If an army has to be there for your swearing-in, are you really the “elected leader”? Robert Gibbs said yesterday that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the “elected leader” of Iran, in spite of the fact that he had to have 5,000 security forces at his swearing-in ceremony, the opposition boycotted it, and his mentor, the Ayatollah Khameini, didn’t give him the victory kiss of congratulations the other day. Sucks to be you, Mad Mahmoud. (As for that “Smartest administration EVAH” thing—I’m thinking not.)

Billy Jeff goes to North Korea: President Clinton came through with the goods and got two American journalists out of the hell that is North Korea. As I am simply glad that he got them back, there is not much to snark about. Oh, of course there is. The North Koreans rejected the Obama administration’s first choice for mediator: Al Gore. Do you think it was the gasbag effect, or the Gore Effect? The good news is that Clinton didn’t do to Obama what Jimmy Carter did to him, and go off the reservation. We’re still paying for that trip.

News I really don’t care about: Paula Abdul is leaving American Idol. The fact is I have watched, perhaps, a total of ten minutes of the show since it first aired. The only “reality show” I’m finding myself at all interested in watching is Wipeout, because you get to go “Oooh!” “OW!” “That had to hurt!” and “No way are you going to make it!” at the TV when you watch it. Plus, it’s fun to watch people get knocked into the water over and over again. I can’t explain why. But it really is.

According to the sources, the aircraft was carrying a large number of modern fuses composed of 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of explosives and electrical instrumentation.

The report is in line with testimonies on explosion sounds heard before the crash. According to the sources, the plane was meant to transfer the fuses from Iran to Armenia, and from there to Syria through Turkey, and then on the ground to Lebanon. This route was chosen, according to exiled opposition sources, so as not to draw attention.

Chalk another one up to our terrorist buddies in Lebanon and Syria. And it’s just lovely that the Turks are complicit in this terror track as well. Why on earth shouldn’t we trust them to negotiate between Israel and Syria?

Another day, another mortar from Hamas: Gee, I thought they were building up their PR, not firing deadly weapons into civilian areas. And while they’re doing that, the peaceful, moderate Palestinians of the West Bank are still trying to murder civilians as they drive nearby. Funny how they never seem to come up when Obama is discussing obstacles to peace.

The real skinny on Syria: Tony Badran explains why Syria, contrary to the Obama administration’s view, is not the key to peace in the Middle East.

Alabama police tase a deaf and mentally disabled man for refusing to leave a store bathroom: Your police force at work, showing that not listening to police officers is a tase-able offense.

Weapons cache? What weapons cache? Lebanon is doubling down on the next war with Israel by (of course) siding with Hezbullah and insisting that the arms cache that exploded was arms “left behind by the Israelis.” Even the UN is unable to cover up this blatant violation of 1701. However, nothing will be done about it. You know it. I know it. The UN will manage to find a satisfactory excuse for allowing Hezbullah to keep arming south of the Litani, in violation of 1701, because, well, the UN is virulently anti-Israel. The Lebanese are placing themselves squarely at fault for anything that happens next. Old Chipmunk Cheeks has emerged (vocally, anyway) from his secure, nondisclosed location and threatened Tel Aviv. Not many people will remember this the next time Hezbullah invades Israel or sends rockets that way, and Israel goes after non-Hezbullah areas. But I will.

Speaking of Lebanon: The IDF built a Hezbullah city to train its troops for the next war. This, of course, is why the IDF will continue to succeed against Israel’s enemies. Well, that, and a little help from above.

U.K. groveling to Arab world: I’m currently reading Benny Morris’ 1948, and you know, the Brits haven’t really changed at all in regards to Israel. They’re currently expressing “regret” that they sold Israel arms that were used to defend herself in the Gaza war. It’s almost as if the Brits are really, really sorry they allowed any Jews to settle in their ancestral homeland at all. Oh. Wait.

