WaPo Edit Page Says White House Outreach To Syria Might Work -- After Blasting Pelosi For Same Thing
November 28, 2007 -- 5:27 PM EST // //
This is pretty striking, even by Fred Hiatt's ever plummeting standards.
As you may recall, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last spring, The Washington Post editorial page was the leading institutional editorial voice against it. The paper published a widely discussed editorial, called "Pratfall in Damascus," that helped set the tone for much mainstream criticism.
The editorial blasted Pelosi for thinking that anything good could come of talking to Syria, calling the idea "ludicrous" and opining: "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..."
Now, however, the Bush administration has decided to engage Syria as part of its current Mideast initiative. And right on cue, WaPo has published a new editorial which, while pessimistic about the initiative in general, nonetheless offers modest praise of the Bush administration's invitation of that country. Here's what WaPo says about it:
The more than 50 countries and organizations that witnessed and implicitly blessed the new peace process included Saudi Arabia, which dispatched its foreign minister, and Syria, whose attendance may have opened a small crack in its alliance with Iran.So WaPo notes here that including Syria in the proceedings might succeed in separating the rogue country from evil twin Iran, right? Well, guess what -- this is precisely the same justification that the Pelosi team offered as its reason for visiting Syria at the time.
This is how Pelosi's chief ally on the trip, Dem Rep. Tom Lantos, described the trip's rationale just before their departure:
"We are going with the clear intention of making our position crystal clear to the Syrian leadership, basically indicating that it is in their interest to return to a position where they can be part of the positive forces in this region and not be in tight alliance with Ahmedinejad's Iran," Lantos said, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.So, back when Pelosi wanted to engage Syria to peel it away from Iran, she was hopelessly naive for not realizing this could never work in the hard-headed real world, Assad being a "corrupt thug" and all.
But now that the White House is engaging Syria, WaPo suddenly realizes that the engagement just might turn out to be a good idea, after all -- for the very same reason that Pelosi's team gave for their trip, earning WaPo's scorn.
Doesn't get clearer than that.
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