Empty Handed?

Are the IAEA inspectors going to leave Syria empty-handed?

U.N. nuclear investigators will wrap up a four-day visit to Syria on Wednesday, but, thus far, there has been absolutely no indication that they've even managed to scratch the surface of the mystery surrounding a remote Syrian building bombed by Israel in September.

U.S. officials and - off the record - Israel, claim it was a plutonium-producing reactor in the works.

Syrian authorities, who have fervently denied the allegations, have shrouded the visit by International Atomic Energy Agency visit in secrecy. No great surprise: It could well determine the fate of Damascus on the international stage.

There wasn't even official confirmation that IAEA chief inspector Olli Heinonen and his aids were in the country, as the government banned all Arab and foreign journalists from obtaining entry visas.

Just one privately owned daily, Al-Watan - which, like all Syrian media, is close to the government - made any mention of the inspection mission by the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Al-Watan only carried a commentary published by the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, highlighting Syria's strong denial of ever possessing a reactor.

A senior diplomat familiar with the Vienna-based IAEA said the visit by the three senior inspectors, which included a trip to the al-Kibar site flattened by Israeli war planes, went "well," but he declined to elaborate.

[SNIP]

IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei said last week there was no evidence that Syria had the skills or fuel to run a major nuclear complex. Syria's only declared nuclear facility is an ageing research reactor long under the watchful eye of IAEA monitors.

Under its inspection agreement with the IAEA, Damascus has an obligation to report nuclear projects at the planning stage. Israel refuses to sign the agreement.

Analysts believe Damascus opened its doors to the inspectors in hopes of preventing Iran-like global sanctions, and keeping up dramatic diplomatic gains that have come from a recent thawing of relations between Damascus and the West.

Good luck selling that to the wingnuts. The same is true of Iran--it's difficult to say whether or not they'll ever come close to building a nuclear weapon because they don't have the resources to get them over the top--as in, the skills and the fuel to run a large enough operation to make a run at it. In the rush to drop bombs and start a war, is there anyone left who has the credibility to explain the contingencies to the American people? Or are we going to be bullshitted and told a bunch of lies over and over again?

Are We Going to Find Out What Was There?

It would be a pretty shocking revelation if we find out anything dramatic about what was going on in Syria at the Al-Kibar site:

A delegation of the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in Syria on Sunday, hoping to get to the bottom of the mystery of the Syrian remote building which was destroyed by the Israelis last September on suspicion it was a plutonium-producing reactor.

Led by IAEA chief inspector Olli Heinonen, the inspectors will stay until Tuesday.

Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has recently told an Indian newspaper that the allegations were "fabricated 100 percent."

He said his country would welcome the visit but insisted the mission would be limited to the Al-Kibar site in the Syrian eastern desert, 90 miles north of the Iraqi border.

Syria's ambassador to the U.N. Ibraheem Jaafari denied late last month that the site was a nuclear installation, saying it only contained a disused military building.

The Israeli airstrike inside Syria on Sept. 6, 2007, reignited international debate over whether the Syrians are trying to overcome past obstacles by starting their own small nuclear program, or by trying to buy nuclear components from an outside supplier. Washington believes it is North Korea.

Well, the last person I would ever believe would be al-Assad, right after Bush. Isn't it sad when the credibility of the leader of the free world is about that as the idiot son of a Syrian dictator?

Arms Control Wonk has more info--including an interesting comparison of the site to some old ruined Byzantine fortresses and to the North Korean site at Yongbyong...

The facility at Al-Kibar:



A composite of ruined Byzantine fortresses, compiled by Arms Control Wonk:

Despite early press reports that the fuel channels atop the Al Kibar reactor core were identical to Yongbyon, I and others — including Geoff Forden, Cheryl Rofer and Richard Wendland — see some pretty significant differences that suggest Al Kibar might have been quite a bit smaller than its North Korean cousin.