U.S. groveling to Arab world: George Mitchell is in Syria, talking to the man who is responsible for the murder of American soldiers in Iraq, asking him to cut a peace deal with Israel. Here’s my prediction: Assad will not closed down the offices of Hamas and other terror groups in Damascus. He will not break ties with Iran. And he will not stop sponsoring Hezbullah and trying to run Lebanon. But he will, of course, blame Israel for the lack of peace in the Middle East, and demand the return of the Golan Heights, plus territory that never belonged to Syria in the first place. Why not? It’s worked all along. The world will not see Syria as part of the problem. Only Israel’s refusal to turn over the Golan. That would be the same Golan from which Assad’s father used to regularly shell Israeli civilians while they were working on their farms and living their lives.

Sarah Palin: Free at last. Sarah’s no longer governor of Alaska. Expect to hear even more from her now that her enemies can’t charge her every move with ethics complaints. Really, the SOB’s actually tried to say that her raising money for her defense against ethics charges was unethical. Can you say, “Set-up”? I knew you could.

Snakes in a drain: Just for something different, a 14-foot python was hiding in a storm drain in Florida. You know, the alligators are bad enough. I may never visit Florida again.

Another murder, another terrorist attack. Yeah. The Palestinians want peace. Really they do.

A keen grasp of the obvious: UN: Israel-Lebanon ceasefire fragile. Wow, that Ban Ki-Moon is one hell of a deep thinker, ain’t he?

Syria to Israel: We lost the war, so you must give us concessions. Actually, that’s the Arab way, isn’t it? We lost, so you have to do what we say. Really, it’s an Alice in Wonderland world view. Luckily, the Israel response can be summed up as: BWAHAHAHA!

Mubarak to Israel: Shalit is fine. Hamas to Mubarak: You don’t know nuffin‘. But they insist they’re not deliberately insulting Mubarak, so everything’s cool. Mind you, this is what happens every single time someone says Shalit is fine. All I will say is: He was shot in the stomach, and there has never been any proof that he’s still alive.

The acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, Jeffrey D. Feltman, informed Syria’s ambassador to Washington, Imad Mustafa, tonight of Obama’s intention, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision had yet to be made public.

By returning a senior U.S. envoy to Damascus, the Syrian capital, the Obama administration is seeking to carve out a far larger role for the United States in the region as the president works to rehabilitate U.S. relations with the Islamic world and the Arab Middle East.

Of course the decision to withdraw the American ambassador, wasn’t merely due to a fit of pique, but to protest a real problem.

The Bush administration withdrew its ambassador in February 2005 to protest the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri. Syrian intelligence officials are suspected of being behind the bombing in Beirut that killed him, a claim Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has long rejected.

Of course Assad’s rejected it. It doesn’t make him look good. And even if the recent Der Spiegel report is true that Hezbollah was responsible for the murder, it’s hard to believe that Hezbollah didn’t act with the cooperation of Syria.

So this is apparently the administration’s rationale.

The loss of U.S. diplomatic leverage in the region — because of opposition among many Arabs to the Iraq war and a perceived U.S. favoritism toward Israel — has left a vacuum in recent years filled in large part by Iran. The decision to return the ambassador to Syria, senior administration officials said, represents the restoration of a sustained U.S. diplomatic presence in a secular Arab country central to many U.S. interests in the region.

It’s only central if it cooperates with the United States. Back in March, the United States initiated contacts with Syria and presented conditions for changing its policy towards Syria.

A senior U.S. State Department official told the Lebanese daily Al-Nahar that during Feltman’s meeting with the Syrian ambassador to Washington, the former had brought up the issues of Syria’s support of terrorism, its efforts to obtain nuclear weapons, its involvement in Lebanon, and the deterioration of the human rights situation in Syria. [10] The Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reported that if Syria severed its ties with Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas, and other Palestinian factions that operate within its territory, the U.S. would be willing to play a role in Israeli-Syrian negotiations, to remove Syria from the list of states sponsoring terror, and to lift the sanctions currently imposed on it. [11]

The official Syrain response was:

After the commencement of the U.S.-Syria dialogue, spokesmen of the Syrian regime and articles in the Syrian press expressed the following positions:

· Syria has no intention of changing its policy and will continue to be part of the resistance camp. The U.S. is the one that must change its policy by lifting the sanctions imposed on Syria, appointing an ambassador to Damascus, and launching a dialogue with the resistance forces.

· In starting a dialogue with Syria, the U.S. has capitulated to the resistance and acknowledged the importance of Syria and Iran.

