ما الذي تعنيه زيارة بيلوسي

 الى دمشق بالنسبة للرئيس بوش

بقلم: مارك تران

صحيفة الجارديان - 4/4/2007

What Pelosi's road to Damascus means to Bush

Mark Tran  

Nancy Pelosi's trip to Damascus is not so much freelance diplomacy - something no president likes to see and which is forbidden by the 1799 Logan Act - as another telling sign of ebbing presidential power.

Through her peregrinations - Ms Pelosi was in Iraq in January - the House speaker is saying to Mr Bush that the balance of power is shifting away inexorably away from the White House and the Republicans to Congress and the Democrats.

A peeved George Bush has accused the House speaker of sending mixed messages to a country the US state department cites as a sponsor of terrorism - although there is some scepticism on this score.

But going by remarks she has made so far, Ms Pelosi sings from pretty much the same hymn sheet as Mr Bush. While in Lebanon , Ms Pelosi said she would tell Syrian leaders that Israel will talk to them only if Syria stops supporting Palestinian militants. She said she would also raise Syria 's roles in Iraq and Lebanon and its support for Hizbullah.

Hardly ground-breaking stuff, especially as James Baker, the Republican party's elder statesman, has already told the White House that it would be a good idea to talk to not just Syria but also Iran as a way of stabilising Iraq .

Both the House and the Senate have now set deadlines for the withdrawal of US combat troops in Iraq . Mr Bush has vowed to veto the measures setting up a clash over funding for America 's war effort.

As if these challenges to his Iraq policy were not enough, Mr Bush now has to put up with Ms Pelosi and other Democrats swanning around the Middle East , hobnobbing with foreign leaders and sightseeing in exotic capitals.

Forget the talks with the Syrian president Basher Assad; the fun bit of the trip must have been visiting the wondrous Umayyad mosque (brickbats from rightwing bloggers for wearing a headscarf) and wandering through the market in the old city.

Being feted overseas is normally a White House perk, so when Mr Bush stands in the White House rose garden and rails about mixed messages, the subtext is that he has been confronted by yet another intimation of political mortality and - understandably - he does not like it one bit.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2007/04/04/what_pelosis_road_to_damascus_means_to_bush.html

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نشرنا لهذه المقالات لا يعني أنها تعبر عن وجهة نظر المركز كلياً أو جزئياً

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من حق الزائر الكريم أن ينقل وأن ينشر كل ما يعجبه من موقعنا . معزواً إلينا ، أو غير معزو .ـ