How soon one forgets. Was it only a few weeks ago that Vice President Cheney, et al., were attacking Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for traveling to Damascus to meet with Syrian officials? Actually it was precisely one month ago today.
How, then, can the administration now publicize a meeting between Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem on the sidelines of a regional summit on Iraq?
The administration did not decide in the last few weeks that it would undertake talks with Syria. I’m certain of that. The administration must have known during Speaker Pelosi’s trip that it would soon engage in dialogue with the Syrians, if it was not already doing so. The fact that Vice President Cheney attacked her for engaging in “bad behavior” for doing just this - well, I’m not really surprised any longer.
In my view, the administration’s attack on Pelosi can have only three explanations. The first, and most benign, is that the administration believed that Pelosi would undermine its negotiating position in some way. If this was the case, there was a simple solution: talk with Speaker Pelosi and make sure they were on the same page. As far as I know they did not do that. The second reason is that the administration wanted to score a diplomatic victory by appearing to reverse course and taking a softer stance toward the Syrians. They were therefore angry when Speaker Pelosi went to Syria as she was stealing a little bit of their thunder. Third, and most plausible, the administration took advantage of Speaker Pelosi’s trip to score some cheap, domestic political points. This was possibly the only opportunity in recent memory for the administration to attack concrete Democratic actions in the realm of foreign policy. Does it matter that those actions were actually consistent with the priorities of the administration? Of course not.
The Bush Administration never ceases to amaze.
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