ninme

The Times - So how does ‘engaging with Syria’ look now? by Michael Young (the opinion editor of the Daily Star in Beirut)

If political “realism” is about interests, then realists must prove that a country that has ignored successive UN resolutions demanding Syrian non-interference in Lebanon could somehow be a force for stability in Iraq, to which it has funnelled hundreds of foreign fighters. Engaging Mr Assad over Iraq will mean the gradual return of Syrian hegemony over Lebanon, since neither the US nor the UK will be in a position to deny Syria in Lebanon while asking favours in Iraq.

If one has no qualms about abandoning a rare democratic success in the Middle East, as Lebanon has been, then by all means talk to the gentlemen in Damascus. But first someone should remind Mr Blair of a name oddly absent from his recent rhetoric of engagement: Rafiq Hariri. To which we can now add another: Pierre Gemayel.

Elsewhere in the “still look like a good idea?” category:

Victor Davis Hanson on Hugh Hewitt:

HH: I thought we might have a month away from the bad news, but as Beirut descends into crisis tonight, it appears as though the bad guys sense an opening.

VDH: Yeah, they do, and I think this should be a wake up call for everybody in the United States who wants to bring in the 1990’s realist team, that anybody who thinks that they can have some sort of reconciliation with Syria and Iran are missing the entire problem in the Middle East. The problem is those two countries, and those two governments.

HH: Victor Davis Hanson, if you had a chance to visit with the President tonight, what would you be telling him?

VDH: Don’t give up. Don’t weaken. Don’t hesitate. Don’t pause. Do not cut a deal with those two governments. They’re killing American soldiers through surrogates in Iraq. They’re trying to destablize Lebanon like they did in the 1980’s. They’re the source of most of the evil that’s now causing us problems from Afghanistan to Iraq. And this idea that you’re going to bring James Baker back, and that team back who gave us everything from Iran-Contra to jobs, jobs, jobs as the only reason we’re going to go into the Middle East, to flank the Jews. I could go on, but it’s a very sensitive point with me. I think a lot of us, Hugh, stood by this administration through thick and thin when the paleocons turned on them, when the liberal hawks turned on them, when the neocons are starting to bail. But my God, if you’re going to go into the Middle East, and put 130,000 Americans in harm’s way, fighting for democracy, and then you turn around and you appease those two governments who are killing people, I don’t think a lot of us are going to stand for that.

Yeah, no kidding.

…but let’s be candid, Hugh. The problem right now isn’t…it may be the left wing Congress, but he’s got another problem, and that is he’s bringing in Robert Gates, and he’s bringing in the Baker realism, and that doesn’t have a good record. That’s the people who said don’t talk to Yeltsin. Let’s stick with Gorbacev. Let’s not go to Baghdad. Let the Shia and Kurds die. Let’s arm the Islamisists to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan and then leave. It’s not a good record. It’s short-term expediency at the expense of long-term morality. And it’s not in the interest of the United States to do that, to cut a deal with these countries.

So, you know how the leftists are all crowing over this? Hailing these guys as visionaries, etc? Every one of those things is the stuff that the same leftists use to accuse us of hypocrisy. “Yeah sure you want to deliver Afghanistan from tyranny, after you empowered that tyranny in the first place! Don’t you know they’re killing us with the weapons we sold them?!” etc.

But no, despite causing all of these noble leftists to despise their own country, it’s time to bring ‘em back cuz damnit we need a little of their sensible realism!

Update:

Telegraph - Democracy is not on the Syrian agenda. By Con Coughlin (their “executive foreign editor” and something of an expert on the middle east)

All of which makes a mockery of Tony Blair’s suggestion – articulated only last week during his Mansion House speech – that the West should engage in a constructive dialogue with both Syria and Iran in an attempt to resolve all the ills of the Middle East. What he singularly fails to understand is that, far from being interested in pursuing a dialogue with the West, the Syrian and Iranian regimes are engaged in an elemental battle with the West to define the future shape of the Middle East.

Ah-hem!

These are countries that have taken particular exception to the Bush administration’s desire to imbue the principles of democracy and good governance throughout the region. In both Iraq and Afghanistan the American and British governments have committed themselves to a policy of establishing accountable government to replace the brutal autocracies that previously existed.

Lebanon’s “Cedar Revolution”, in which tens of thousands of Lebanese last year took to the streets to protest at the country’s continued occupation by Syria, was hailed in Washington and London as yet another example of the region’s desire to break free from the constraints of the tired autocracies that have dominated the political landscape for decades [which we're now apparently knifing in the back]. And if Lebanon, through the effective exercise of people power, could manage to transform its political destiny, then what is to stop the ordinary people of Syria and Iran effecting similar regime change in Damascus and Teheran?…

Far from wanting to assist the West with its efforts to bring a breath of modernity to the politics of the Middle East, the unreconstructed autocrats of Damascus and Teheran are viscerally opposed to any attempt to make life better for the people they rule. The sooner Mr Blair grasps this simple fact, the better.

Here are a couple of items from Con’s blog:

Telegraph Blogs: Foreign - Lebanon must free itself of Hizbollah, by Con Coughlin

Although the war itself ended in 1991 - the combatants, like two heavyweight prize fighters, basically fought themselves into a state of exhaustion - Lebanon did not become free until last spring when the Cedar Revolution, in which hundreds of thousands of ordinary Lebanese from Christian, Muslim and Druze backgrounds participated, finally succeeded in throwing off the yoke of the Syrian oppressors who had occupied the country for thirty years.

But while last year’s revolution made the country free, peace has proved elusive, mainly because the idea of Lebanon settling down as a fully sovereign, pro-Western democratic state was anathema to so many of the more sinister forces that operate in the region, namely Syria and Iran, which controls Lebanon’s Shia Muslim Hizbollah militia.

You only have to look at the crowds attending Pierre Gemayel’s funeral - most of the same people participated in the Cedar Revolution - to see the pain the Lebanese are still suffering in their quest to be a free people.

The sad truth is that Lebanon will never be free so long as Syria and Iran are allowed to use their proxy, Hizbollah, to meddle in the country’s affairs.

In order for Lebanon to be truly free, and to give peace a chance, the government needs to take the bold step of disarming Hizbollah and forcing the militia to respect the Lebanese constitution and the Lebanese people, and not their paymasters in Damascus and Teheran.

Telegraph Blogs: Foreign (Nov 6) - The world at war, by Con Coughlin

And, as I revealed in the Daily Telegraph today, far from taking a more constructive approach in its dealings towards the West, Teheran is attempting to take control of the ailing Osama bin Laden’s al-Qa’eda terror organisation.

Given that most Western intelligence experts believe Iran is well on the way to developing its own atom bomb, the prospect of Iran and al-Qa’eda - which has made no secret of its desire to acquire weapons of mass destruction - joining forces is truly alarming - a “Doomsday scenario”, as one intelligence official remarked to me.

Britain has been trying to have a constructive dialogue with Iran since the 1980s - I remember the then Conservative Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe telling me forcefully over breakfast at his official residence in Carlton House terrace how the only way to deal with Iran was through dialogue with the moderates.

But all that has happened since then is that the Iranians have continued work on their nuclear bomb, their support for terror groups from Hizbollah to al-Qa’eda and intensified their hatred for the West and all it stands for.

The Iranians regard dialogue as the equivalent of appeasement. The only language they understand is raw power. The best way to stop the Iranians interfering in Iraq - and building an atom bomb - is to hit them with an uncompromising sanctions regime that limits their action, and teaches them that the world’s powers are not to be trifled with.

Update (11.24):

Commenter wf makes an appearance on Wheat & Weeds.