To be clear, I don’t doubt that Al Kibar was a reactor and, although I think the evidence of North Korean involvement is less impressive than early press reports suggested, that’s my working hypothesis too.

But I don’t understand the claim that Al Kibar is a copy of Yongbyon in the strict sense — in particular, I don’t understand how the IC concluded that Al Kibar is the same size as Yongbyon.

Maybe--just maybe--we'll get some answers...

Will Bush and McCain call the Israelis "Appeasers?"

Don't hold your breath...

Israel confirmed Wednesday that it is holding indirect peace talks with Syria mediated by Turkey.

The statement from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was the first official Israeli admission of the contacts.

Wednesday's statement said the sides "have declared their intent to conduct these talks in good faith and openly." The statement says the goal is "to reach a comprehensive peace agreement."

There have been reports in recent months of new Israeli-Syrian contacts through Turkey. Syria wants Israel to return the Golan Heights, which it captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

U.S.-mediated peace talks between the two countries broke down in 2000 because of disagreements over the extent of an Israeli withdrawal.

Due to their lack of historical context or actual knowledge of diplomacy, it is highly unlikely that the Bush Administration will know how to react to this. The Israelis will not be denounced as appeasers, for it is likely that the Israelis took Bush aside last week and casually told him of their own "appeasement" of their sworn enemy. And, please note that the US Secretary of State was probably kept, deliberately, out of the loop and out of the room. I say probably, but I would hasten to add "definitely."

Scott Ritter Predicts...

Scott Ritter recently appeared on Democracy Now! and these are some of his remarks. Amy Goodman conducted this interview.

RITTER: Well, first of all, we have to be concerned about the evidence. We have interior photographs and exterior shots and nothing that links the two. And so, on the surface, I would say that if you’re bringing this evidence to a court of law—it’s a strange dimension, the rule of law, when we speak of American foreign policy lately—you would have trouble having anybody say yes, this is definitive evidence that links the allegations to this specific site in question.

But let’s just assume for a second that the data is in fact accurate. I have to take exception with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he says that the alleged activities are against international conventions. Actually, they’re not. If Syria had in fact been constructing the reactor they’ve been accused of, they were in total conformity with international law. The nonproliferation treaty, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which Syria is a signatory, requires that facilities be declared to the IAEA only when nuclear materials are to be introduced to these facilities, that a facility under construction is not a declarable item. And so, it’s absurd to sit there and say that just because Syria and North Korea were pouring concrete that they are somehow breaking the law.

And this notion that the reactor was on the verge of becoming operational, again, is absurd. You know, there would have to be literally thousands of pounds of pure graphite that would have to be introduced to this facility, and there’s no evidence in the destruction. You know, there were a number of reporters who went to the site after it was blown up. If it had been bombed and there was graphite introduced, you would have a signature all over the area of destroyed graphite blocks. There would be graphite lying around, etc. This was not the case.

I don’t know what was going on at this site. If the images are accurate, it appears that Syria was producing a very, very small research reactor. But it is not a reactor usable in a nuclear weapons program. Syria was not violating the law.

And if there were concerns over this reactor, a simple referring of the material, these photographs, to the International Atomic Energy Agency would have produced an insistence on special inspections that would have had the inspectors on the site actually determining what was going on and a peaceful resolution of the problem. This shows that the United States and Israel have a wanton disregard for the rule of law. And this is especially critical when the United States is holding up the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a standard in which we hold Iran and North Korea accountable to.

Ritter also talked about US intentions towards Iran:

There’s no doubt in my mind that the United States is planning right now, as we speak, a military strike against Iran. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and almost every senior US military official has pretty much acknowledged the same. They speak of the need to punish Iran and deter Iran from continuing to provide material assistance to Iraqi groups, these so-called “special groups” that operate, according to the United States, outside of the umbrella of the Mahdi Army. And they speak of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command as being a rogue organization within the Iranian government that provides this support. The United States Senate, through the Kyl-Lieberman resolution, has pretty much given a target list blessing to the US military by passing a resolution that labels the Revolutionary Guard Command as a terrorist organization. And the Bush administration, of course, is engaged in a global war on terror backed by two congressional war powers resolutions.

