I get the feeling people don’t have much faith in this little Israeli-Palestinian tête-a-tête-du-jour today. There’s the “farce” angle, the “sham” angle, the inevitable all-we-need-is-willpower angle from the Telegraph, and now the Syrian angle:

Opinion Journal - Condi’s Road to Damascus
The price America will pay for her Syrian photo-op. BY BRET STEPHENS

Put simply, there is nothing the U.S. can offer Mr. Assad that would seriously tempt him to alter his behavior in ways that could meaningfully advance U.S. interests or the cause of Mideast peace. Yet the fact that Ms. Rice’s Syria policy is now a facsimile of Speaker Pelosi’s confirms Mr. Assad’s long-held view that he has nothing serious to fear from this administration.

So look out for more aggressive Syrian misbehavior in Lebanon, including the continued arming of Hezbollah; the paralysis of its political process; the assassination of anti-Syrian parliamentarians and journalists; the insertion of Sunni terrorist cells in Palestinian refugee camps, and the outright seizure of Lebanon’s eastern hinterlands. Look out, too, for continued cooperation with North Korea on WMD projects: Despite Israel’s September attack on an apparent nuclear facility, the AP reports that North Korean technicians are back in Syria, teaching their Arab pupils how to load chemical warheads on ballistic missiles. And don’t hold your breath expecting Syria’s good behavior on its Iraqi frontier to last much longer.

In the meantime, we have the Annapolis conference, and the one-day photo-op it provides Ms. Rice. In the spirit of giving credit where it’s due, the least the Secretary can do is invite the Speaker to the party.

Oy. Ouch.

Date: Nov 27th, 2007 · Comments RSS · Tags: Geography and Foreign Affairs