|
What freaking legacy would that be? http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13881743/site/newsweek/snip> To Bush's delight, key U.S. allies offered support. The Saudis issued a statement implicitly blaming Hizbullah for the hostilities, saying "it is necessary to make a distinction between legitimate resistance and irresponsible adventurism adopted by certain elements within the state." Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II, in Cairo, echoed that view in a joint statement.
In the longer run, however, it is the calls Bush didn't—or couldn't—make that might mean the difference in containing this new Mideast conflict. As part of his policy of isolating terror-supporting groups and nations, the Bush administration has no relationship with any of the other parties at war or the states behind them. That apparently means no dialogue, even through back channels, with Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas. Senior U.S. officials also said Bush and Rice had no intention of appointing a special envoy at this time. (Welch, having conducted all-day meetings with Israeli officials and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, took off on a previously scheduled trip to Libya over the weekend.) As a result, the president must watch and hope while his whole Mideast legacy—his goal of transforming a region that is the primary source for Islamist terrorism—stands at risk. Also on the line is his strategy of isolating Iran, as tensions mounted between Washington and Europe over Israel's action. "Usually in the past, whenever there was a crisis in the Mideast, the U.S. would immediately dispatch a high-level envoy," said Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador to Washington, confirming that his government had received no U.S. contacts except a request for visas for Americans fleeing Lebanon to Damascus. "This time the only thing the United States is doing is blaming parties, assigning responsibility. There's nothing else."
snip>
Bush knows all too well that the two major agendas of his presidency—antiterrorism and the promotion of democracy—are in danger of colliding with each other in Lebanon. Not surprisingly, says a senior Israeli official, his country is getting mixed signals from Washington. "We're getting support, and we're getting requests to tone down. But no pressure at this point." No doubt the Israelis have reminded the administration that they warned Washington last year it was rushing into Palestinian elections too quickly—that instant democracy would only empower Hamas. The warning was brushed off by the Bush team.
But even the Israeli official says a third-party mediator will be needed as the war escalates. He says that job could be filled by Washington, or possibly the United Nations (a U.N. mission is underway). "That's what it's going to take," he says. But he adds: "Who's going to take the lead?" One day soon, Bush may have to revisit that question.
Why won't Dimson make that call? Cuz he's an arrogant, stubborn jack-ass - or - things are going as planned. Another MIHOP/LIHOP
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13904410/site/newsweek/
snip>
As the war in the Mideast escalates, the real issue going forward is whether Bush will continue his own policy of non-engagement with the Syrians, despite what Syrian ambassador to the United State Imad Moustapha describes as interest in Damascus in talking again under the right circumstances. And the CIA has been telling the White House for two years now that America lost a valuable cooperative relationship, especially in fighting the Iraqi insurgency, when Bush cut off ties between the two intelligence communities. Moustapha told me in an interview late last week that this cooperation, which ended in January 2005, will not resume until Washington stops bashing Syrian President Bashar Assad in public. "We're not asking you to praise Syria, just stop this campaign against us," Moustapha said. "What broke the neck of the camel was when we helped with the capture of Sabawi and 32 of his aides. Then the next day we were getting bashed again. We thought enough was enough." Damascus was also angered when Washington blew the cover of one of its operatives, he says.
U.S. intelligence officials have confirmed to NEWSWEEK that a Syrian tip led to Sabawi's capture. Indeed, in the last few years before contacts were cut off, says one intelligence expert who works on contract with the Pentagon, Syrian intelligence helped avert two major attacks on U.S. targets-the U.S. embassy in Ottawa, Canada, and a Navy base in Bahrain. "There was a lot of wonderful cooperation," he says. That started to sour when U.S. occupation officials at first were angered by Assad's alleged support of the Iraq insurgency (the finger-pointing at Damascus stopped more than a year ago, even though the attacks continue unabated). And Washington began to attack Assad publicly in earnest after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005, although a U.N. investigation has not drawn any definite conclusions yet about Assad's alleged personal complicity. While Syrian intelligence was almost certainly involved in the Hariri killing, the investigating judge, Serge Brammertz, recently praised the Damascus's cooperation with the probe.
No one doubts that Syria has an anti-American agenda, certainly an anti-Israeli one, or that Assad is harboring hardliners like Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus. But Bush seems to have made Syria, bit by bit, a charter member of his "axis of evil" rogues gallery-regimes he will not deal with on any level because they support terror and are anti-democratic. If the U.S. president is still harboring hopes of regime change in Damascus, in the middle of a conflagration that has radicalized many parts of the Arab Middle East, he might want to think again. Were Assad's regime to be toppled, the mosaic of competing sects and ethnicities that makes up Syria could explode into conflict, and some Islamist GROUPS that are natural allies for Hamas and Hizbullah-and possibly Al Qaeda-are already gaining in influence. One U.S. official says that that American pressure on Syria, which includes limited financial sanctions imposed in 2004, may be "radicalizing the country."
And on a more practical level, Bush really needs someone right now who can persuade Syria to stand down from the ongoing—and escalating—war. After Hariri was killed, U.S. and French officials began demanding that Syria end its sway over Lebanon. Last week, after Hizbullah attacked Israel, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanded publicly that Syria do something about Lebanon. Perhaps Bush was right, someone should "get Syria to get Hizbullah to stop doing this." Maybe it should be him.
There's one more interesting issue raised by the U.S. president's impromptu aside to Blair. Why Bush was so focused on Syria when publicly he and his top aides have fingered Iran as the chief culprit? The answer to that question may have to await another candid comment.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
