Middle East Mission: Nancy Pelosi Marches On!
Apr 5th, 2007 | Comments
Nancy Pelosi, accompanied by Tom Lantos (in red tie), points to dried fruits and herbs during a tour of a central Damascus market in Syria. Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP
If you can’t beat them then join them!
That’s an old saying which President George W. Bush needs to follow to upstage the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s much-publicised trip to the middle east. Sitting and sulking in the White House will not help much.
After her visit to Syria, Ms Pelosi reached Saudi Arabia and met King Abdullah. But first a detailed report about her Syria visit.
“The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, delivered a powerful challenge to the Bush administration’s stewardship of American interests in the Middle East by breaking with its policy of isolating Syria and holding talks in Damascus with President Bashar Assad,” says The Guardian.
“Ms Pelosi’s status as the third most senior elected figure in Washington makes her visit to Damascus the most serious challenge to the Bush administration strategy of isolation in four years. In a further sign of Syria’s re-emergence on the international stage, three Republican congressmen made a separate visit to Damascus this week.
” ‘This is only the beginning of our constructive dialogue with Syria and we hope to build on this visit,’ said Tom Lantos, the chairman of the house committee on foreign affairs, who accompanied Ms Pelosi.
“The US vice-president, Dick Cheney, accused Ms Pelosi of undermining Washington’s policy of isolation and of rewarding Syria for what he called bad behaviour.
“But behind the scenes the picture is more complicated. An assistant US secretary of state, Ellen Sauerbrey, met Syrian officials in Damascus last month to discuss the flight of Iraqi refugees, and Mr Bush has sanctioned the presence of US diplomats at a regional meeting on Iraqi security, attended by Syria and Iran.”
For a detailed report about Ms Pelosi’s visit to Saudi Arabia please click here… The Saudi King, an old ally of the US, had recently described the war in Iraq as “illegitimate” and called the Arab nations to check the American influence in the region.
China is taking unusually great interest in this visit. For an in-depth story in People’s Daily Online please click here…
There’s another interesting story in The Guardian: “Nancy Pelosi’s Syrian adventure”…Read on…