· The advent of the Obama administration does not herald an improvement in the relations with Syria.

Apparently Syria met none of the conditions that the Obama administration had earlier specified and the United States still has awarded Damascus with one of the prizes it sought. One would have assumed that Syrian support for terrorist organizations was a bigger threat to Middle East peace than Israeli settlements. Apparently the Obama administration has decided otherwise.

Remarkably, at a time when the Iranian regime is facing internal political pressures, the United States is going easy on its closest ally.

If Jimmy Carter’s boasts are true, the administration is also considering dropping the Quartet demands on Hamas. Hamas isn’t just a terrorist organization dedicated to Israel’s destruction it is also a major proxy of the Iranian regime in its efforts to project its influence across the Middle East.

If the administration really is intent on rehabilitation Syria and Hamas, it has really chosen a bad time to do it. It should be working to exert even more pressure on Iran not providing respite to the regime. Even if one believes (as I don’t) that President Obama’s Cairo speech has been responsible for stirring the citizen of Lebanon and then Iran to choose freedom, it’s hard to see how cozying up to Syria and Hamas promotes freedom.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Syria’s Tishrin newspaper said U.S. policies of isolation, blockades and sanctions adopted by the former U.S. administration “have put the United States in an intractable impasse.” It said Washington can reverse this path if it stepped up its role in promoting peace, security and stability in the Middle East.

The United States should get rid of “foolish policies and replace them with openness, dialogue and discussions through transparent practices, the foremost of which is an open and final reversal of the policy of sanctions against states and peoples,” the newspaper said in a front-page editorial.

Yes, the American decision to impose sanctions against Syria was arbitrary. Puh-leaze!

Despite the injured tone of the Syrian pronouncement, the Counterterrorism blog observes:

Continued Syrian involvement in the jihadi pipeline—a longstanding Syrian Government policy that was confirmed by the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia in October 2008 when it levied a $414 million dollar civil judgment against Syria for “providing material support and resources to Zarqawi and Al Qaeda in Iraq“—is not going to help the rapprochement with Washington.

Barry Rubin comments on the implications of Syria’s continued mischief:

So Syria is in fact in a state of war with the United States allied with Usama bin Ladin. This is confirmed by President Barack Obama’s own Defense Department. That’s Syria, the country intervening to put a client government in power in Lebanon, allied with Iran, smuggling weapons to Hizballah, being investigated for political murders in Lebanon by an international tribunal, prime sponsor of Hamas.

This is also the country which the United States and Europe wants Israel to give the strategic Golan Heights in exchange for…well it’s not clear what it’s in exchange for. Perhaps Syria’s promise only to sponsor terrorism against Israel only two weeks a month and just from Lebanese territory.

I think President Obama has an enemy on his hands. What’s he going to do about it? And why are we subjected to a continuous barrage of articles in the media and in international affairs’ journals about how Syria is moderate or can easily be made so?

Yes Syria’s hurt that the United States imposed sanctions. It’s fortunate that the American response hasn’t been stronger. Let’s get out some really small violins for the chinless opthamologist and his gang of thugs.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The revival of a transit route that officials had declared all but closed comes as the Obama administration is exploring a new diplomatic dialogue with Syria. At the same time, Washington remains concerned by Syrian activities — including ongoing support for the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as activities involving Iraq.

On Wednesday, acting Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey D. Feltman and National Security Council official Daniel Shapiro arrived in Syria for their second visit since Barack Obama’s inauguration as president. Two days later, however, Obama renewed U.S. sanctions against Syria, accusing Damascus of supporting terrorism in the Middle East and undermining Iraqi stability.

Then there’s little background info:

The Bush administration frequently criticized Syria for the transit of foreign fighters, suggesting that the authoritarian government of President Bashar al-Assad was involved in the traffic. But U.S. military and intelligence officials remained less certain.

“What we think right now is that we just don’t know how much their senior leaders know about the foreign fighter network,” said the senior U.S. military official, who discussed intelligence matters last week on the condition of anonymity. “As you can imagine . . . if they knew, it’s not something they would be talking about.”

