Madam Speaker Versus Mr. Fantasy

Last week Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi led a congressional delegation to the Middle East. The delegation visited Israel, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, Syria and Saudi Arabia. However, it was the delegation’s trip to Syria that drew the ire of the White House and other fantasists. Chief among the critics were the Washington Post Editorial board and Mr. Fantasy himself, Dick Cheney. Mr. Fantasy called the Speaker’s trip "bad behavior" – perhaps akin to invading the wrong country for the wrong reasons, something Mr. Fantasy knows a great deal about.

The Speaker was accompanied on the trip by a bipartisan group of lawmakers. They were representatives David Hobson of Ohio, Tom Lantos of California, Henry Waxman of California, Nick Rahall of West Virginia, Louise Slaughter of New York, and Keith Ellison of Minnesota. A few days earlier, a Republican delegation from congress, including Frank Wolf of Virginia (my congressman), visited Syria. The Speaker’s office released the following statement regarding the Syria leg on her return from the Middle East trip:

In the interest of our national security and the stability of the region, the delegation strongly urged President Assad to control Syria’s border with Iraq to stop the flow of foreign fighters who are a threat to U.S. troops and to the Iraqi people.  Syria must also stop supporting terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and must end any interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs. 

We emphasized to President Assad that peace with Israel is essential to a U.S.-Syria relationship. We conveyed to him Prime Minister’s Olmert’s overture for peace talks when Syria openly takes steps to stop supporting terrorism.

President Assad declared that he is ready to resume the peace process and enter into negotiations.  The test will be whether Syria ceases its support for terrorism, engages in a productive and realistic effort to resolve its differences and live in peace with the State of Israel, and acts to stop the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq. 

We requested Assad’s help in freeing missing and kidnapped Israeli soldiers including: Gilad Shalit; Ehud Goldwasser; Eldad Regev; Guy Hever; Zachary Baumel; Tzvi Feldman; Yehuda Katz; and Ron Arad.  And we requested the return of the remains of Eli Cohen for burial in Israel. 

In Damascus, we met with opposition leaders and representatives of families of dissidents.  We conveyed our strong interest in the cases of Iraqi Democracy Activists Anwar al-Bunni; Aref Dalila; Kamal al-Labwani; Mahmoud Issa; Michael Kilo; and Omar Abdullah.

In response to her trip, the Washington Post editorial board penned a juvenile screed entitled "Pratfall in Damascus" taking issue with her delivery of a message from Israel to Syria. They also attacked her for talking to Syria:

Ms. Pelosi was criticized by President Bush for visiting Damascus at a time when the administration — rightly or wrongly — has frozen high-level contacts with Syria. Mr. Bush said that thanks to the speaker’s freelancing Mr. Assad was getting mixed messages from the United States. Ms. Pelosi responded by pointing out that Republican congressmen had visited Syria without drawing presidential censure. That’s true enough — but those other congressmen didn’t try to introduce a new U.S. diplomatic initiative in the Middle East. "We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace," Ms. Pelosi grandly declared.

Never mind that that statement is ludicrous: As 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.

The Washington Post’s contention that Speaker Pelosi was substituting "her own foreign policy for that of a sitting Republican president" is false on its face – there is a long history of congressional delegations traveling overseas to visit trouble spots all over the globe. A quick survey of trips by members of congress and congressional leaders should shame the Washington Post editorial board into reality.

The trip to Syria was not about the Israel-Syria relationship – regardless of what Mr. Fantasy and his merry band of fantasists claim. The main reason to go to Syria is Iraq. Like it or not, Iraq’s future is crucially important to Syria. Syria has genuine interests in a resolution to the Iraq crisis. Syria has 1 million reasons to expect a seat at the table when it comes to Iraq – those 1 million reasons are the Iraqi refugees that Syria currently hosts.

Here is the bottom line: Iraq is more of a national security problem to Syria than it is to the United States.

Syria has acted as a safety valve for Iraq and a safe haven for Iraqis fleeing Iraq. While America’s allies, including Egypt and Jordan, turned their backs on fleeing Iraqis, Syria welcomed them until its economy reached a breaking point. In doing this, Syria has received no help from the United States:

Syria, the last Arab country welcoming large numbers of Iraqi refugees, is now all but closing the gates and leaving 40,000 Iraqis who flee their country each month with almost no place to go.

The new rules _ imposed without any official announcement _ also strike fear of deportation into the 1 million Iraqis already here. The worsening humanitarian crisis has resulted in calls for action by members of the U.S. Congress and a plea from the United Nations for more countries to help out.

"It’s not fair that the burden is not being shared effectively. A very limited number of countries is paying a very heavy price," Antonio Guterres, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said on a recent tour of the Mideast.

Syria kept its doors open even after others, including Jordan and Egypt with 700,000 and 130,000 Iraqi refugees respectively, said they could take no more. But the strain on its small, state-controlled economy apparently has become too great.

Until last week, Iraqis could come to Syria without a visa and stay for up to six months. At that point, they could drive to any border, leave briefly and re-enter immediately and stay for another six months _ meaning they essentially were allowed to stay indefinitely.

Syria is at a breaking point. Syria has been the prime mover in preventing an unfolding tragedy from turning into a full-bore humanitarian nightmare. The Iraqi refugee problem, which the Bush Administration has largely ignored, is perhaps the single most destabilizing element of the Iraq war. It is a problem the Bush Administration unleashed and has left to the neighboring Arab states. Far from exporting stability, Mr. Bush’s fiasco in Iraq has been exporting instability.

Now, we can keep hurling insults at Syria like children in a school-yard, or we can bring them to the table to address a problem where the United States and Syria has common cause. The 1 million Iraqi refugees in Syria are real – by refusing to talk to Syria, Mr. Bush has turned his back on the refugees he created. Perhaps if he and Mr. Fantasy felt so strongly about not talking to Syria (with whom, by the way, we have diplomatic relations), they should have considered sealing off the Iraq-Syria border so no refugees could flee across to Syria. It seems to me, having exported the problem to Syria, Mr. Bush and Mr. Fantasy are obligated to engage Syria at least on humanitarian grounds. Until that dialogue begins, stability in the Middle East and the resolution of the Iraq problem cannot begin to take shape.

I hope that Speaker Pelosi’s visit and that of my congressman, Frank Wolf, and others will open the door to much needed dialogue between the world’s remaining superpower and one of Iraq’s key neighbors. These trips have become especially important in light of the inexplicable failure of the Bush Administration to practice anything resembling foreign policy. The road to peace in Iraq does indeed go through Damascas. Assad is not a boyscout, but neither are the Saudis or the Iraqis. Finding a way to leverage common goals while at the same time pressing conflicting interests is the essence of diplomacy.

It is well past time for mature leadership at the White House. People are dying. Play time is over.