This man is a real neocon:Jim Lobe writes, “There is little doubt among Middle East analysts here that [Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott] Abrams is playing a lead role in White House efforts to discredit Pelosi for meeting with Assad,” just as he did in a similar incident in 1987.
UPDATE: “At the one and only meeting between Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador to the United States, and a White House official, one of President Bush’s closest advisers, Elliot Abrams, said the administration saw no good reason to ‘reward’ Syria by opening discussions.”
The same confusion was apparent at the White House, where National Security Council (NSC) official Elliott Abrams - the architect of US policy in the Middle East - was growing increasingly irritated with Rice's attempt to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks. Abrams, supported by officials in the Office of the Vice President, had consistently argued that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a morass better left in the hands of the Israelis. That viewpoint was clear from the first days of the administration of President George W Bush, when Vice President Dick Cheney knocked down any attempt to re-engage with Israelis and Palestinians.
A Republican Party stalwart describes Cheney's views in blunt terms: "People would come to Bush and say we have to get focus on the peace process, and Cheney would sit there and say, 'Mr President, don't do it. These people have been fighting for 50 years. To hell with them. And look at what happened to [former president Bill] Clinton when he tried. It just got worse.' And Bush would nod his head and that would be the end of the discussion."
The NSC's concerns over Rice had deepened with reports that she had gone directly to Bush on a number of foreign-policy issues, circumventing both Abrams and Cheney. While it is traditional for a US secretary of state to confer directly with a president, Abrams, Rice and State Department official David Welch (the assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs) had formed a seemingly unbreakable triumvirate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
2 comments:
If, as Josh Marshall seems to have found some evidence (albeit inconclusive), the White House actively conspired with Olmert to lie about the message delivered to Syria to make Pelosi look bad, it seems to me that could have repercussions for both CheneyBush and Olmert... but unfortunately also for the peace process and for us all.
IMHO, Cheney, as surely as Bush, is over the edge, and will do literally anything at this point. I'm covering my eyes but peeking through my fingers at what happens next.
I wonder if Cheney would melt if someone threw a bucket of water on him....
And Bryan: 'Pardon or no, you don't let child molesters become kindergarten teachers.' How many times do we have to relearn this?
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