Ahmed Chalabi recently went to Syria to discuss the restoration of diplomatic relations between Damascus and Baghdad. Rumor has it that Chalabi is acting as a kind of back-door channel between Syria and the White House and that they discussed a limited thawing of U.S./Syrian relations. However, if the right-wing can swallow accused Iranian spy Chalabi acting as a U.S. proxy, they seem apoplectic that Bill Nelson (D-FL) has also traveled to Damascus.
I submit that this is the most egregious example in my memory of politicians identifying themselves as Democratic directly undermining the mores of democracy itself, lending moral equivalence to Syrian minority rule.
Nelson is making a sweeping trip to the Middle East that includes Syria, Israel, Palestine, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq (but not Iran). Here’s how it went in Syria.
However, the senator did say that he raised the issue of a nuclear-armed Iran to Al-Assad, saying “he ought to understand that that’s not only a threat to him, Syria, but to the entire world.”
“He took note,” Nelson said.
The senator said he also expressed to the Syrian leader the problems caused by Hezbollah and Hamas and urged Al-Assad to support the release of captured Israeli soldiers. Nelson said the Syrian president responded by saying Israel had 20 Syrians in captivity, one of whom died recently from leukemia.
The senator shrugged off suggestions he was challenging Bush’s authority by sidestepping administration policy that the U.S. have no contact with Syrian officials.
“I have a constitutional role as a member of Congress,” Nelson said.
That’s funny, because I thought Bill Nelson had a constitutional duty to keep his pie hole shut and toe Dick Cheney’s line. Can he possibly have the right to ‘undermin[e] the mores of democracy itself, [and] lend moral equivalence to Syrian minority rule’? What would Henry Kissinger say?
Nelson says he expects Sens. Dodd, Kerry, and Specter to follow up with visits to Syria. But Specter gets conveniently dropped in the right-wing blogoshpere.
Nelson (and soon Dodd and Kerry) all know that this is out of line. Whether they agree with the president or not, they undermine US foreign policy at the risk of the US itself. The impact of actions like these in a time of war are all negative. And the impacts are against the entire nation, not just the president. This is a lousy trend.
Now, that is honest reporting, right there. If you want to talk about lousy trends, let’s talk about the national debt or progress in Afghanistan and Iraq, not whether members of the Foreign Relations Committee are following the advice of the Iraq Study Group.
