Robin Wright: U.S. on the Outside in Peace Efforts

U.S. on the Outside in Peace Efforts

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 22, 2008; Page A20


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The United States is not playing a role in other critical Middle East initiatives, Ottaway noted, including an Egyptian effort to reconcile the two major Palestinian parties, Fatah and Hamas, and negotiations between Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council sheikdoms. The Bush administration is absent "across the board," she said.

That absence reflects Bush's lame-duck status, experts said. "The president spoke in Jerusalem a week ago about standing up to dictators and not appeasing those who used force. He isn't home a week, and the dictators and the forces of violence have triumphed," said Bruce Riedel, a former National Security Council staff member.

John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described as a "wake-up call" the Israeli and Syrian announcement of the first peace effort in eight years. "What did the leaders of Israel, already engaged in negotiations with Syria, think when President Bush stood before the Israeli Knesset and invoked Hitler in labeling engagement with rogue nations 'appeasement'? " he asked.

The administration responded coolly to the news of talks in Istanbul. "We hope that this is a forum to address various concerns we all have with Syria's support of terrorism, repression of its own people, and so we will see how this progresses," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/21/AR2008052102569.html

I'm sure there are many neo-cons who see nothing wrong with the pariah status this country has earned over the past 7-years. These are the new "America firsters"...xenophobes who want to deal with the world at a distance and then with a club. Decades of rhetoric and saber rattling that filled campaign coffers and think tanks became "official policy" and with it, the U.S. lost its role as an "honest broker". What's sad it they didn't just alienate and embolden our "enemies" but also our friends and allies who saw this regime as both stubborn and hamhanded in how it operated.

I still recall the pressure put on the UN (including spying) in the run-up to the Iraq mess by this regime. They tried to stronghand the "coalition of the willing" (just that name says wishful thinking)...and as time has proven the critics right, the more this regime has closed those xenophobic walls.

When a boooshie or LIEberman or Gramps gets out there and starts using the belicose lingua of "appeasement" and "surrender"...they just build that wall bigger and higher...and we're the ones caught behind it.

In one way, this development is not a bad thing...it's forcing the parties in the region to make their own peace and accomodations...one they have a vested interested in and will work to make work; rather than to pander to the U.S. in hopes of lapping up billions in additional aid.