Rice Asks Syria To Close Its Border With Iraq

[Hissyspit]

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

MIDEAST
Rice asks Syria to close its border with Iraq
By Warren P. Strobel and Miret el-Naggar
McClatchy Newspapers

SHARM EL SHEIK, Egypt - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice broke more than two years' worth of diplomatic ice with Syria on Thursday, holding talks here with a top Syrian official in what amounts to a major diplomatic course change by the Bush administration.

Rice said afterward that the meeting, held on the sidelines of an international conference on Iraq, focused on U.S. demands that Syria close its border with Iraq to stem a flow of foreign fighters and arms that's helping fuel Iraq's sectarian violence.

Even on those limited terms, the half-hour meeting between Rice and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moualem marked a major shift for the Bush administration, which has repeatedly disparaged the need for such talks and criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for visiting Damascus last month.

Engagement with Syria and Iran was one of the major recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which urged President Bush to take a region-wide diplomatic approach by working to stabilize Iraq and secure Arab-Israeli peace. Bush and Rice appear to be accepting some of those recommendations.

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Read more: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17174769.htm

[Botany]

1. Ah, Condi the support for the Sunni rebels and for the foreign fighters ...

.... is from Saudi Arabia.

Lord Almighty bush & company screw it up and then look for
somebody else to blame.

[leftchick]

2. so where will the refugees go condi?

america?

[Theduckno2]

7. First thing I thought of too.

Especially after reading Riverbend's April 26, 2007 posting.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

The other thing that irritates me about this is that there is rarely anything said about the countries of origin for the foreign fighters. Bushco only seems to complain about the transit point, Syria.

[burrowowl]

8. Same thought came to my mind too. eom

[fshrink]

3. Can we even close our border with Mexico?

No. Why? Because nobody can "close" borders. More fluff from the exotic dancer and her marketing team.

[Amused Musings]

4. American Public

asks Rice to stop sending "enemy combatants" to Syria for torture.

[Strelnikov_]

5. Um, Condi, considering that only a thousand or so of the 100,000 insurgents in Iraq are foreign

fighters, I really don't see how closing the border with Syria is going to make much of a difference. But, hey, that's just me.

Juan Cole: Not every gangster is mafioso, not every violent Salafi is al-Qaeda

http://www.juancole.com/index.html

The US military and politicians made a key mistake when they saw the North Vietnamese Communists of Ho Chi Minh as primarily Communists, when in fact they were Vietnamese nationalists. It was the nationalist component that proved so attractive to many of their collaborators in the south. After the North Vietnamese Communists took over they almost immediately had a firefight with Communist China. It would be tragic if the US makes another such error in Iraq. Bush and Cheney speak as though the enemy there is a terrorist international, a stateless al-Qaeda dedicated to establishing an Islamic superstate and bringing down the United States. That is 99.99 % wrong. Almost all those fighting in Iraq are Iraqi nationalists. Just as Communist Vietnam posed no real threat to the US and was of little use to other Communist states as an ally, so a post-US Iraq would be a country of Iraqi nationalists (with, admittedly, ethno-religious subnationalisms playing either a decisive or an important role).

. . .

Al-Qaeda is technically defined as persons who have given their fealty to Usama Bin Laden and who have been given an operation to do by him. It is sort of like being a "made man" in the Cosa Nostra. Not every two bit gangster is a mafioso, and not every violent Salafi is al-Qaeda. A recent study by Gen. Barry McCaffrey suggested that there are in fact 100,000 insurgents (I prefer the term guerrilla) in Iraq, not the 20,000 to 25,000 usually estimated by the US military. Iraq's previous interior minister estimated the number of foreign fighters in Iraq at less than a thousand. Most of these are Salafi Jihadis of one sort or another (revivalist Sunnis). So 99,000 insurgents are Iraqis. And none of them is al-Qaeda in the sense of being loyal to the organization or fighting for Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. They are fighting for some vision of the Iraqi nation, whether inflected by religion or not.

. . .

One reason for which Baathists and Sunni Arab nationalists are most often ignored as key components of the insurgency is that it suits everyone. The Baathis are doing horrible things, and don't want the credit for them. The radical Sunnis are small groups and do want credit, so they claim it and the Baathis don't contradict them. And, the Bush administration is ecstatic every time "al-Qaeda" takes credit for the violence in Iraq. That makes it easier for them to claim the Iraq War as part of their 'war on terror.' When al-Zarqawi was killed in spring of 2006, it didn't have the slightest impact on the vigor of the insurgency. Ipso facto, he wasn't behind that much of it.

. . .

Iraqi Sunni fundamentalists such as the 1920 Revolution Brigade are not al-Qaeda. In fact, their name shows them to be Iraqi nationalists, since it refers to the 1920 revolution against British colonialism. Al-Qaeda is against country nationalism, emphasizing the Islamic ummah or community rather than individual nation states. The actual 1920 revolt, led by Shiites, would mean nothing to Bin Laden. This point is important because self-conception tells you about the scope of action of a group. The 1920 Revolution Brigade is all about getting rid of foreigners from Iraq. It isn't about international terrorism or hitting the US mainland. We don't have to worry about it if US troops leave Iraq. Its members will just heave a sigh of relief and go back to their ordinary jobs. If it or others keep trying to hit Shiites after the Americans leave, they will likely get themselves massacred. They aren't a danger to skyscrapers on the east Coast in the US.

[goclark]

6. Listen up Condi ~ click your Ferragamos and get the hell out

of there!

You don't know how to talk to people and you are a waste of time!

Click your heels Condi!