Washington's silence at the visit to Riyadh by Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the US House of Representatives, contrasts starkly with the stinging criticism of her stopover in Syria, which President Bush again last week called a “state sponsor of terror” and not part of the mainstream international community. It is sheer petulance. He cannot abide the fact that Pelosi, the third-most senior official in the US, refuses to dance to his tune. Not that his tune is anything other than a shrill cacophony.
There is no consistency in Washington’s policy toward Syria. In January, Bush tore into the report by the US Congress-appointed Iraq Study Group calling for engagement with Syria and Iran. But then, at the end of February, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that the US would do precisely that by joining in talks with Iran and Syria on the future of Iraq. Last month, a senior US official was in Damascus, ostensibly as part of a UNHCR visit but known to have had talks with Syrian officials on US-Syrian relations. Now we have Bush again apparently opposed to engagement. His irritation with Pelosi’s gall in going to Damascus serves only to underline how his policy vis-à-vis Syria is as dysfunctional as his policy toward the region as a whole.
Confronted with the reality of Pelosi’s visit, it would have been wiser to say nothing and see if she could draw Damascus out of its shell. It is no secret that Syria wants to improve its relations with the US. Moreover, there is likelihood that if the country were taken more seriously by Washington, rather than constantly excluded from the political limelight, it would pursue policies more to the White House’s liking. As it happens, it seems that Pelosi’s visit has built bridges with Damascus and laid the grounds for possible renewed peace talks between it and the Israelis.
Bush, however, doesn’t seem interested. He keeps his head firmly stuck in the sand, willfully ignoring the reality that without Syria there is no chance of a Middle East settlement. The policy has all the sanity of that pursued by Washington in the 1950s and 60s toward China, trying to pretend that it was not there. It wasn’t until Richard Nixon that the US recognized the folly of ignorance. Bush, in contract to Nixon, doesn’t seem to recognize the importance of statesmanship.
It is fatuous to say, as present Republicans are doing, that Pelosi’s Syrian trip has undermined the president’s Middle East policies. That suggests that the president’s policies are working. Who can name a single one? They are all a wreck. Bush has the opposite of the Midas Touch in the Middle East: Everything he handles turns from a potential golden opportunity into a treacherous liability. Yet when someone tries to bring some common sense back into the US’ Middle East thinking, the White House takes umbrage.
It shows how far the Bush administration has lost the plot in the Middle East.
