Posts Tagged ‘october surprise’

Obama’s foreign policy

Monday, September 15th, 2008

UPDATE: He also knows economic facts that no one else knows. Amazing !

Lately, we have seen a number of members of Congress, perhaps anticipating a change in the administration, taking it upon themselves to conduct private foreign policy. Nancy Pelosi visited President Assad of Syria in spite of requests not to do so. It didn’t go very well, but she was undiscouraged.

After a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that “Israel was ready to engage in peace talks” with Syria. What’s more, she added, Mr. Assad was ready to “resume the peace process” as well. Having announced this seeming diplomatic breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi suggested that her Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy was just getting started. “We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria,” she said.

Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message.

Oh well. You can’t blame a girl for trying.

Potentially far more serious, is candidate Obama’s attempt to negotiate with the Iraqi government. Remember the alleged “October surprise” that had George Bush I supposedly asking the Iranians not to release the hostages before the election in 1980 ? Well, Obama apparently decided that he would try the same tactic, even if the other story was fantasy.

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

“He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington,” Zebari said in an interview.

Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops – and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its “state of weakness and political confusion.”

I guess he is that threatened by any progress in Iraq that he is actively trying to impede it. I wonder if anyone will care?