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Pelosi Meets Syrian President Despite Objections From Bush
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Before her meeting, President Bush criticized the visit, saying that sending delegations to Syria "doesn't work."
"It's simply been counterproductive," he said at a news conference Tuesday.
Vice President Cheney echoed that sentiment Wednesday, telling an ABC News radio interviewer that Assad has "been isolated and cut off because of his bad behavior. And the unfortunate thing about the speaker's visit is it sort of breaks down that barrier. It means without him having done any of those things he should do in order to be acceptable . . . he gets a visit from a high-ranking American anyway. In other words, his bad behavior is being rewarded, in a sense."
Pelosi's trip was the latest in a series of visits by U.S. lawmakers to Syria following the release in December of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group report, which recommended diplomatic engagement with Iran and Syria. There also has been renewed European attention to Syria, including a visit in March by Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief. The Bush administration itself joined a conference on Iraq in February with Syrian and Iranian diplomats.
Analysts say Syria is in part playing a waiting game, confident it will outlast the Bush administration. But its official media played up the symbolism of the Pelosi visit as a recognition of Syria's role in the region and a break in its isolation.
"The presence of the American speaker of the House in Damascus carries more than one meaning, the most important of which is convincing American officials of the importance of dialogue with Syria and its key role in the region," the state-run newspaper al-Thawra said in an editorial. "It is also a blunt recognition of the failure of the Bush administration's policy."
Pelosi's delegation also included Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Nick J. Rahall II (D-W. Va.), Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.), Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and David L. Hobson (R-Ohio).
The group arrived Wednesday afternoon in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, for a meeting with King Abdullah.
