SORRY, REALISTS:

Bush firmly rejects Iran, Syria talks: President Bush rejected direct talks with Syria and Iran on the war in Iraq. But not dealing with Syria could hurt White House plans to reignite Palestinian-Israeli talks, experts said. (WILLIAM DOUGLAS AND WARREN P. STROBEL, 12/21/06, mcclatchydc.com)

President Bush on Wednesday expressed his strongest opposition yet to talking directly to Iran and Syria as other administration officials acknowledged secret U.S. funding of opponents to Syria's regime.

At a year-end White House news conference, the president insisted that he will not deal with Iran until it verifiably abandons its uranium enrichment program and won't talk with Syria until it stops interfering in Lebanon and Iraq. Both stands are rejections of a key recommendation made earlier this month by the Iraq Study Group. [...]

His strongest language Wednesday concerned Iran and Syria.

He called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government ''out of step'' with the rest of the world and chastised it for sponsoring a conference on the Holocaust that ``heralded a really backward view of the history of the world.''

'My message to the Iranian people is, `You can do better,' '' Bush said. As for Syria, he said, ``the message is the same.''

The guy's been president for six years now but there were still people who thought he'd shuck his democratic Evangelism for Realism?

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 21, 2006 8:59 AM