We take a look at the military buildup, we take a look at the rhetoric, we take a look at the diplomatic posturing, and I would say that it’s a virtual guarantee that there will be a limited aerial strike against Iran in the not-so-near future—or not-so-distant future, that focuses on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command. And if this situation spins further out of control, you would see these aerial strikes expanding to include Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and some significant command and control targets.

This is all just one more indication that, if the American people don't start paying attention, there WILL be a third war on their hands very soon.

Oh, what I wouldn't give to have a functioning and capable State Department

I don't presume to speak for anyone else, but I would rather have the Secretary of State dealing with issues like this instead of hurling schoolyard taunts at Moqtada al-Sadr.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of Congress will be told this week about intelligence suggesting that North Korea was helping Syria build a nuclear reactor similar to one it has constructed, a government official familiar with the matter said Tuesday.

The Senate and House intelligence committees were scheduled to be briefed on Thursday, and several other panels such as the Senate Armed Services Committee were expected to be briefed as well.

North Korea has been suspected of helping Syria with a secret nuclear program, but both countries deny it. Pyongyang says it has never spread its nuclear expertise beyond its borders.

Israeli warplanes bombed a site in Syria on Sept. 6 that private analysts say appears to have been the site of a reactor, based on commercial satellite imagery taken after the raid. The site later was razed and wiped clean.

Evidence will be presented to the Congress that North Korea has helped Syria construct a reactor modeled on their facility at Yongbyon, which has, in the past, yielded plutonium in sufficient quantity to create a nuclear weapon.

An official inside the Bush administration, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the intelligence community had been inundated with requests for information on North Korea and Syria since the Israeli airstrike against a suspected reactor on September 6 of last year. and that now seemed like the right time to brief the lawmakers. It is a tenuous proposition - talks are ongoing with the North Koreans and leaks could jeopardize their prospects.

At the same time, those who pay attention to the Middle East are concerned that timing the briefing for this week runs the risk of upstaging visits this week by Jordanian King Abdullah II and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and hurt the negotiations for an Arab-Israeli peace settlement with allegations of nefarious activity by an Arab nation with the aid of North Korea flying around, the official said.

Speculation has run wild in recent weeks, especially in the Israeli media, that the briefing of the Congress will include intel gathered by Israel and that the Israeli government has signed off on the information sharing. Another official, invoking anonymity, said that the impending briefing would present intelligence gathered by various sources and methods and synthesized into a coherent package after carefully being analyzed over a period of several months.

Under the agreement reached in the Six Party Talks last year, the North Koreans are obligated to give a full account of it's nuclear programs, including whether or not it has been a party to the proliferation of nuclear technology.

North Korea claims that it has complied with the declaration it presented last November, but the U.S. says that the North has not provided a "complete and correct" assessment.

The briefing is scheduled to take place one say before a U.S. delegation that went to North Korea to press for details of the North's nuclear programs is scheduled to report back.

The U.S. recently has stepped back from its push for a detailed declaration addressing the North's alleged secret uranium enrichment program and nuclear cooperation with Syria. Now, the U.S. says it wants the North to simply acknowledge the concerns and then set up a system to verify the country doesn't continue such activity in the future.

President Bush defended the plans over the weekend during a meeting with new South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, saying North Korea had the burden of proof under the agreements.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Tuesday that U.S. intelligence officials would tell the committees that North Korea was helping Syria build a plutonium-fueled reactor.

This is just one more issue that has been mismanaged and fumbled by this inept and ineffectual administration. Here is hoping the other parties to the talks can keep it together until January, when we can send competent representation to the table.

Update I - Pale Rider

Here's where it would be fairly obvious to state that a US State Department, run by the likes of Bill Richardson, would definitely be an improvement.

