http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/21/former-nsc-official-israe_n_102945.html<snip>
According to 29-year CIA veteran and former NSC official Bruce Riedel, Wednesday's announcement of joint peace negotiations between Israel and Syria revealed President Bush's diminished standing in Middle East affairs.
"Think of the irony," Riedel said. "George Bush goes to Jerusalem last week. He gives an impassioned speech about never dealing with nasty regimes
. He basically says 'don't make agreements that appease .' And less than a week later, the Israeli government announces it is engaged in peace negotiations with the Assad dictatorship in Syria. We're talking about a rather distasteful regime that likely had a hand in the murder of Rafik Hariri. I guess Ehud Olmert didn't think the speech was meant for him."
Riedel, who served as a special assistant to the president until 2002 and is now with the Brookings Institution, said the lack of weight accorded to Bush's appeasement speech "shows more and more that the Middle East is not listening to him anymore, as does the deal announced in Doha for Lebanon today." In that Doha agreement, the Iranian-supported Hezbollah secured effective veto power within Lebanon's next cabinet -- an arrangement that is sure to frustrate any future efforts to disarm the political party that the U.S. considers a terrorist organization.
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