by Tina Grazier
The progressive approach in world affairs is to make friends, even with Americas sworn enemies. And how do we do that? We begin with a few words of praise:
some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iraniansthey decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilitiesthe Iranians. Nancy Pelosi
How Madam speaker arrived at this bizarre conclusion is beyond me. Its as if she thinks they were sitting at tea one day and suddenly thought to themselves, gosh, this game weve been playing in Iraq is not very nicelets just stop.
She obviously learned very little from her talks with President Maliki and General Petraeus during her recent visit to Iraq. Oh well, it’s clear that she is moving on…
Drawing from her own vast diplomatic experience, she is making a bid to pave the way for an Obama presidency. She has begun this process by attempting to smooth out the rift with Iran and Ahmadinejad. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle (see quote above) she praises Iran for the success of the surge in securing the recent cessation of hostilities thus snubbing President Maliki, the Iraqi military, President Bush, and last but not least, the United States military.)
But wait. Isnt the whole idea of peacemaking to ensure that all parties,everyone, feel included and welcome? Isnt the goal to create a world in which all countries just get along? Don’t we base this on the fact that all people are basically the same andyou know, connected? Dont we all deserve to be treated with equal amounts of kindness and praise no matter what?
Hmmmthere are definite holes in this line of thinking, at least in practice.
Meanwhile from Stockholm some semblance of sanity remains:
World leaders, including UN chief Ban Ki-moon and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on Thursday hailed Baghdad’s progress in combatting violence and stabilising Iraq. A declaration adopted by 100 delegations at a Stockholm conference said the participants “recognised the important efforts made by the (Iraqi) government to improve security and public order and combat terrorism and sectarian violence across Iraq.” Agence France-Presse
The bottom line is this: Iranian goodwill had little, if anything, to do with recent successes in Iraq. The Iranian position has been and continues to be strategic and politicalperiod. Pelosi can toss all the daisies she wishes at the feet of Ahmadinejad. He will wave and smile…trample on her daisiesand continue to hate the United States of America.
If there is a chance for an end to military operations in the Middle East it will come only because the enemy finally concludes that their decision to use violent acts of aggression against others is not a good way to achieve goals. The time to make nice with the enemy is when the enemy chooses to abandon aggressive, angry, violent, underhanded ways of dealing with othersand not before.