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Coincidences abound

More strange developments in the administration’s foreign policy initiatives. WSJ:

The White House said that President Bush sent a letter directly to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il seeking cooperation in implementing a pact to dismantle its nuclear arms in exchange for full normalized relations…On other fronts — particularly Iran, Syria and Lebanon — the Bush administration is also shifting tactics…

U.S. diplomats are seizing on the hope that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could use the intelligence report to open up talks with the West. “If they want to pursue our offers to negotiate, they now have the perfect face-saver,” said a U.S. official.

In addition to the report on Iran, Washington’s sudden opening to Syria and President Bashar Assad has also stunned many diplomats and foreign-policy analysts. For most of the past six years, the White House viewed Damascus as among its most intractable foes in the Middle East, charging it with supporting militant groups fighting in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. Many U.S. officials also believe Damascus was directly involved in the 2005 murder of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a charge Syria denies. In recent weeks, though, the U.S. has displayed a growing willingness to talk with Syrian leaders.

North Korea, Syria and Iran, and abrupt changes in the US approach. Hmmm. Is it all coincidence? What deep game, if any, is being played? And just where have we seen those three nations mentioned together elsewhere in recent days?

Count us in with Roger Simon. Our instincts say that something has happened, beneath the surface, and it is being acted upon rather than talked about. But we’ve been around the block enough to know that we could be absolutely wrong. Still….

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 1:09 am and is filed under General, Republicans, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Coincidences abound”

  1. gs Says:
    December 7th, 2007 at 7:18 pm

    It doesn’t take much surfing to learn that the Israelis are very unhappy. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs will visit them on Sunday.

    From a recent post here:

    Thus, one main question about the report is determining whether (a) a strategy is being acted out but not announced by the Bush administration, or (b) dangerous bumbling and internecine warfare is taking place among the administration and the intelligence community.

    I’ll seek refuge in the boilerplate that past performance may not be indicative of future results.

  2. gs Says:
    December 7th, 2007 at 7:45 pm

    Afterthought to my previous comment: I found David Horovitz’s Jerusalem Post piece worthwhile:

    Ehud Olmert was notably expansive on pretty much every issue during the briefings he gave to the Israeli journalists who traveled with him to and from Annapolis last week…

    Only on one issue did he clam up: his discussions with President Bush about the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program. He noted dryly that he and the president had been discussing this most critical of issues for a long time. He said vaguely that the latest conversations had been interesting. He emphatically did not repeat the assertion he frequently made until about a year ago – that he was confident Bush, one way or another, would ensure Iran did not attain nuclear weapons.

    (Of less interest to me is the commentary by Caroline Glick, who usually has valid points that are usually drowned out by the screech of her axe-grinding.)

  3. JMB Says:
    December 9th, 2007 at 5:34 pm

    I can only hope that the fear gnawing at my gut is just a momentary failure of confidence. But … I’m not a kid. I’ve lived enough years that experience informs these alarms. I’ve learned to pay attention to them. Most of the time, there is ample cause. Though Bush has been steadfast, there have been too many attitudes that cause him to actively undercut his own policies. I hope like hell I’m wrong. I want to be wrong.

    g.s., I agree about Glick. She has so much of value to say, that needs saying, but I’ve yet to read an article that couldn’t be cut by at least a third, sometimes more.

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