Things must be getting pretty bad when you have Elliott Abrams, who is a senior fellow for the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations... openly wondering about the tactic of appeasement with terrorist nations such as our current white house administration is doing.

Makes one wonder just a little what in the world is going on!

Weekly Standard editorial

Obama Talks, Syria Mocks... The wages of appeasement.
BY Elliott Abrams

The Obama administration has from the start seen Syria as a leading case for engagement. Barack Obama said so during his presidential campaign (announcing he would meet Bashar al Assad without preconditions)... The engagement with Syria continues apace. Here are the key elements.

* High level envoys have been sent to Damascus....
* President Obama has now nominated an ambassador to Damascus....
* The president has also removed the American block to Syria’s attempt to join the World Trade Organization.
* The United States has eased some export licenses for Syria, mostly in the area of aircraft.
* Syria’s deputy foreign minister was invited to Washington in October, the first such visit in several years.


.... but when does “engagement” become “appeasement”? .... "Engagement” constitutes “appeasement” if it fails to change Syrian conduct, and the failure to change is overlooked while the “engagement” continues and accelerates. This would not just be fooling ourselves but condoning, rewarding, and thereby inducing even more bad conduct by the Assad regime.

Which is precisely what has happened during this year of American engagement.

* Syrian support for terrorism continues. Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas, the DFLP, and the PFLP continue to be housed and protected in Damascus....
* Syria continues serving as the route for Iran’s rearmament of Hezbollah...
* Internal repression in Syria remains as vicious as ever....

In fact.... the best evidence that these steps now constitute appeasement is found in Syria’s response. On February 25, Assad hosted an Axis of Evil party, meeting with Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Washington Post reported that “the presidents of Iran and Syria on Thursday ridiculed U.S. policy in the region and pledged to create a Middle East ‘without Zionists,’...

... What has the engagement of Syria actually produced, besides mockery in Damascus? Depression in Beirut... Incredulity in Baghdad... Resistance in Jerusalem...

Of all the things that may or may not actually be going on in the white house... The Weekly Standard is certainly concerned about the POTUS's handling of terrorist backing nations...

Consider and Ponder.

xtnyoda, shalomed