Dartblog

Part of what makes our modern America a less than fully effective world power is the fact that a goodly percentage of the members of one of our two major parties do not believe America ought to be a world power. It isn’t that these people are subversive-minded, or that they are enemy spies. Rather, their internal moral code reads suspiciously like the Charter of the United Nations—they believe the advancement of national interests in international fora is simply wrong. It now appears that politicians with these beliefs, having just captured Congress, have decided to play the role of president as well.

Count among this set Democrat Senator Bill Nelson, who recently sojourned to Damascus to meet with a man called Bashar Assad over the objection of the State Department. Assad is what we acolytes of Webster would call an Enemy of the United States of America. As president of Syria, Assad is aiding and abetting the Islamist terrorists whom we fight in Iraq.

And now, two more. John Kerry flies to Egypt, another undemocratic state plagued by terrorism, to criticize the President and the policies of the United States. Kerry met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. (Whom he did not criticize.) He and Mubarak discussed both Iraq and the issue of Israel and the group of people known as Palestinians. Kerry slammed the President, endorsed the worst recommendations from the Baker report (namely that we negotiate with Iran and Syria) and generally sashayed about planting his far-left seeds of a seperate peace. Is it any surprise the Israel-Palestine negotiations aren’t farther along, when a band of American radicals expecting to soon control the White House fly to the countries with whom we are negotiating and virtually guarantee a sweeter deal if only they will hold off for a few months?

So Nelson meets in Syria. Kerry in Egypt. And Governor Bill Richardson, a strong contender for the Democratic nomination for president? To the lovely and exotic Democratic People’s Republic of Korea goes he, a state known in more sober quarters as North Korea, Kim Jong-il’s nuclear funhouse. Richardson will discuss nuclear disarmament with the country that has spent the better part of a decade jerking us around on just that score.

There are occasions when renegade diplomacy works. Consider Ronald Reagan, who, tired and exasperated, once ended a day of wending and complex negotations at Reykjav’k by proposing to Gorbachev that each nation simply reduce its nuclear arsenal by half. Simple, clean, bold. Gorbachev agreed.

But Kerry, Nelson, and Richardson are not Ronald Reagan. They haven’t the talent but, more importantly, they are not the chief executive of the United States; nor has that executive invested them with plenipotentiary powers. This makes their negotiations with our enemies intensely dangerous, reckless, and grounds for the instant and prejudiced rejection of any of their bids for the White House in 2008.