Pelosi's Inspiration

One point to be made about Speaker Pelosi's mission to Syria is that it is predicated on the assumption that the area's conflicts are linked. The point was made to us by our contributing editor, David Twersky, who sent us a wire yesterday noting that that it is an assumption that informed the Baker-Hamilton document on Iraq. "Baker-Hamilton," Mr. Twersky wrote, "declared that to resolve the Iraq crisis, America must produce a resolution of all of the long-simmering Arab-Israel disputes: ‘There must be a renewed and sustained commitment by the United States to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace on all fronts: Lebanon, Syria, and President Bush's June 2002 commitment to a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.'"

The problem with all this, in Mr. Twersky's view, is that Ms. Pelosi cannot cherry pick among Baker-Hamilton's recommendations. Baker-Hamilton had this to say about what we must demand of Syria: "full adherence to UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of August 2006, … full cooperation with all investigations into political assassinations in Lebanon, especially those of Rafik Hariri and Pierre Gemayel … A verifiable cessation of Syrian aid to Hezbollah and the use of Syrian territory for transshipment of Iranian weapons and aid to Hezbollah … use of its influence with Hamas and Hezbollah for the release of the captured Israeli Defense Force soldiers…A verifiable cessation of Syrian efforts to undermine the democratically elected government of Lebanon … A verifiable cessation of arms shipments from or transiting through Syria for Hamas and other radical Palestinian groups ... A Syrian commitment to help obtain from Hamas an acknowledgment of Israel's right to exist … Greater Syrian efforts to seal its border with Iraq." None of these conditions has been met. The only change is that Bashar Al-Assad now has a photo of himself with the speaker.