Jaw-Jaw — or War-War?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a lot of heat from the Bush administration and its flaks over her visit to Syria.

Some critics took her to task for having her own foreign policy, as opposed to the “official” one set by the president.

Others decried the fact that she traveled to a country that is on the State Department’s list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

To the first set of critics, M.J. Rosenberg, director of Israel Policy Forum’s Washington Policy Center, provided a pointed rejoinder in his April 6 column:

Heaven forefend! Things are going so swimmingly in the Middle East that the last thing anyone needs is for the 3rd highest official in the United States trying to resuscitate diplomacy.

But it makes no sense to refuse categorically to talk with your “enemies.” After all, it’s your “enemies” with whom you ultimately have to make peace — not your friends.

Few of Pelosi’s critics, Rosenberg noted, can rationally have any qualms about what she reportedly said to Syria’s President Bashar Assad:

that he should stop making trouble in Iraq and Lebanon, that the Israeli government is ready for negotiations, that Israel has no bellicose intentions toward Syria and that Syria should use its influence to free Israeli prisoners.

All in all, Rosenberg concluded, Pelosi’s trip was “a gutsy move”: It “strengthened America’s position in the region, and likely helped Israel on prisoners, on Hezbollah, and in its effort to avoid another war like last summer’s.”

Claude Salhani, UPI’s international editor, stuck it to Pelosi’s second set of critics by recapping a few highlights of times when the US has deemed it necessary and useful to hold talks with nations or groups with which it was engaged in hostilities:

• At the height of the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union established a “hot line” telephone link between Washington and Moscow so that their leaders could “communicate and ... avoid having a crisis grow into a reason for a major confrontation.”

• During the Vietnam War, US officials held talks with both North Vietnamese and Vietcong representatives.

• In Iraq, US officials have negotiated with Sunni “insurgents,” even as Sunni groups engage US troops in combat.

The Bush administration’s fixation with channeling John Wayne-like “strong, silent type” movie machismo demonstrates that it would rather have conflict than resolve conflict.

At some point, you’ve got to talk with your “enemies.” After all, it’s your “enemies” with whom you’ve got to make peace — not your friends.

— Adam Simms

Is Syria next for Bush’s WMD treatment?

The following item is circulating care of something called Middle East Newsline. This excerpt from an undated dispatch was forwarded by Middle East Web.

Given the U.S. Department of Defense's recent history of “piping” and “cherry-picking” intelligence to support outcomes the Bush administration desires, perhaps it deserves to be treated with skepticism — a case of the boy who cried “Wolfowitz.”

SYRIA DEVELOPS BIO-WEAPONS

WASHINGTON [MENL] — Syria has advanced in efforts to produce biological missile warheads.

The U.S. intelligence community has determined that the regime of President Bashar Assad was developing an infrastructure for biological weapons production. Officials said Assad has advanced the BW program through help from China and North Korea.

“Syria’s biotechnical infrastructure is capable of supporting limited biological agent development,” Defense Intelligence Agency director Michael Maples said. “DIA assesses Syria has a program to develop select biological agents.”

Maples said Syria has sought to install biological and chemical warheads on its missile arsenal. He said the programs were meant to deter Israel’s conventional force superiority.

— Barnett Axelrad