Another first for Nancy Pelosi?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is already assured a place in history as the first woman to become Speaker of the House. Now some people want her also to become the first person ever prosecuted under the Logan Act of 1799.

The law is named after a man who, during the "Quasi-War" with France from 1798 to 1800, saw that official U.S. foreign policy channels were not producing much result and decided to see what he could do as a private citizen to negotiate an end to the hostilities. A Congressional Research Service report published in February 2006 explains the Act as follows:

The Logan Act was intended to prohibit United States citizens without authority from interfering in relations between the United States and foreign governments. There appear to have been no prosecutions under the Act in its more than 200 year history. However, there have been a number of judicial references to the Act, and it is not uncommon for it to be used as a point of challenge concerning dealings with foreign officials.

Speaker Pelosi overreached both her authority and her capabilities when she used her visits to Israel and Syria as an occasion to try and broker some sort of dialogue between the two countries. She has found herself discredited as a result.

But the Speaker's visit to Syria, in and of itself, was not harmful to U.S. foreign policy interests, and prosecuting her under this act is not the proper response for the Bush administration.

Pelosi's Middle East tumble

It's not surprising that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, having entered the nether world of Middle East diplomacy, has committed a blunder and made something of a fool of herself. Her critics, however, should not try to use this as ammunition to make her stay out of this arena. Instead, the Speaker should pick herself up, dust herself off and try again.

The Speaker told reporters in Damascus that she had delivered a message from Israel during her meetings with Syrian officials. Unfortunately for her, Israel immediately denied this. She made things worse by saying she would offer her "good offices to promoting peace between Israel and Syria." Essentially, her statements had all the markings of an amateur in over her head.

The Speaker overreached herself, and now she is paying the price in decreased credibility as a diplomatic negotiator. It won't be the first time a politician has done this, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

But we never expected her to be Henry Kissinger, or even Condoleeza Rice. We just wanted her to go and demonstrate that there are those in the United States who realize that talking with our enemies is a worthwhile undertaking. That much, she did accomplish, and I hope she will do so again in the future.

Pelosi dares to visit Damascus

It shouldn't be difficult for mature adults to agree that cutting off communication is not a mature or effective way to deal with disagreements.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has met with Syrian President Bassar al-Assad, and President Bush is making clear his displeasure over the meeting. He says Pelosi has given Syria the mistaken impression that Syria has been allowed back into the mainstream of the world community.

When children become angry at a parent or a friend, they sometimes resort to what they consider the ultimate nuclear option, declaring: "I'll never talk to you again for the rest of my life. NOT EVER EVER EVER!!!" Should the United States, as the leading country of the world, be acting like a spoiled child?

It is not helpful to U.S. interests to be giving the impression that we expect other countries to consider it a privilege to be granted the right to engage in two-way discussions us. During the Cold War, we talked regularly with the Soviet Union. We never talked to Cuba. Today, the Soviet Union is gone, and Cuba's Marxist regime is still with us. Based on that, it seems talking to our enemies is not so bad an idea after all.

Perhaps the Speaker can swing by North Korea on her way home?

Wanted: One Patriotic Politician

I could not bring myself to watch the President's speech last night. It was too painful for me. President Bush pulled the trigger on the Iraq war in March 2003, in my opinion, in part because he did not understand the limitations of military power and the grave implications of exercising this power in the wrong place at the wrong time. Today, I'm not convinced that his knowledge in this area has improved significantly.

So this morning, I read the speech on the White House website.

In the speech, Bush expressed the view that the political gains made by the Iraqi election in January 2005 threatened to undermine the terrorists' objectives, so they adopted a strategy of fomenting sectarian violence. This strategy on their part, he says, has succeeded.

If that was what was happening, then Bush should have been pushing for a strategy to encourage sectarian unity. Where were the appeals to the religious leaders to use their influence to prevent Iraq from falling into sectarian strife? Did Bush try to enlist the help of Shiite and Sunni communities in the United States to communicate with these leaders? These two communities live at peace with each other in this country.

Even now, while acknowledging that the enemy has successfully exploited historical animosities between the two major religious communities to serve their ends, he does not come out with his own strategy of alleviating these animosities as a way to undermine the terrorists' goals.

Now his plan is to send in more than 20,000 troops. This time it will be different, he says, because Iraqi forces will take the lead and because neighborhoods cleared of terrorists will have troops stationed there to make sure the terrorists don't return.

Iraqis will be given jobs, and infrastructure will be restored. By November, the Iraqi government will have secured all its provinces.

Perhaps we will get lucky. Perhaps the terrorists will decide to let the Baghdad government "win," and move to take over the country only after U.S. troops have withdrawn. If we are unlucky, the terrorists will keep up the pressure on the U.S. to prevent any withdrawal, not only in November, but not even after January 2009, when a U.S. President from the Democratic Party is inaugurated.

The following quote from an analysis by UPI International Editor Claude Salhani seems instructive:

"The most realistic outlook is for civil strife between Sunnis and Shiites to rage on for a number of years until there is a clear winner, a compromise borne of shear exhaustion or a break up of the country. The challenge for the United States will be to keep the entire, oil-rich region from descending into chaos," say [James Hoge, editor, Peter G. Peterson, chair, of Foreign Affairs].

The Democrats are not helping matters any today by threatening to withhold funds for the buildup announced by Bush. They know they are just grandstanding for the sake of their supporters. The country is in danger, but their primary consideration is to figure out how best to position their party for 2008.

America is in dire need of a leader who will be a true patriot. The soldiers dying in Iraq are patriots, because they are laying down their lives for no reason other than that they were asked to do so by their country. All Americans should salute their sacrifice with humble gratitude.

The country needs a political leader who will step up to the same standard of patriotism as those soldiers in Iraq. Who among our politicians will serve the interests of the country, even if it means putting their political career in jeopardy? Bush has fallen short of that mark, and so have Nancy Pelosi and the other Democratic Party leaders.