Pelosi's Syrian Moment

I'd been hoping to leave for Damascus and catch up with House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is in the Middle East and arriving in Syria this afternoon, but I'm embarrassed to admit that I need one more day to take the full 24 hour cash advance limit out of the ATM's here in Lebanon. It's hard to get hard currency in Syria, and I don't like leaving home without some almighty dollars. Benjamin Franklin is persona grata even in the "Axis of Evil."

I don't suppose traveling House speakers have cash flow problems, but Ms. Pelosi has others. The White House is slamming the Syrian visit, and warning that the rogue Ba'athist regime of President Bashar Al Assad will score all kinds of propaganda points by showing pictures of Assad receiving Pelosi as if everything is hunky-dory between the US and Syria. Perhaps to inoculate herself from looking soft on a state sponsor of terror (or having seen too many photos of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in the 1980's) Pelosi's team is going to steer clear of the press and stick to closed-door meetings with Syrian officials.

Still the fact that she's in Syria at all is a sign that the Assad regime is working its way back into legitimacy. Anyone who looks at a map can see why: the country is right in the middle of two of our biggest interests in the Middle East (Iraq and Israel) and stands accused of destabilizing both. Since regime change is falling out of fashion, and since the fall of the Assads would probably lead to an Islamic state in Syria, there aren't many other options for changing Syria's behavior than the diplomatic equivalent of carrots and sticks.

But the Bush administration is doing its best to maintain the silent treatment for Syria. When did talking to our adversaries became such a taboo? Hawkish presidents throughout the Cold War kept diplomatic channels open to the Soviet Union -- and look who won that conflict.

But there are those who believe that the proper analogy here is not the Cold War but World War Two. They believe that Iran and Syria are hell bent on pushing Israel and US interests out of the region. It's 1938 in the Middle East, runs the thinking, and those of us who favor dialogue are appeasers in the face of an implacable will for domination.

The problem is that Iran and Syria seem to be equally convinced that they are in a 1938 moment of their own, that the US and Israel are implacable imperial powers plotting acts of aggression to redraw the map of the Middle East. The scenario that many in the Middle East are worrying about is an American attack against Iran while Israel has a go at both Syria and Hizballah in Lebanon. The risk is that if both sides think war is inevitable, it probably will be.

Amid the escalating paranoia, Nancy Pelosi's visit will hopefully be the equivalent of a deep breath. As the leader of the American government's most populist institution, Pelosi's presence in Syria could be read locally as sign that the American public doesn't want another regional war. Is that such a bad message to send right now? If the Bush doesn't want American legislators meddling in diplomacy, then they could try a little themselves.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut