those interested in Hillary Clinton’s AIPAC speech of 2005: it’s even worse than Pelosi’s. Here is an example:
    “Now, Israel is not only, however, a friend and ally for us, it is a beacon of what democracy can and should mean. It is, after all, a pluralistic democracy. It is, as many of us know from personal experiences, a very dynamic democracy with many points of view, and those are expressed with great frequency and vigor. So if people in the Middle East are not sure what democracy means, let them look to Israel, which has been and remains a true, faithful democracy. .”
    But here’s the whole speech. (if you prefer, you can see a webcast of the speech; there’s a link at the end of the text): http://clinton.senate.gov/~clinton/speeches/2005524910.html

  16. Jonathan Edelstein is right–that bit about believing the duly elected American instead of the foreign politician was disturbing. I agree with you about most if not all issues, but that statement really rang false.
    Now as it happens, I suspect Olmert is lying or undercutting her, perhaps at the urging of the Bush Administration. But this has nothing to do with who was elected in what country.

  18. It was Cheney. (no surprise there) Must be getting desperate after the Saudis departed from the script.
    In fact, White House frustration might have to do with a foreign policy spinning out of its control.
    After the White House berated Pelosi for even daring to visit Assad, it was revealed that congressional Republican delegations were in Damascus at about the same time just as eager to relay the same message as the Pelosi team: Talking is better than not talking.
    “Dialogue is not a sign of weakness,” Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) told his hometown newspaper, the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal, after he returned home. “It’s a sign of strength.”

  19. I hesitate to comment about this because I know news coverage of events like this often ends up leaving significant details out, nevertheless–
    isn’t Pelosi putting the cart before the horse just a bit if she’s telling the Saudis they need more women in government when simple suffrage is still an issue in the kingdom?

Comments are closed.