Middle East Travels - UPDATED
UPDATE: Tomorrow, Senator Kerry will be LIVE on the TODAY Show at 7:05 am EST from Damascus, Syria to discuss his trip to Iraq and the Middle East. We hope you all can tune in.
UPDATE 2: MSNBC Video of JK’s Interview with David Gregory on the Today Show
JK has been busy this week. 
In Lebanon, he and Sen. Dodd met with a number of Lebanese leaders. The Boston Globe/AP reported:
<!Sen. John Kerry, on a visit to Lebanon Monday, called for moving away from “the ideologies of extremism” and urged political reconciliation among rival factions to resolve the country’s deepening political crisis.
Kerry and Senator Christopher Dodd met Monday with anti-Syrian Lebanese leaders as well as an ally of the militant group Hezbollah to discuss the crisis a day before the pair head to neighboring Syria.
U.S.-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, who is facing large street protests by the Hezbollah-led opposition to demand his resignation, briefed the Democratic lawmakers on his government’s efforts to deal with the crisis, the National News Agency reported.
The senators also met Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally. But no details of their talks were disclosed.
“We are very, very admiring of the courage of those political leaders who are looking for reconciliation,” Kerry told reporters after meeting Defense Minister Elias Murr. In an apparent reference to Hezbollah and its allies, he urged the parties to distance themselves from “the ideologies of extremism” to help promote a political solution.
Per the Boston Globe, “The U.S. lawmakers are expected to hold talks with Assad, who is currently on a two-day visit to Moscow and is due back home on Wednesday.”
“The diplomatic push from Congress comes on the heels of a recommendation by a bipartisan panel that the U.S. engage Iran and Syria on the war in Iraq. Bush has expressed reluctance to seek help from Damascus on Iraq until the Syrians curb their support to radical Palestinian groups and to the Lebanese Hezbollah.”
But despite the well-publicized reluctance of the White House to consider any dialogue with the Syrian government, The Hartford Courant reports that Senator Dodd “will be armed with questions from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Dodd would not say what she wants to ask, only that “I asked [Rice] for specific questions and she gave them to me. I said I’d call her and tell her the answers to those questions,” Dodd said.”
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Good to hear this news. I’ve wondered what is going on and it’s difficult to sit quietly by and wait.
Especially because I’m feeling particularly discouraged by the reports of a ‘surge’ of soldiers being sent to Iraq.
It makes no sense to me. The only thing I can figure out is that this is Bush’s lame attempt to save face—as if another dead body or two thousand along the way isn’t such a big deal.
I know John Kerry has gone to the funerals which George Bush hasn’t. I believe that’s one reason why John Kerry is willing to actually use diplomacy and why George Bush is willing to send more sacrifices to the volcano.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m just in a particularly depressive mood tonight, but I believe that it boils down to one word: PRIDE.
Bush has too much pride. He’s willing to let others die rather than to appear as a failure in any diplomatic attempt. He’s got so much pride, he’s refused to see that his lies have caught up to him and that he is a failure as a man, as a president, and as a war leader.
John Kerry has pride too. Make no doubt about that. Except the pride is in the fact that our country could and should be doing a better job. He’s got pride in the troops—that they are there serving as they’re asked and honored for—but that pride also means that he wants them to be assured that he and other Congressmen (women) intend to do a better job of taking care of them.
It takes a lot of pride to put yourself out there when the right-winged media is ready and willing to lie about your words or actions, but you have to have a big strong heart and lots of pride in your heart for what you can be and what your country can be to put aside the fear and to just do it.
I look forward to hearing from Senator Kerry and Senator Dodd. There are few politicians I trust. And I know they’ll tell us the truth.
Awesome news. I’ve been waiting for Sen Kerry to be interviewed during his trip to the ME.
Thanks for the heads up.
What’s up, anyway, with the WH supplying Dodd with questions, then complaining about their fact finding trip? I hope Dodd straightens this out. It’s about time someone went to Syria to have a discussion. Many thanks to both senators for having the courage to do this.
GV,
I don’t know what’s up with that. Last I heard the media and Snow were dissing them for going. It’s really either more incompetence—ie. the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing—or they’re just plain liars.
Either scenario stinks.
I’d go with “they’re just plain liars”.
Thanks for the update Vi. Great to see JK doing what the white house should have been doing all along.
Every day lately we are reminded of what a great President we’d have now, if only….
I always trust the judgment and diplomatic finesse of John Kerry. Sometimes telling us what we don’t want to hear. This effort is giving me much satisfaction and confidence that he is pursuing the best possible course.
The Senate resistance to the Kerry/Feingold amendment had more to do with Dem leadership wrongly misjudging the mid-terms. Just like in 2002, with the IWR, taking foreign relations off the agenda in favor of kitchen table issues.
I fear many are playing more to the McCain and Rove 2008 trap of having asked for more troops, and our getting blamed for not complying, than doing what is best in diplomacy and withdrawal.
We are losing lives, and election momentum, if we don’t change course come January.
Thanks to both of our Senators.
That’s a good point, GV, and it’s one that’s conveniently left out of the narrative by the people who keep trying to trash Senators Dodd and Kerry and the others who are making trips to the Middle East like this one.
Members of the legislative branch traveling abroad on fact-finding missions like these (which are a legitimate part of their duties with the SFRC) are always accompanied by State Department officials at every step of the way. They request and are provided with specific questions and talking points that the State Department wants to be be sure are covered in their meetings with foreign officials. Everything they say and do is reported back to Washington in real time, and the White House is always monitoring their movements and the things that are said in all their deliberations.
So how those on the right can keep claiming without cause that people like Senator Kerry are trying to use the legislative branch to make an end run around the executive branch by making such trips, or that they are trying to subvert the White House’s policies by refusing to speak with a united American voice abroad, is completely beyond me.
The only way the right-wing pundits and bloggerheads could continue to make such claims is if they were deliberately ignoring the facts in order to disseminate pre-manufactured spinning points designed to damage the Senators’ reputation while artificially enhancing the image of the White House.
But surely they wouldn’t ever try to do anything like *that*, would they?
I just watched Sen. Kerry on The Today Show—he was very vocal in pointing out the crisis in Lebanon. I think this goes back to what the King of Jordan warned of—3 civil wars in the Middle East. I am finding it very unfortunate that the WH and the right wing decided to attack Kerry, Dodd, and others for talking to Syria. Never mind the domestic politics, this tells me that the WH has no intention of doing much of any diplomacy.
Now I just read this:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1571751,00.html
Syria in Bush’s Crosshairs
Exclusive: A classified document suggests the Administration is considering a plan to fund political opposition to the Damascus government. Some critics say it would be an unwarranted covert action
Shouldn’t we try to solve the problems in Iraq first? Do we really want 4 wars?
Just watched the interview. Senator Kerry was great, very focused!
The time delay and the fact that Kerry was in Damascus made David Gregory’s questions about 2008 seem a little odd.