Victor Davis Hanson - Let's Take a Look, Shall We?

Why not take a column from last month and refute some wingnuttery for fun on a rainy Tuesday morning?

VDH is in the italics and the red is my commentary plus a whole slew of factoids and whatnot culled from the Internets. Throw your best bits into the comments and see if you can come up with better stuff that refutes VDH.

October 18, 2007
Congress's New Role: Undermining U.S. Foreign Policy (by Victor Davis Hanson)

The president establishes American foreign policy and is commander in chief. At least that's what the Constitution states. Then Congress oversees the president's policies by either granting or withholding money to carry them out - in addition to approving treaties and authorizing war.
Apparently, the founding fathers were worried about dozens of renegade congressional leaders and committees speaking on behalf of the United States and opportunistically freelancing with foreign leaders.

[Actually, the Founding Fathers were far more concerned about a renegade Executive, and created the Congress in Article 1 of the Constitution to give that institution the power to hold in check any effort to steer this country towards ruin. ]

In our past, self-appointed moralists - from Charles Lindbergh and Joe Kennedy to Jimmy Carter and Jesse Jackson - have, from time to time, tried to engage in diplomacy directly contrary to the president's.
But usually Americans agree to let one elected president and his secretary of state speak for the United States abroad. Then if they're displeased with the results, they can show it at the ballot box every two years in national or midterm elections.

[No, they don't. "My job as majority leader is be supportive of our troops and to try to have input as decisions are made and to look at those decisions after they're made ... not to march in lock step with everything the president decides to do."-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)]

But recently hundreds in Congress have decided that they're better suited to handle international affairs than the State Department.

[Yeah, we've heard that before. "I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"--Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)]

The U.S. Senate late last month passed a resolution urging the de facto breakup of wartime Iraq into federal enclaves along sectarian lines - even though this is not the official policy of the Bush administration, much less the wish of a sovereign elected government in Baghdad.
That Senate vote only makes it tougher for 160,000 American soldiers to stabilize a unitary Iraq. And Iraqis I spoke with during my recent trip to Iraq are confused over why the U.S. Congress would preach to them how to split apart their own country.

[Anything that puts an end to the ethnic cleansing in Iraq would have to be an improvement over what is going on right now. In fact, it's probably too late to stop the ethnic cleansing. But wait a minute--what do the Iraqis think?
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani endorsed a plan gaining support in the U.S. Congress to divide Iraq along ethnic lines into three separate regions under a limited central government. [snip] “I think the resolution passed by the Senate is a very good one,” Talabani said today on CNN’s “Late Edition” program. “It is insisting on the unity of Iraq, of the security of Iraq, of the prosperity of Iraq, of national reconciliation and asking our neighbors not to interfere in the internal affairs of Iraq.”]

Then, last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a resolution condemning Turkey for genocide against the Armenian people, atrocities committed nearly a century ago during the waning years of the Ottoman Empire.
If the entire House approves the resolution, the enraged Ankara government could do everything from invade Iraqi Kurdistan - in hot pursuit of suspected Kurdish guerrillas - to curtail U.S. over-flight privileges and restrict use of American military bases in Turkey.

[This has been going on for quite a while and has nothing to do with current policies. Long before the US invaded Iraq, Turkey was sending troops into Northern Iraq. "In recent weeks, the Turkish military has deployed thousands more troops and 100 tanks along the border with Iraq, ostensibly for exercises that have been billed as a routine reinforcement for an expected spring PKK offensive. But this buildup is causing speculation that Turkey could repeat past incursions, such as a 1995 operation that lasted for months and a 1997 attack that brought 50,000 Turkish troops deep into Iraqi territory. ]

This new falling-out could interfere with supplying our soldiers in Iraq. And it complicates a myriad of issues, from the NATO alliance to Turkey's bid to join the European Union.
The speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, earlier this year took another hot-button foreign-policy matter into her own hands when she made a special trip to reach out to Syria's strongman, Bashar Assad.

