Israel Matzav

The Way Backwards

This week’s events further reveal the tragicomic nature of the report’s recommendation concerning an overture to Iran. Earlier this week, Ahmadinejad hosted a Holocaust denier’s conference in Tehran featuring the KKK’s own David Duke as a special guest. Jim Baker wants us to sit down with this crowd? Somehow I just don’t think a polite “no, thank you” will capture the essence of what any sane person might think about that brilliant stratagem.

It’s little wonder that serious foreign policy observers like Dr. Elliot Cohen of The Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies says of the report, “There is something of a farce in all this, an invocation of wisdom from a cohesive Washington elite that does not exist, a desperate wish to believe in the gravitas and the statecraft of grave men (and women) who can sort out the mess in which the country finds itself.”

This well-practiced and self-promoted sense of gravitas reveals itself when Baker defends his other strategy for regionalizing the conflict. Baker seems also anxious for us to turn a blind eye to Syria’s support for terrorism and their efforts to destabilize the democratically elected government of Lebanon through the proxy-directed killing of innocents. Baker euphemistically describes Syria’s support for Hezbollah terrorism and murder in and around Beirut as, “screwing around with Lebanon”. When it comes to Syria, Jim Baker is at his self-congratulatory best. On the Sunday talk show carnival he went so far as to pat himself on the back for cozying up to Syria’s deceased, terror-loving, autocrat Hafez Al-Assad, “people—some people have said, ‘Hey, when Baker went to Damascus 15 times back in 1991 and got Syria to change 25 years of policy and come to the table and sit down face-to-face with Israel, it was a different Syria.’ Well, that’s true. And it’s a different Iran, that’s true. But what do we lose?”

Anyone who doesn’t know the answer to that question probably shouldn’t be considered a “wise man” any longer. What we lose is the war against international terrorists. To suggest our strategy should be to rely on the largess and cooperation of Syria and Iran, two nations with a long, lethal and currently active history of supporting terrorism to assist us in our efforts to promote security, peace and liberty in Iraq and the Middle East is absurd.

In fairness, Baker had it partly right. It is a different Syria now. It is a different Iran now. It is a different Iraq now. The old autocrats, Assad, Khomeni, and Saddam are all gone. We face a terrorist threat which is different now. It is stronger and more lethal now than it was in 1991 because we didn’t confront the terrorists when we should have. Instead, we partnered with Saddam against Iran, we went begging to Damascus 15 times seeking hollow favors and we welcomed Arafat at Camp David and feted that corrupt old tyrant while he stole his own people and the IMF blind.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:41 AM