Pelosi's visit highlights hypocrisy

This past week, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made headlines all over the world by visiting Syria to meet with President Bashar Assad. Pelosi’s message was one of peace: she pressured Assad to discontinue his government’s support of the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, and to engage in peace talks with Israel and throughout the region.

Unsurprisingly, the Bush administration quickly issued a strong rebuke of Pelosi, while right-wing commentators and their enablers in the mainstream media repeated and amplified lies and distortions about the trip itself.

It was a case of real, meaningful diplomacy being attacked for partisan gains and to reinforce the failed foreign policy stance of a failed presidency.

It began Wednesday, when Pelosi left Israel for Syria with a message of peace from the Israeli leadership: If Syria would terminate support for international terrorism, Israel would open peace talks. Immediately, President Bush released a statement saying any visit by Pelosi would be counterproductive, that it just “wouldn’t work.”

I would be glad if Bush could indicate to me a single way in which his administration’s attempts to bring peace to the Middle East are working.

The American occupation of Iraq has resulted in more than 600,000 dead Iraqis, 3,000 dead U.S. troops, and created a civil war between Sunni and Shiites that is spreading throughout the Middle East. The government offers selective, hypocritical support for some countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, while it completely rebukes and does not recognize others, like Syria, when all three countries have shown to be supporters of terrorist groups. This destroys any credibility the United States may have had, and worse, indirectly supports terrorism, which Bush administration claims to abhor.

Many in the shrill, right-wing blogs and opinion pages have accused Pelosi of undercutting the president’s diplomatic powers and overstepping Congress’ constitutionally prescribed abilities by visiting Damascus.

Leaving aside this administration’s treatment of the Constitution for an article or six, Pelosi’s visit to Syria was a direct step towards opening a dialogue of peace within the Middle East, one that is desperately needed and has certainly not materialized during George Bush’s presidency. According to The Washington Post, Pelosi’s dealings in Syria “have (not) strayed far, it at all, from those typical of a congressional trip.”

Those shrill voices on the right also neglect the fact that five Republican congressmen visited Syria this past week, some with the president’s blessing. I expect the political firestorm over these visits to begin any moment now.

No other aspect of this story illustrates the partisan hackism that is the right-wing opinion machine that the photos of Speaker Pelosi entering a mosque in Damascus wearing a headscarf, as is traditional for women. Many on the right were up in arms over these photos, claiming they gave the Syrians an air of domination, of control, over a visit by the third highest-ranking U.S. political officer.

These same voices must not have seen the numerous photos, which can be found on the White House’s own Web site, of First Lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wearing headscarves during diplomatic visits in the Middle East. If wearing a headscarf is a traitorous act, then I expect the calls for the resignation of the three most prominent women in the U.S. government to begin at any time.

What these critics fail to recognize is that respect for cultural and political traditions is vital to diplomacy, particularly on a visit to another country. The wearing of a headscarf by Pelosi was a sign of her willingness to work with the Syrian government towards a peace agreement in the Middle East.

Simply put, it is how diplomacy gets done.

Pelosi’s visit to Syria is a sign of world leadership that is so lacking in our current presidential leadership. The trip is the exciting first step towards a real, substantive peace process within the Middle East. It leaves me excited for the 2008 presidential election, when we as a nation can finally put some grown-ups back in the White House. It is entirely clear that this visit is what global leadership looks like.

Zach Austin is a political science junior and Mustang Daily political columnist.