General

Like Nixon to China?

I’ve been a reader of Spacetropic (and you should be too) for a long time and we converse by email often enough that I know he won’t be offended when I ask him what he’s smoking when he says this:

What, exactly, did Nancy Pelosi do wrong?

She visited Syria. She hardly offered any support for Hezbollah or Hamas. In fact she used the occasion to acknowledge and criticize their support for these groups. She is visiting Assad - and let’s hope she strikes the right somewhat-frosty tone when she leaves the meeting - but that’s one better than Condi Rice, who has done little more than dispatch an undersecretary.

And Pelosi made the sign of the cross while visiting a tomb within the Omayyad Mosque - one which is said to contain the head of St. John the Baptist. These types of gestures are not lost on folks in the Middle East, especially the often-oppressed Christian minorities.

There was a time when the elder statesmen of the Republican Party recognized the virtues of an open channel of communication. Nations might be on the verge of war, but there’s no downside to having a representative of America charge right up the steps and ring the doorbell of the worst regimes. Bush senior had this skill - and surrounded himself with others, like James Baker, who had the finesse necessary to make it happen. As a full supporter of the war on terrorism I think there’s wisdom in the old proverb - keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Now lets be clear: Nancy Pelosi can take stick party’s thinly-veiled tax increase where the sun don’t shine (no, it’s not just for “the rich”, a definition which has been rigged to include firemen and teachers) . And the notion of a victory date for the Iraq insurgency (excuse me, a “pullout date” for U.S. troops) would cause 20 years more to be added to this global struggle if enacted into law.

But a cool-tempered visit to Syria by one of America’s genuine leaders? Not a shabby idea. It reminds me of another proverb, one which is said to sound better in the original Klingon: Only Nixon could go to China.

Seriously, you can’t mean this…

The problem isn’t open lines of communication. I have no doubt that we are communicating effectively with Syria, it’s just that our interests and their interests are at dramatic cross purposes. More communication won’t help that.

Even if communication was the problem, the only way Nancy Pelosi helps this is if she was a sanctioned part of a diplomatic effort from the Bush administration to that effect. She is not.

Only Nixon could go to China. That’s only too true and what Nixon did in that move was a masterstroke of foreign relations brilliance. It was one of those moves where a chess grandmaster suddenly reveals you’re strong position to be a weak one. Or in the game of go where one well placed stone overturns the entire board.

Nixon was President, he didn’t undercut anyone when he made foreign policy decisions. Indeed, he embodied the foreign policy of the United States. Only Nixon could go to China. Carl Albert couldn’t. If congressman Albert had gone to China he would’ve been guilty of undercutting the foreign policy of the USA to the detriment of our national interests.

The bottom line is whether it’s more or less likely that Syria will

a. stop funding Hamas and Hezbollah

b. Support a free Lebanon

c. Stop aiding the Iraqi insurgents

d. Providing safe haven for enemies of America

e. Issuing threats toward Israel

f. Generally being a pain in the neck.

as a result of Nancy Pelosi’s visit.

UPDATE

Spacetropic responds here and I excerpt the key point:

Yes, Pelosi’s visit makes the Bush doctrine look shoddy, small-minded, and isolationist - and that’s not an entirely fair picture. But they (the Bush team) have opened themselves up to this kind of political move from the Democratic party by allowing our diplomatic relations to deteriorate. We’re no longer speaking softly and carrying a big stick. The Bush doctrine has been half wrong: Avoid speaking entirely … and carry a big stick.

And yes, culture does matter. To preserve ours - the liberal West, founded on liberty, democracy, free markets and individualism - we need to engage theirs very forcefully, in dialogue. As Americans we place a premium value on products and concrete objectives (the goals as articulated by Nixguy) - but in that region of the world, relationships are more important. You might have tea many times before trading camels - and if they prefer you to wear a scarf in their tent, by all means, observe the custom.

It should have been Condoleezza.

Actually what we appear to be doing is not speaking and carrying no stick at all when it comes to Syria. Syria is not afraid of us, and why should they be? Bush is not threatening them and Pelosi underscores the point that we will not physically attack Syria with what they are doing currently.

Diplomatically, I am sure that the Bush administration has a Syria strategy. It might be the wrong one, and more dialogue might be the answer. But the bottom line point is that it is not Nancy Pelosi’s place to do what she thinks Bush should be doing. If she disagrees, she has freedom of speech to carry her argument against Bush in the public sphere of arena, to help the Democrats win the presidency in 2008, then they can dictate foreign policy. Until then, they cannot.

It certainly is a legitimate point to argue that Condoleeza should be doing what Nancy Pelosi is doing, but it is absolutely out of bounds for Nancy Pelosi to actually do it. She is way outside of her league, legally and otherwise.

UPDATE

Among other reasons why Nancy should not be doing this, it seems that she is in over her head on the attention to detail that diplomacy requires.

 When diplomats meet with enemies, they make sure to get their positions coordinated with their allies and execute strict message discipline. They do not “wing it” — they check with their elected governments when any questions arise about the directions of talks. Only someone with an ego in inverse proportion to her talent would start making stuff up as she goes when dealing with the Syrian-Israeli relationship, one of the most explosive in the world.

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