The road to Damascus

Scripps Howard News Service: Throughout most of President Bush's tenure, the White House kept a tight monopoly on U.S. diplomacy and the conduct of the war. And with compliant Republicans and cowed Democrats in Congress there was little to contradict that.
All that has changed.
The report of the Iraq Study Group, with its implicit criticism of the administration, forced Bush into a very public rethinking of his Iraq strategy, the results of which we are to learn next month.
And now, over White House protests, one U.S. senator has visited Syria and three more are planning to. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Fla., met last week with Syrian strongman Bashar Assad, a meeting Bush spokesman Tony Snow called neither appropriate nor helpful. Simply by Nelson's being there, Snow said, "the Syrians have already won a PR victory." (After the meeting, Nelson said of Assad, according to The New York Times, "I don't trust him at all," so it couldn't have been much of a PR victory.)
One of the ISG's recommendations was that the administration engage with Syria and Iran on the problem of Iraq. But the White House position is that there will be no direct talks with Syria until Damascus stops harboring terrorists, funding Hezbollah and Hamas and meddling in Lebanon.
"The point is that even lending a further specter of legitimacy to that government undermines the cause of democracy in the region," Snow said. Yet the U.S. and Syria maintain diplomatic relations although there is no U.S. ambassador in Damascus.
Like the ISG, the senators believe that while nothing may be gained by engaging with Syria there's nothing to be lost by trying. Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., are all planning to visit Syria.
It is clear evidence that with the changing fortunes in Iraq and the change in control of Congress, President Bush will no longer be the only voice on diplomacy and war strategy.