The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend

Charles Krauthammer might be pulling punches, since he goes no further than charges of "moral bankruptcy" at the Obama administration's posture towards Syria.  The administration finds a reformer in Bashar Assad.

During the worst days of the Iraq war, this regime funneled terrorists into Iraq to fight U.S. troops and Iraqi allies. It is dripping with Lebanese blood as well, being behind the murder of independent journalists and democrats, including former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. This year, it helped topple the pro-Western government of Hariri’s son, Saad, and put Lebanon under the thumb of the virulently anti-Western Hezbollah. Syria is a partner in nuclear proliferation with North Korea. It is Iran’s agent and closest Arab ally, granting it an outlet on the Mediterranean. Those two Iranian warships that went through the Suez Canal in February docked at the Syrian port of Latakia, a long-sought Iranian penetration of the Mediterranean.

Yet here was the secretary of state covering for the Syrian dictator against his own opposition. And it doesn’t help that Clinton tried to walk it back two days later by saying she was simply quoting others. Rubbish. Of the myriad opinions of Assad, she chose to cite precisely one: reformer. That’s an endorsement, no matter how much she later pretends otherwise.

Though the administration seems to like him OK, Assad has shown himself, to the rest of us anyway, to be an enemy of the U.S. 

This is not something new with the Democratic party.  For whatever reason, they believe they have a friend in Bashar Assad.  In 2005 Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat from West Virginia, bragged in a Fox News interview about a 2002 trip to Syria where he informed Assad of the certainty, in his view, that the U.S. would invade Iraq.

WALLACE: OK. Senator Rockefeller, the president says that Democratic critics, like you, looked at pre-war intelligence and came to the same conclusion that he did.

In fact, looking back at the speech that you gave in October of 2002 in which you authorized the use of force, you went further than the president ever did. Let's watch:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROCKEFELLER: I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after September 11th that question is increasingly outdated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Now, the president never said that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat. As you saw, you did say that. If anyone hyped the intelligence, isn't it Jay Rockefeller?

ROCKEFELLER: No. I mean, this question is asked a thousand times and I'll be happy to answer it a thousand times. I took a trip by myself in January of 2002 to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq, that that was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11.

The Fox interview was in 2005.  At that time Rockefeller was looking to reinforce a Democratic talking point that George Bush manipulated intelligence in order to justify a decision he had supposedly already made to invade Iraq.  Rockefeller's revelation was intended to imply that he, Rockefeller, knew even back in January of 2002 that the intelligence on Iraq was wrong.  But by trying for his political points he let slip that he gave warning to Saddam Hussein by way of Syria. 

But the fact is, nobody thought the intelligence was wrong in 2002 and 2003.  Even as late as February 2003 -- after the Bush State of the Union with the infamous sixteen words -- bogus whistle blower Joseph C. Wilson argued against an invasion of Iraq because he was sure that Hussein would use his weapons of mass destruction against American troops.

There is now no incentive for Hussein to comply with the inspectors or to refrain from using weapons of mass destruction to defend himself if the United States comes after him.

And he will use them; we should be under no illusion about that.

Hussein and Aziz both told me directly that Iraq reserved the right to use every weapon in its arsenal if invaded, just as it had against Iran and later the Kurds.

But by 2005 Democrats were in an all-out war against George Bush, having decided that Iraq would be their most effective weapon.  And that may explain why Democrats consider Assad such a great pal.  Syria and Assad were helping to make Goeorge Bush look bad by feeding the violence in Iraq.

Through 2007 the Democrats showed no signs of letting up.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat from California, was the next to make a trip to Syria to confer with Assad, much to the dismay of the Bush administration.

State Department officials said Thursday they made it quite clear they did not want Pelosi to visit Syria, a nation that is listed as a state sponsor of terror and is home to terror group Hezbollah, which started a low-grade war with Israel last summer.

Pelosi is the highest ranking U.S. official to go to Syria since former Secretary of State Colin Powell visited the nation in 2003. Defying the White House's Middle East policy by meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad, Pelosi said, "The road to Damascus is a road to peace."

Absurd as that was, suggesting peace would turn up in Damascus, the delusional Pelosi went even farther around the bend when she informed Bashar Assad that Israel was ready for peace talks with Syria.

Shocking officials in Jerusalem, where she had visited two days earlier, Pelosi said she also told Assad that Olmert had wanted to relay the message that Israel is ready for peace talks with Syria.

That came as a surprise to the prime minister, whose office on Wednesday denied any such conversation and said that "what was discussed with the House speaker did not include any change in Israel's policy, as it has been presented to international parties involved in the matter."

Olmert's office also issued a statement saying it had specified to Pelosi that Israel considers Syria "part of the axis of evil and a party encouraging terrorism in the entire Middle East."

On their various trips to Arabia Democratic leaders demonstrated a disciplined adherence to the Arabian proverb, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."  Syria is an enemy.  It continues to be listed as a State Sponsor of Terrorism on the State Department website, yet somehow Democrats behave as though Syria is our friend.  Well, maybe not our friend, but their friend.  George Bush is gone, though.  If Syria and our Democrats have a common enemy, I wonder who it might be.

Comments

[NewYork1]

I haven't found anything said by Krauthammer or Clinton to be worth much.

It is no accident that most of the 9/11 perpetrators came from Saudi Arabia and not Syria.

But for whatever reason, as long as a government knows public relations and makes the right statements to the American press, it can do whatever it wants behind the scenes.

You get a lot of establishment types in Washington and the media who try to categorize Middle Eastern regimes in two camps: either their autocratic rule smacks of unredeemable thuggery and must be disposed of, or their dictatorial grip on power maintains stability and must be lavishly supported.

Apparently Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, Pakistan and Egypt (before Mubarak’s ouster) reside in the latter category. Libya, and now perhaps Syria, apparently belong in the former category of disposable regimes.

So you have an incoherent unprincipled policy where the military is committed at the whims of no-nothings like Krauthammer and Clinton.

[PJ Smith]

Krauthammer can commit the military? Obama follows Clinton's whim? Pass that thing along mate. Don't Bogart that weed!

[NewYork1]

Come now. The sentence reads "know-nothings LIKE Krauthammer and Clinton.

And an inordinate number of incompetents like those two can found littered throughout the Bush and Obama administrations.

And both Presidents followed such people's "questionable" advise -- questionable being a very kind term.