No Pelo-phany on Road to Damascus

Both left and right agree that Nancy Pelosi’s bumbling journey to Damascus was an embarrassment.

Writes the Washington Post editorial writer:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad.

 And from the right John Podhoretz:

On the road to Damascus, St. Paul became one of the revolutionary figures of world civilization.
Nancy Pelosi - not so much.

OK, so everyone makes mistakes, and suggesting that Israel was ready to negotiate peace with Syria was not Nancy Pelosi’s finest hour.

But there’s a bigger question here.  Obviously this trip to Damascus was not just a sudden brainstorm in the head of the speaker.  It was probably set up months ago as an interlocking piece in the puzzle of Victory 2008.

Are we to understand that the Democrats are starting to believe their own demagoguery, that the only problem in the Middle East is the blundering incompetence of President Bush?

The subtext on Speaker Pelosi’s trip is that all that is needed to solve the problem between Israel and Syria is the will to find peace.

I guess that is unremarkable coming from a Democrat, since that is what Democrats keep telling us they believe.  The only thing preventing peace is the “cycle of violence” that makes macho men keep on warring when they could be jawing.

But there’s a problem with such a Pollyanna view of international relations.  Says the Washington Post:

As any diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug[.]

This cycle of violence notion is all very well in polite liberal circles, but we are dealing with thug dictators here.  Power and thuggery, bloodshed and violence is the very life of thug dictatorship. Not peace.

Any of these thug dictators could, whenever they want, throw the whole thing up and go live in Paris—you know, right next to the widow of Yasser Arafat.

But they don’t.  They prefer power.  And making fools of foolish American politicians.