Throwback Thursday – Pelosi’s a hit – with Syrians

This was originally posted by Jonn Lilyea on May 2, 2007

Betsy Pisik writes in the Washington Times about Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s new constituency – in Syria;

 The California Democrat warmed Syrian hearts with her trip last month to Damascus, an event that people still share with visiting Americans as conversational currency.
“Nancy Pelosi is good, yes?” asked a Damascus laborer who found himself sitting next to an American at a greasy gyro stand this week. “Nancy Pelosi, good American?”

No, my friend, she’s not a good American. She’s a good Democrat which means, how you say, she talks a good game but she’s an empty suit. For example, she made peace overtures to Syria from Israel which were lies and unsolicited. She did it to make nice with your slick-ass President and to embarrass ours as pointed out in this Washington Post editorial;

Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that “Israel was ready to engage in peace talks” with Syria. What’s more, she added, Mr. Assad was ready to “resume the peace process” as well. Having announced this seeming diplomatic breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi suggested that her Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy was just getting started. “We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria,” she said.

Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message. “What was communicated to the U.S. House Speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel,” said a statement quickly issued by the prime minister’s office. In fact, Mr. Olmert told Ms. Pelosi that “a number of Senate and House members who recently visited Damascus received the impression that despite the declarations of Bashar Assad, there is no change in the position of his country regarding a possible peace process with Israel.” In other words, Ms. Pelosi not only misrepresented Israel’s position but was virtually alone in failing to discern that Mr. Assad’s words were mere propaganda.

She not only took it upon herself to presume to speak for the American people, she also presented herself as a messenger of the Israeli government. If the Syrians like that, they don’t deserve democracy.

But back to the Pisik/WashTimes article;

 “She was enormously popular here, a hero,” said one such resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “This is the best thing that has happened here, if it proves [Mr. Assad] was right not to give concessions.”

Along with recent visits by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and officials from the European Union, the resident added, Mrs. Pelosi’s trip “bolsters the regime with the Syrian people, and it shows that isolating Syria won’t work.”

See? By concessions, Syrians mean stopping Hezbollah attacks on Israel and infiltrating support to the anti-government forces in Iraq. In other words, Syrians think Pelosi gave them permission to continue to support terrorists. Pelosi is not a good American.

Mrs. Pelosi said she raised substantive issues with Syrian leaders, urging them to stop insurgents from entering Iraq, help win the release of Israeli soldiers thought to be held captive by Lebanese and Palestinian militias, and end Syria’s support for terrorist groups.

I’m pretty sure that if Pelosi did bring up those issues in her “private” meeting with Bashur, it was in such convoluted double-speak popular with elitist diplomats that only confuses the intended recipient.

But this Iraqi woman kind of sums it all up;

 “She is a different face of America, but she does not have ideas, any solutions,” the Iraqi woman said. “I watch TV all day, and I know that only the faces change.”

I guess she fooled the Syrians, but the folks who have to bear the brunt of the results of her insolent posturing can see right through her.

 

Category: Antiwar crowd, Foreign Policy, Politics, Terror War