[The AP reports, “Earlier this month, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey held talks with a senior Syrian diplomat on how Damascus was coping with a flood of Iraqi refugees, the first such talks in the Syrian capital for more than two years.”]

That visit to Damascus was played up in the government-run Syrian press as proof that ordinary Americans don't feel that Syria is a state sponsor of terrorism. Never mind that the Assad dictatorship helps terrorists get into Iraq to kill American soldiers, is suspected of involvement with the assassinations of journalists and democratic leaders in Lebanon, and recently had bombed by the Israelis a facility reported to contain a partially built nuclear reactor.

[Late 2006: Sen. Arlen Specter, a 26-year Senate Republican, said he will visit Syria despite loud objections by the Bush administration, contending the situation in Iraq is so dire that it is time Congress step up to the plate and see what it can do. Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview late Friday that he is planning a trip to the Middle East that will include Israel and Syria. The senator said he and other Republicans are concerned that the administration's policies in the Middle East are not working and that other GOP members may follow in his footsteps.
"I've talked to my Republican colleagues, and there is a disquiet here," Specter said.]

What are we to make of a Congress that now wants to establish rather than just oversee U.S. foreign policy? Can it act as a foil to the president and so give our diplomats leverage abroad with wayward nations: "We suggest you do x, before our volatile Congress demands we do y?"
Maybe - but any good is vastly outweighed by the bad. Partisan politics often drive these anti-administration foreign policies, aimed at making the president look weak abroad and embarrassed at home.

[The Republican House, guided by then Majority Whip Tom DeLay, actually voted 213-213 against paying the cost for U.S. military involvement while our troops were on the ground. Forty Republican Senators also voted against that funding bill.]

House representatives too often preach their own district politics, less so the American people's interest as a whole. What might ensure their re-election or win local campaign funds isn't necessarily good for the United States and its allies.
And too often we see frustrated senators posture in debate during televised hearings, trying out for the role of chief executive or commander in chief. Most could never get elected president - many have tried - but they seem to enjoy the notion that their own under-appreciated brilliance and insight should supersede the collective efforts of the State Department.

[What State Department? The one run by Condoleeza Rice couldn't get two people to talk to each other at a blabbermouths anonymous meeting. The Republicans have ruined the State Department, and left America with a crippled foreign policy establishment. From the Carnegie Endowment: "The gutting of the State Department dates back to the 1990s, when a Republican Congress, looking at a post-cold war world, slashed its personnel numbers by roughly one third. Several blue-ribbon studies revealed that the U.S. government cut funding for foreign affairs programs from over $5 billion in 1996 to $3.64 billion in 2000 (in 1996 dollars). According to one report, these cuts also resulted in "decrepit facilities" at U.S. embassies that put American diplomacy "near a state of crisis."]

So they travel abroad, pass resolutions and pontificate a lot, but rarely have to clean up the ensuing mess of their own freelancing of American foreign policy.

[In 1999, this was the position of Rep. John Kasich: Kasich opposes all U.S. intervention in Kosovo under current circumstances, a spokesman for the Ohio Republican told CNN. Most recently, Kasich has urged the Clinton Administration to pursue mediation with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic rather than escalate the conflict. Though Kasich has been labelled an isolationist, he has in the past supported Clinton's bombing of terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Iraq. But in this case he told TIME magazine: "A great power has to have the discipline not only to go when necessary but to know when not to go ... Getting involved in ethnic, religious civil wars is a recipe for disaster." ]

Congress should stick to its constitutional mandate and quit the publicity gestures. If it is unhappy with the ongoing effort to stabilize a unified Iraq, then it should act seriously and vote to cut off all funds and bring the troops home.

["You can support the troops but not the president" -Representative Tom Delay (R-TX).]

