Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice disappointed a lot of Russians who thought that they might get the chance to see her don ice skates before she left after her recent visit. Wisely, she demurred. Had her “on ice” performance been anything less than perfection, the most embarrassing moment would have been turned into “Condi’s ice follies” and been plastered on front pages around the globe. (”One diplomatic encounter - and hold the ice,” Independent Online, South Africa) Likewise, she is downplaying her chances of success in the Middle East as she heads toward the region for this week’s shuttle diplomacy. (CTV, Canada)

However, in light of recent events in Syria — an Israeli air strike on a military installation that apparently was a site being used to further Syria’s nuclear ambitions — it is astonishing that Condi’s trip is even taking place. More astonishing is the deafening silence from all sides after the fact.  (NYT, “Israel Struck Syrian Nuclear Project, Analysts Say”)

The silence indicates; that other than the likes of Iran’s Ahmadinejad, Al Qaeda, Saudi Arabia’s hard line Wahabis, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc.; there might be a small ray of sanity illuminating the Middle East.

• Syria’s quiet because it doesn’t want to publicly acknowledge that their air defenses are obviously ineffective.
• Israel’s quiet for security reasons surrounding this highly classified mission.
• Many other Arab states, after perfunctory anti-Israeli rhetoric, just wish that the issue would go away and not serve as a cause celeb for further radicalization of their citizens.
• The “Euro-wimps” are muted because they don’t want their own Islamic radicals to take to the streets.
• The Russians don’t want to draw attention to the fact that their military hardware is second-rate.
• The United States wants to remain honest brokers for a Middle East peace — so no crowing about the Israelis and their US military hardware (rumored to have been tweaked by the Israelis) has been permitted. Even the liberal US mainstream media has been relatively silent. They don’t want to admit that military action can accomplish anything.
• And most importantly, the collective silence indicates that there is at least a tacit understanding that a nuclear conflict in the Middle East would have no winners — at least for those who don’t see themselves as an instrument of prophecy, like Ahmadinejad, for whom nuclear annihilation is a foreign policy goal.

For those of us that grew up with fallout shelters, the birth of the Emergency Broadcast System, nuclear attack drills at our schools, and MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) as facts of life; we knew that there might be hope for the future when we saw Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev in Iceland shaking hands and pop radio started playing Sting’s hit song Russians, whose refrain is: I hope the Russians love their children too. (Click here to listen to audio excerpt.) Let’s hope for some similar reassuring developments about the Middle East in the near future — the fruits of Condi’s efforts, and in spite of “amateur hour” diplomatic meddling and political grandstanding, like Nancy Pelosi’s summer visit to Damascus. Perhaps, at this moment in history, there are enough inhabitants of the Middle East that love their children to overcome those that don’t in the pursuit of peace.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 4:18 am and is filed under Condoleezza Rice, Israel, Middle East, Nancy Pelosi, Russia, Secretary of State, Syria. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.