Kerry insists Assad must go, but then what?

"There is no way – no way possible in the imagination," Kerry said in his remarks, at the Geneva II peace talks on the Syrian crisis, "that the man who has led the brutal response to his own people could regain the legitimacy to govern."

Kerry repeated the call in the Geneva communique issued following talks in June, 2012, and called for “a peaceful roadmap for transition. And,” he added, “the only thing standing in its way is the stubborn clinging to power of one man, one family.”

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Dialog for Peace

Thank you, Nancy Pelosi, for being forward thinking and courageous in visiting Damascus.

Political solutions are not properly presented on a dingy platter of empty diplomacy, especially when a reluctant administration only presents a pissed-on tray covered with the paper doily of dogmatic idealism.

It is true the al-Assad is more bitter enemy than best friend, and not undeservingly so. His interests and ours nearly always diverge. Yet Syria must be engaged in dialog, not in spite of its roles in Lebanon and Iraq, but because of them. This is not some banana republic-like "rogue" regime. The Assads have run Syria for decades. You'd have to be smoking some pretty cosmic Lebanese hash to think they are going anywhere.

Any diplomatic engagement must be viewed as a positive step. It's "a more practical approach," Ziad Haider, a Lebanese journalist, told the New York Times. Practical, he says, because it represents change, the prospect of a US foreign policy not "based on demands and ideology."

So thank you, Ms. Pelosi. It is a shame that the 2008 presidential candidates appear to be afraid to take the stand that you have taken here. I hope that in twenty months, when - God willing - we get back in the White House, we will be presenting attractive options to all the players in this seemingly intractable region.

Those who advocate the current paradigm of the silent treatment think that other countries quake to find themselves on our shit list. It's obvious to me that this policy prolongs distrust and potentially breeds more anger and resentment toward the United States, when we should be looking for ways to mitigate their powerful hatred. But more than resentment, I think they and the rest of the world are disappointed in the misguided policies we have allowed our government to pursue in our name. I know I am.

It is time to clean the idealistic crud from the diplomatic tray. I don't know what morsels of the diplomacy we proffer to the Syrians or Iranians they will find to their liking. What I do understand is that our commitment will be much better demonstrated by offers presented respectfully, on a gleaming silver tray, than by Bush's ridiculously parental tone in threatening to use the platter as a blunt object on our enemies' backsides. That's no offer at all.

If your cause is peace, your dogma must be dialog.

-PBG

Nothing Fails Like Success

So the Baker-Hamilton Commission decided, among other things, that we must engage in direct talks with Iran and Syria. As loyal readers of this column may remember, we called for the Iraq Study Group to make just such a recommendation (Shaking Hands with Extremists: An Exit Strategy , 22 October, 2006). Since the report's release on Wednesday, this has become one of the commissions most controversial points.

In his press conference with Tony Blair yesterday, President Bush was adamant (shock!) that the United States will not talk to Iran until it steps back from its nuclear enrichment program. Nor will there be any discussions with the Syrians until they stop trying to "de-stabilize" Lebanon.

Not to include regional powers in talks aimed at stabilizing Iraq is stubborn and shortsighted (and not limited to the administration, but more about that later). It also indicates that this administration will only accept a "working" Iraq on its own terms, which, according to the ISG, are no longer attainable.

Still, Bush speaks of his consensus-less success as if it were still just around the corner. He does not admit that success became failure in Iraq years ago. "If we were to fail," he said yesterday, phrasing it as a hypothetical even though it has already happenned, "If we were to fail, that failed policy will come to hurt generations of Americans in the future."

Doesn't that sound like something that should have been said before March, 2003? It appears Bush is setting it up to look like failure will be the future's fault - a future Congress, a future president - and not his own, criminal stubbornness.

And while we await the immediate future Congress and what they will or won't do about Iraq, the Senate Armed Service's Committee questioned the members of the Iraq Study Group yesterday. They also had something to say about engaging Iran and Syria in the process. Not surprisingly, Senator Joseph Lieberman wondered aloud if Iran was willing to "help the United States succeed" in Iraq.

Joe misunderstands the same thing that many who cling to this entanglement do: we are not there for the benefit of the United States. We haven't benefitted at all since Saddam fell. Our goal now is to help the Iraqis succeed, not the U.S.

That is the point of the Baker-Hamilton / Iraq Study Group report: the United States has failed in the goal of stabilizing Iraq. There is no more succeeding. It's a done deal. The report begins with that brutal, honest assessment. That is why we must create a new regional consensus - so Iraq can succeed, in spite of us and the mess our president's policy has made.

If U.S. policy is to have the Iraqis stand up, we need regional cooperation to help hold them up while we crawl out from under their massacred bodies.

-PBG