“But we do think that the knowledge of these networks exists at least within the Syrian intelligence community,” he said. “What level, if it’s low or high up, we just don’t have a good gauge on.”

This dig against ex-President Bush is gratuitous. Of course the military source wasn’t specific. Even anonymously, he has to be careful about what he says. But Syria, is an authoritarian state, what are the chances that the leadership doesn’t know about the transfer of arms across its border?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

# U.S. diplomatic engagement with Syria comes at a particularly sensitive time, just a few months before the Lebanese elections, where the “March 14″ ruling coalition faces a stiff challenge from the Hizbullah-led “March 8″ opposition, and Washington has taken steps to shore up support for its allies.
# Should the U.S. dialogue with Damascus progress, Washington might consent to take on an enhanced role in resumed Israeli-Syrian negotiations. However, U.S. participation on the Syria track could conceivably result in additional pressure for Israeli concessions in advance of any discernible modifications in Syria’s posture toward Hizbullah and Hamas.
# Based on Syria’s track record, there is little reason to be optimistic that the Obama administration will succeed where others have failed. Washington should not necessarily be faulted for trying, as long as the administration remains cognizant of the nature of the regime. Damascus today remains a brutal dictatorship, which derives its regional influence almost exclusively through its support for terrorism in neighboring states and, by extension, through its 30-year strategic alliance with Tehran. .

Bret Stephens looks at the history and is skeptical that anything could come of such engagement and finds the risks involved troubling..

Elsewhere, diplomacy proved to be an exercise in frustration and diminishing returns, purchased at a considerable cost to U.S. diplomatic capital and Israeli self-respect. By the time the elder Assad was through, he had succeeded in showing the back of his hand to an American president, his secretary of state and an Israeli prime minister, among others. He did this while pocketing the Israeli concession of the mythical June 4 line and accustoming Israeli leaders to the idea that a “peace” with him would involve no real grant of legitimacy to the Jewish state, no hard guarantees of security, and no dramatic regional realignments of the kind that would make his frigid peace worth having. And he did all this while maintaining active and not-so-clandestine relations with terrorist groups, from Hezbollah to Hamas, which he did little to rein in and occasionally unleashed as part of a self-serving Jekyll-and-Hyde routine. Even Yasser Arafat, who did occasionally jail members of Hamas, looks somewhat better in comparison.

Put simply, while the peace process expanded Hafez Assad’s options, the same process reduced Israel’s. That goes double for his son, who would enter into a peace process with his father’s achievements as a baseline from which to seek further concessions. Mr. Indyk may believe that the mere resumption of a process without a serious expectation of a peace deal is some sort of achievement, but he fails to consider how it puts Mr. Assad in the enviable position of never having to engage that process with even minimal good faith. Which, in turn, amounts to an inducement for bad faith. How either the United States or Israel might benefit from this is a mystery.

For now, Syria seems firmly in the Iranian orbit.

Syria’s foreign minister says his country’s relations with Iran will remain strong.

Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem’s comments Monday appear to be directed at moderate Sunni Arab countries hoping to peal Syria away from its Shiite Persian ally.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Get a load of this jaw-dropping bias in the lead:

Families in this village near the Iraqi border buried loved ones Monday who they said were killed when the U.S. military launched a rare attack in Syrian territory. During the funerals, angry residents shouted anti-American slogans and carried banners reading: “Down with Bush and the American enemy.”

The Syrian government said four U.S. military helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction shortly before sundown Sunday in Sukkariyeh about five miles inside the Syrian border.

The government statement said eight people were killed, including a man and his four children and a woman. However, local officials said seven men were killed and two other people were wounded, including a woman among the injured.

An Associated Press journalist at the funerals in the village’s cemetery saw the bodies of seven men – none of them minors. The discrepancy could not immediately be explained.

They receive a report on the scene that utterly contradicts the lies of the Syrian government, and yet, they still publish those lies in the lead—before pointing out the “discrepancy” of the fact that only adult males were being buried. You know, the kind of people that generally go to Iraq to perform terrorist acts.

And once again, let me point out that most local newspapers publish only the first three to five paragraphs of AP world news articles. The truth is in the fourth paragraph.

The Associated Press: All the lies they see fit to print.