The Wrong Benediction

The Opinion Journal points out the real reality, as opposed to the "reality" the "realists" have constructed in their heads. The moves and trial balloons toward opening negotiations with Iran and Syria have come up against the hard reality of the assassination of an anti-Syrian minister of the Lebanese government. A hard jolt of reality, indeed.

Former Secretary of State James Baker has been saying that, when it comes to diplomacy, you don't "restrict your conversations to your friends"–shorthand for the view that the U.S. should engage Syria and Iran to find solutions in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. But yesterday's murder of Lebanese Minister Pierre Gemayel might remind even Mr. Baker and his Iraq Study Group what some of those non-friends are all about.

"The hand of Syria is all over" Gemayel's assassination, said Saad Hariri, the leader of the parliamentary bloc that helped evict the Syrian army in the spring of 2005. Mr. Hariri knows whereof he speaks: His father, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was blown up with 22 others in February 2005, and the preliminary U.N. investigation offered a trail of evidence pointing to Damascus as the culprit.

….

Curiously, Gemayel was killed just as the U.N. agreed on the composition of an international tribunal to try the case. It is no secret that Syrian President Bashar Assad has been pulling out all the stops to quash the trial. Six pro-Syrian politicians in the Lebanese cabinet recently resigned en masse in an attempt to cripple the government, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been threatening huge demonstrations to bring down the anti-Syrian Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, who is also backed by the U.S. and France. Killing Gemayel removes another obstacle to Syrian dominance in Lebanon.

Which brings us back to Mr. Baker and the rest of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment now urging a new entente with Damascus. It's true that every Administration must deal with the world as it is. But when it comes to Syria, do the sages of the Iraq Study Group really want the Bush Administration to seek the benediction of a country that stirs such mayhem in Beirut?

Which has always been the problem with these ideas. Neither Iran nor Syria are serious about negotiations. That is very obvious with the timing of this murder. That Baker's group is still busily launching trial balloon after trial balloon indicates they don't appear to care about the actual reality that these two countries represent. They prefer the unreality of what they wish them to be instead.

UPDATE: Confederate Yankee: A de facto state of war.

• 

  By daveinboca, Wednesday, 22 November , 2006 @ 11:05 am

  A reader of my blog sent me an email asking “cui bono” as to why the Syrians were involved. My response:
  The Syrians have a very long record of interfering in Lebanon’s economy and
  political affairs, and it is in their PERCEIVED interest [however poorly
  conceived] to stir the pot in that country, which they regard as irredentist
  territory, because of several reasons.

  It takes the Syrian people’s mind off their own imbecilic government, it is an
  attempt to try to keep the Lebanese cabinet from participating in the UN
  Investigative Inquiry, an attempt to push the Hezbollah agenda in order to get
  Iranian support, and because various factions supporting Assad in Lebanon,
  including its demented Prez Emile L, actually want Syria back in control of
  Lebanon, or at least an active player. Last, but not least, the Syrians made a
  lot of money by interfering in Lebanon before, and think they can do it again.

  Therefore, a very deluded Syrian leadership probably thinks it is its own good,
  and because it believes it can get away with it. Think of it as a mafia
  syndicate, with Bashar Assad as the capo di totti capiti. Don’t necessarily
  regard the present Syrian leadership as rational actors. As an FT columnist
  said prophetically two years ago, this younger Assad tends to overplay his
  hands.

Other Links to this Post

1. A Blog For All — Wednesday, 22 November , 2006 @ 12:21 pm