In the Lion's Den_ An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle With Syria - Andrew Tabler [86]
At the offices of Syria Today, the staff was elated. Only a little over a year before, Damascenes had whispered about power struggles at the top and Bashar’s possible fall from power as the chaos following the Hariri murder swept the country’s political scene. Pelosi’s visit, combined with America’s failing prospects in Iraq and the 2006 Lebanon War, strengthened the idea in Syria that Bashar was once again a political horse worth betting on. When an invitation to the US embassy showed up at Syria Today for the delegation’s reception, Leila slapped the invitation against the palm of her hand, looked at me, and said, “The Americans are coming!”
The next day, the streets of Damascus were blocked off as Pelosi’s motorcade whizzed along the main route to Damascus’s Souk al-Hamidiyya, the main covered market where Syrians had peddled their wares for centuries. Syrian television showed Pelosi, along with the rest of the delegation, browsing through the market stands, smiling and meeting Syrian shop owners. It also showed clips of Pelosi meeting with President Assad at the Republican Palace overlooking the Syrian capital.
What exactly transpired in the talks was open to interpretation. Pelosi told reporters after the meeting that she had brought a message from Prime Minister Olmert that he was “ready to engage in peace talks” with Syria and that the delegation expressed its “interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria.” In a New York Times article, Pelosi and her delegation were quoted as urging Assad to stop his support for militants, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and jihadi fighters to Iraq. The House Committee on Foreign Affairs chairman Tom Lantos—long a critic of Syria and a chief backer of tightening sanctions on Syria—said that he asked Assad how a man “of his intelligence and knowledge of the world could have common cause with President Ahmadinejad of Iran, who has denied the Holocaust and calls for the elimination of Israel.” Pelosi added that “we came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace.”
Pelosi’s statements immediately drew criticism from Bush himself. “Sending delegations hasn’t worked,” he said. “It’s just simply been counterproductive.” A little later, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe was more blunt: “Unfortunately, that road [to Damascus] is lined with victims of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the victims of terrorists who cross from Syria into Iraq. It’s lined with the victims in Lebanon, who are trying to fight for democracy there. It’s lined with human rights activists trying for freedom and democracy in Syria.”11
Pelosi’s statements also drew qualified criticism from Israel as well. Olmert’s office issued a statement almost immediately after Pelosi’s press conference saying that “although Israel is interested in peace with Syria, that country continues to be part of the axis of evil and a force that encourages terror in the entire Middle East.”
At a reception that night at the US ambassador’s residence in Abou Roumaneh, Damascus’s elite rubbed shoulders with the delegation, whose members whispered to the diplomats about the possibility of lifting US sanctions on Syria and the need for more delegations. It was a far cry from the tense atmosphere a year earlier, when Syrians invited to US embassy functions received calls from Syrian security officers ordering them not to attend, which was an apparent attempt at revenge for US isolation of the Syrian embassy in Washington.
The next morning, the lead editorial of the Washington Post, entitled “Pratfall in Damascus,” attacked Pelosi—it accused Pelosi of falling for Assad’s “propaganda” by quoting a statement from Olmert’s office that said, “A number of Senate and House members who recently visited Damascus received the impression that despite the declarations