that’s how representative tom lantos (d-san mateo) has described his diplomatic efforts with speaker pelosi to syria, and now this successful duo is considering bringing their road show to misunderstood iran. but wait a second…i thought that pelosi and her delegation were merely passing on the views of the bush administration. that’s what pelosi has said she was doing. no harm in that right? it shouldn’t be a secret at this point that speaker pelosi doesn’t approve of the way the bush administration is handling foreign policy, and especially iraq. if that’s the case, then what would be the point of pushing said foreign policy (which she derides as a “poverty of ideas“) in meetings with assad (and possibly ahmedinejad)? the bush administration has made its case why syria isn’t interested in making the kind of concessions the united states wants it to make in order to facilitate any serious negotiation between the two countries. now there are more reports that iran is actively helping the iraqi insurgency. these two countries aren’t interested in concessions unless the concessions are made by the united states. this shouldn’t be a hard concept to grasp, even for democrats like pelosi.

i am not suggesting that pelosi did something unprecedented in taking meetings with foreign heads of state without the approval of the white house, but it does raise a few red flags for me because of lantos’ comments about having an “alternative foreign policy”. it wouldn’t make sense for her to push what she sees as failed administration policies, so what exactly is she discussing with assad? i think it’s fair to ask questions about that, and if there are transcripts and audio clips available of their discussion that prove pelosi’s claims about that conversation, then there is no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get them and decide for ourselves.

tags: nancy pelosi, tom lantos, syria, iran