If the House wants to punish Turkey for denying that its Ottoman forefathers engaged in a horrific genocide, then let congressional members likewise deny funds for our military to stay among such a genocide-denying amoral host.

[Depending on who you talk to, Republicans have never really been consistent when it comes to the slaughter of people. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma said [in 1999] last week that he would oppose a NATO bombing campaign "unless and until the Serbs really begin a very significant massacre against the people in Kosovo."]

If Speaker Pelosi believes that Syria is not a terrorist entity but a country worth re-engaging diplomatically, then let her in mature fashion introduce legislation that would resume full American financial relations with our new partner Damascus.
Otherwise, it's all talk - and dangerous talk at that.

[A U.S. Republican congressman met President Bashar Assad on Thursday, a day after a visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, spurning the White House policy of isolating the Syrian leadership. Congressman Darrell Issa of California said U.S. President George W. Bush had failed to promote the dialogue that is necessary to resolve disagreements between the United States and Syria. "That's an important message to realize: We have tensions, but we have two functioning embassies," Issa told reporters after separate meetings with Assad and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem.]

Cranking Up the Mighty Wurlitzer

As they always do when they have no facts or precedent to make their case, the right-wing noise machine has been cranking non-stop in an effort to smear Nancy Pelosi and her trip to the Middle East.

None of the sources criticizing Pelosi has mentioned the five Republican congressmen who were in the Middle East this week and who also met with the Syrian president.

To hear them tell it, Ms. Pelosi is setting up a shadow presidency and only wants to embarrass the idiot in the oval. The ABC website actually implied criminality might be charged.

Please.

I would like to refer those screaming the loudest to 1997, when two different Speakers of the House truly did usurp presidential authority:

From Digby:

In 1997, Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) led a delegation to Colombia at a time when U.S. officials were trying to attach human rights conditions to U.S. security assistance programs. Hastert specifically encouraged Colombian military officials to “bypass” President Clinton and “communicate directly with Congress.”

…a congressional delegation led by Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) which met with Colombian military officials, promising to “remove conditions on assistance” and complaining about “leftist-dominated” U.S. congresses of years past that “used human rights as an excuse to aid the left in other countries.” Hastert said he would to correct this situation and expedite aid to countries allied in the war on drugs and also encouraged Colombian military officials to “bypass the U.S. executive branch and communicate directly with Congress.”

Subsequently, U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Myles Frechette sent a cable complaining that Hastert’s actions had undermined his leverage with the Colombian military leadership.

In other instances, Hastert actually guided congressional staff to unilaterally reach deals with Colombian officials:

House Foreign Affairs Committee staff, at the direction of the Hastert group, would fly to Colombia, meet with the nation’s anti-narcotics police and negotiate the levels and terms of assistance, the scope of the program and the kinds of equipment that would be needed. Rarely were the U.S. diplomatic personnel in our embassy in Bogata consulted about the “U.S.” position in these negotiations, and in a number of instances they were excluded from or not even made aware of the meetings.

And from Glenn Greenwald:

This is, of course, totally different than the right-wing outrage scandal de jour:

New York Times, March 31, 1997 -- reporting on a trip to China by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one week after Vice President Al Gore's trip:

Speaking with startling bluntness on an issue so delicate that diplomats have tiptoed around it for years, Newt Gingrich said today that he had warned China's top leaders that the United States would intervene militarily if Taiwan was attacked.

As he left for Tokyo after a three-day trip to China, Mr. Gingrich said he had made it absolutely clear how the United States would respond if such a military conflict arose.

Referring to his meetings with China's leaders, Mr. Gingrich said: ''I said firmly, 'We want you to understand, we will defend Taiwan. Period.'"

He also said, ''I think that they are more aware now that we would defend Taiwan if it were militarily attacked.''

Mr. Gingrich, the Speaker of the House, delivered his message, among the most forceful ever given about Taiwan by a visiting United States official, to Wang Daohan, China's chief representative in talks with Taiwan. Mr. Gingrich said he had given the same message to President Jiang Zemin and Prime Minister Li Peng in Beijing last week.

