Bush official characterized the Israeli announcement as "a slap in the face."

[mike532]

Advice Given, but Not Always Followed, by White House
)http://www.truthout.org/article/advice-given-not-always-followed-
white-house
Washington - Israel, America's staunchest ally in the Middle East,
just became the latest example of a country that has decided it is
better to deal with its foes than to ignore them.

The announcement that Israel has entered into comprehensive peace
talks with Syria is at odds with the course counseled by the Bush
administration, which initially opposed such talks in private
conversations with Israelis, according to Israeli and American
officials. A week ago, President Bush delivered a speech to the
Israeli Parliament likening attempts to "negotiate with the terrorists
and radicals" to appeasement before World War II.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Mr. Bush said. "As
Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared,
'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have
been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is: the
false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by
history."

But in many ways, the Bush administration's own policies appear to
be at odds with his thesis.

While Mr. Bush and his advisers have repeatedly scorned the idea
of talking to enemies without first getting preconditions met,
administration policy over the last seven years has been far more
nuanced. In fact, the United States under the Bush administration has
shown a sliding definition of just when it is beneficial to talk to
whom.

Under Mr. Bush, the United States has held direct talks with Libya
(which has admitted responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am flight
103, which killed 270 people); sent envoys and a warm presidential
letter to North Korea (which detonated a nuclear device in 2006); and
even participated, through American diplomats in Iraq, in talks with
Iran (which the United States has accused of backing attacks against
American forces in Iraq).

American diplomats do not talk to Hezbollah or Hamas ? both
militant Islamic organizations that Washington consider terrorist
groups. But while the Bush administration long ago withdrew its
ambassador from Syria, the United States does business with its
government, which backs Hezbollah, and which the State Department has
designated a state sponsor of terrorism.

So what was Mr. Bush talking about last week when he compared
negotiations with terrorists and radicals with "the false comfort of
appeasement"?

Inside the administration, many officials, particularly at the
State Department, concede that the United States does not hew to one
policy on engaging its enemies. "I'd rather be right than consistent,"
a senior Bush administration official said, in explaining the
willingness to talk to North Korea, which the administration accused
just last month of trying to help Syria build a nuclear reactor. He
said the United States wanted to make sure that talks were "purposeful
engagement, not witless engagement."

To that end, the administration has tried to be sure preconditions
are met; for instance, it repeatedly says that it restored diplomatic
relations with Libya only after Libya renounced terrorism in 2003. But
Bush administration officials were in talks with Libya before that
happened, and many credit the negotiations with leading to Libya's
change in behavior.

As for Hamas and Hezbollah, which have both refused to acknowledge
Israel's right to exist or to forswear violence, the administration
official said that a criterion for talks with the United States would
be that "they'd have to change their behavior."

But Israel is in indirect talks with Hamas, with Egypt serving as
the go-between, over a cease-fire in Gaza. Under the proposal that the
two sides are considering, Israel would end its blockade of Gaza in
exchange for a Hamas agreement to stop the rocket fire from Gaza into
Israel, among other things.

Sometimes expediency makes former enemies temporary allies. In
Iraq, which the administration has frequently called the front line in
the fight against terrorism, former insurgents are now on the American
payroll as members of citizen patrols in what is called the Sunni
Awakening movement, and they have contributed to an overall decline in
violence.

And on Wednesday, the Bush administration was singing the praises
of an Arab-mediated deal in Lebanon which would, in essence, give
Hezbollah veto power over the Lebanese cabinet.

While the United States will continue its policy of not holding
direct talks with Hezbollah, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
called the agreement "a positive step" and was even on the phone over
the past few weeks with Egyptian and Saudi officials to help find a
resolution to the Lebanese stalemate, administration officials said.

"Bush's rhetoric is completely disconnected from everything on the
ground," said Martin Indyk, head of the Brookings Institution's Saban
Center for Middle East Policy. "While he's giving his speech against
appeasement last week, Hezbollah was taking over control of the
Lebanese government."

The events in Lebanon, Mr. Indyk said, show that the
administration ought to put more pragmatic considerations ahead of
principle.

The Israel-Syria announcement, in particular, offers an
interesting case study, because Israeli officials have said for months
that the United States was the only obstacle blocking talks with
Syria, which both Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud
Barak advocated.

In particular, Elliott Abrams, Mr. Bush's deputy national security
adviser, has cautioned against an Israeli-Syria negotiation, according
to Israeli and Bush administration officials. Administration officials
said they feared that such a negotiation would appear to reward Syria
at a time when the United States was seeking to isolate it for its
meddling in Lebanon and its backing of Hezbollah.

But a few weeks ago, Israeli officials told their counterparts at
the State Department that they planned to begin the negotiations,
which are being mediated by Turkey.

"They weren't asking our permission," one senior administration
official said. Another Bush official characterized the Israeli
announcement as "a slap in the face." But he said that United States
officials believed that Mr. Olmert made the decision with his own
domestic political considerations in mind: He is facing several
criminal investigations involving events before he became prime
minister in 2006, but while he was serving in government. He has
denied wrongdoing, and other experts said that Israel had its own
compelling reasons to engage Syria: to blunt Hezbollah's growing power
in the region.
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