Israel Matzav

In a slap in the face to Iran's revolution, US restoring ambassador to Syria

Very few countries have recognized the results of Iran's sham elections nearly two weeks ago as legitimate. Venezuela has. So has Bolivia. And so has Syria, Iran's closest ally in the Arab world.

Until now, the Obama administration has been standoffish in its attitude to the Iranian election and the protests against its results. But now, it has come out on the side of the Iranian regime: It has chosen the current situation to announce that it is 'engaging' with Iran's ally Bashar al-Assad by returning its ambassador to Syria for the first time since Rafiq al-Hariri was murdered in Lebanon in 2005.

The acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, Jeffrey D. Feltman, informed Syria's ambassador to Washington, Imad Mustafa, tonight of Obama's intention, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision had yet to be made public.

By returning a senior U.S. envoy to Damascus, the Syrian capital, the Obama administration is seeking to carve out a far larger role for the United States in the region as the president works to rehabilitate U.S. relations with the Islamic world and the Arab Middle East.

...

The decision to return the ambassador to Syria, senior administration officials said, represents the restoration of a sustained U.S. diplomatic presence in a secular Arab country central to many U.S. interests in the region.

"It did not make any sense to us not to be able to speak with an authoritative voice in Damascus," the senior administration official said. "It was our assessment that total disengagement has not served our interests."

...

"We're determined to engage in a comprehensive way in the region," the official said. "This is an important step we are taking as part of that strategy."

The official said the administration tonight also informed the ambassadors of other countries in the region, including Israel.

The message of abandonment that this administration is sending to the student demonstrators in Iran is clear and unvarnished. The United States is seeking to 'engage' with friends of the regime that is murdering innocents in the street - and would like to 'engage' with regime itself if only it would agree to do so.

The message being sent to Israel is also clear: If you don't do as you're told, we have or will find other friends in the region.

What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:03 PM