Chinese leaders offered no public response to Mr. Gingrich today. But on Friday, Mr. Jiang urged him to treat the Taiwan issue with care. . . .

Asked about Mr. Gingrich's statements, a Clinton Administration official in Washington said Mr. Gingrich had received briefings about American policy toward China, but that Mr. Gingrich ''was speaking for himself'' in his conversations with Chinese leaders.

The White House issued a statement saying that the policy of the United States was to ''meet its obligation under the Taiwan Relations Act, including the maintenance of an adequate self-defense for Taiwan,'' and that the Administration would maintain its ''one-China policy, the fundamental bedrock of which is that both parties peacefully address the Taiwan issue. . . ."

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Gingrich said he had spoken with Mr. Clinton, and with Mr. Gore on several occasions, to make sure that their messages to Beijing dovetailed. At the time, he did not mention his message on Taiwan.

Several days later, Gingrich's remarks in China led to this -- New York Times, April 4, 1997:

China admonished the United States today to speak with one voice on foreign policy and accused Newt Gingrich of making ''improper'' statements on Washington's commitment to defend Taiwan from any military attack by the mainland.

The criticism was made by the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Shen Guofang, who earlier this week had expressed basic satisfaction with remarks made by Mr. Gingrich, the Speaker of the House, during a three-day visit to China.

The visit followed Vice President Al Gore's first trip to Beijing. Both men spoke on issues of contention between Washington and Beijing, but Mr. Gingrich's remarks were noteworthy for their directness and for exceeding the normal State Department formulations on American commitments to Taiwan.

China's decision to criticize Mr. Gingrich came after he traveled to Taiwan on Wednesday and met with President Lee Teng-hui.

Back then, the media treated Gingrich like he was the American Prime Minister, and his right-wing supporters had no problem with the House Speaker travelling and expressing his own foreign policy views which deviated from the Clinton administration's.

Desperate, ain’t they?

Meanwhile, I just love this bit from a Saudi paper:

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reminds us of the ambitious office worker surrounded by dunderheads who can't or won't get the job done. So she rolls up her sleeves and says for all the world to hear: 'Well, it looks like I'll have to do it myself.'

This is, of course, a non-issue. Just like the military jet was a non issue. I’m not a hyper-sensitive feminist, seeing misogyny in every shadow, but there just might be an element of that in this instance.

It’s a faux scandal because they have nothing real to object to. So they crank up the slime machine and slander the most competent politician working today because she is speaking truth to power, and it is scaring power shitless.

Good for her. I just think it's terribly sad that Speaker Pelosi had to give up her time off with her large Catholic family to do the job that Condi-the-incompetent has failed miserably at lo these many months.

IOKIYAR

How convenient…While the White House is jumping up and down, pounding on the table (which is what you do when the facts and the law are both against you) and all but accusing Nancy Pelosi of treason for her scheduled trip to Syria and planned meeting with Syrian leader Assad, they are failing to mention that not only is her trip bipartisan, but other Republican lawmakers are either currently visiting the country, or are scheduled to do so.

"I know that Assad probably really wants people to come and have a photo opportunity and have tea with him, and have discussions about where they're coming from, but we do think that's a really bad idea." That is White House spokeswoman Dana Perino in a press briefing held Friday, March 30.

Note that she did not criticize Republican lawmakers who were separately slated to visit Syria. In fact, on April 1, Reps. Frank Wolf (R-VA), Joseph R. Pitts (R-PA) and Robert Aderholt (R-AL) traveled to Damascus and met with Assad, two days before Pelosi's scheduled trip.

Yes. Nancy is downright treasonous in their eyes, but the Republicans who are sitting down to tea with Assad were not even mentioned.

Like I said – election be damned – I(s)OKIYAR – It’s (still) OK If You Are A Republican.