The man known as the Henry Kissinger of the Democrats and who is currently advising the Obama presidential campaign is heading to Damascus for talks.
Mr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Carter era hawk/realist and an intellectual heavyweight will head a RAND Corp. delegation that will also visit other Middle Eastern capitals:
An assistant to Mr. Brzezinski, Trudy Werner, told The New York Sun yesterday: “He is leading a delegation for RAND and they will be in Damascus. It is a high-level delegation and they are meeting with some high-level people in the region. There is no shortage of issues in the Middle East to discuss as I’m sure you know.”
The visit could be linked to Mr. Obama’s promise of reversing Mr. Bush’s policy by talking to adversaries:
Mr. Brzezinski’s visit to Syria, a country President Bush has accused of arming terrorists and ordering political assassinations in Lebanon, is in many ways in keeping with a theme of the Obama campaign. The Illinois senator in August said during a Democratic debate that he would be willing to meet with foreign adversaries.
Considering the potential explosiveness of the issue, Mr. Obama has distanced himself from the trip:
A spokesman for the senator’s presidential campaign, Tommy Vietor, said the campaign did not know Mr. Brzezinski was leading the delegation. “The first we heard of this trip was from you,” he said. He added: “Brzezinski is not a day-to-day adviser for the campaign, he is someone whose guidance Senator Obama seeks on Iraq.”
But not everyone is buying it:
A supporter of Mrs. Clinton, Rep. Eliot Engel, a Democrat from New York, said he found it hard to believe that one of the Illinois senator’s main advisers would not know that his visit to Syria would appear to have the tacit consent of the Obama campaign.
Is Mr. Brzenzinski’s visit a bad thing? Experts find visits by American officials to Syria damaging and outright counterproductive. But Mr. Brzenzinki is no Pelosi. He knows very well how the Syrian regime works, and more dangerously, what it wants. Will a Lebanon bargain be soon on the table?
Hello, my name is Mustapha and I have been blogging about Lebanese society and politics since February 2005. You can also find me on 
Yay!!
Let’s bring back Carter era idiots, those who gave us Mullah-Iran, Soviet-Afghanistan and those who were in charge when Lebanon started to disintegrate in 1975 (with help from Syria of course).
What a coincidence, the same regional shit we are confronting today, 40 years later.
Exactly JW. Brz…, was and still is a condensending idiot and a fool. Nothing good has ever come out of him.
Mus, who cares who’s visiting Syria. I think our focus should be on whether Arabs have the cohones to slap a total $$$$$$ embargo on these assholes?
The Totten article you reference was a good read, and the more I read about the Foreign policy of Obama and his advisers ….. the worse it gets. Apparently Obama has been involved with a Syrian American named Rezko for years and managed to go from flat broke in 2000 to a millionaire in less than 6 years.(this comes from a UK article titled “The Black Kennedy”, also a good read)
“Will Lebanon be back on the table?” You bet your bootie it will, and Assad is so sure of it, he has all but announced that Lebanon will be on hold until the next US President is elected.
This isn’t good news…
Democrats are stupid, Kissinger is stupid so I guess that it makes this guy two times stupid.
Hmmmm… who better to deal with Iran and Syria than the guy who sold out the Shah and allowed the Islamic Republic to be born in the first place? It’s classic. Maybe he’ll figure out a way to sell out Mubarak and turn Egypt over to the Muslim Brotherhood too.
I would like to ask all pro-American Lebanese – What is it exactly that triggered your affection?
Name me ONE thing American has done for the protection and ‘benefit’ of Lebanon.
Giving as arms isn’t one of them – If you don’t get it the first time, look at it again.
I know what it is… You’d like to be on the side of thebig battalion!!
ein? You love the affection and backing of a strong (rarely just) country.
They will talk good about Lebanon in the media… and people will finallly love us. :)
Relax, it’s just a RAND delegation. Brzezinski is not representing the US government.
CourtFool, I’m not sure what you’re talking about (as usual).
Some of us actually live in the US. Some of us also like a free way of life in Lebanon, devoid of totalitarian death cultures of “Resistance”.
And more importantly, those of us who are Lebanese-American, at least have the choice here of expressing our views freely, without persecution, even if it means criticizing the US’s current policy (which many of us do). If you don’t understand the benefits of such a society, then I’d say you’re well in your right to move to Iran, Syria or Saudi Arabia, and see how well you like living there.
What I cannot get. How could I miss Presidential Elections?
I remember registering to vote and was dutifully waiting for November …
I feel like an idiot.
You didn’t vote in the primary, leo? Or are you just commenting on the fact everyone is playing up Obama as the next Prez? :)
I wouldn’t want to make a guess. Things have a way of changing in the last few months, when the 1 on 1 debates start.
No, I did not vote in the primary and yes, I agree about last month.
Still, one might get an impression that Obama is acting like he is The One already.
Or may be he is just trying to gain some extra points to prepare for 1-on-1.