SURE, SHE ALIENATED ALL THE DEMOCRATS IN THE REGION...:

When a dilettante takes on Hizbullah (Michael Young, April 05, 2007, Daily Star)

We can thank the US speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for having informed Syrian President Bashar Assad, from Beirut, that "the road to solving Lebanon's problems passes through Damascus." Now, of course, all we need to do is remind Pelosi that the spirit and letter of successive United Nations Security Council resolutions, as well as Saudi and Egyptian efforts in recent weeks, have been destined to ensure precisely the opposite: that Syria end its meddling in Lebanese affairs.

Pelosi embarked on a fool's errand to Damascus this week, and among the issues she said she would raise with Assad - when she wasn't on the Lady Hester Stanhope tour in the capital of imprisoned dissidents Aref Dalila, Michel Kilo, and Anwar Bunni - is "the role of Syria in supporting Hamas and Hizbullah." What the speaker doesn't seem to have realized is that if Syria is made an obligatory passage in American efforts to address the Lebanese crisis, then Hizbullah will only gain. Once Assad is re-anointed gatekeeper in Lebanon, he will have no incentive to concede anything, least of all to dilettantes like Pelosi, on an organization that would be Syria's enforcer in Beirut if it could re-impose its hegemony over its smaller neighbor.

...but the Ba'athists love her!

MORE:
Pelosi Abroad: The new speaker stumbles in Syria. (Fred Barnes, 04/05/2007, Weekly Standard)

SOMETHING GETS INTO political leaders when they take over Congress. It makes them think they can run Washington and the government from Capitol Hill. So they overreach, but it never works. Republicans tried it in 1995 and were slapped down by President Clinton in the fight over the budget and a government shutdown. Now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is operating as if she rules much more than just the House of Representatives. This includes having her own foreign policy, a sure recipe for trouble.

Indeed, trouble is exactly what she's created on her first trip overseas in her position as next in succession for the presidency, behind the vice president. Pelosi's visit to Damascus for talks with Syrian president Bashir Assad showed her ill-equipped to deal with the longstanding conflict between Israel and neighboring Arab states in the Middle East. She made three serious mistakes.
She made just one: leaving the Beltway.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 6, 2007 7:22 PM