Steve Clemons has news of a bipartisan group of foreign policy heavyweights imploring the Bush Administration to include Syria and Hamas in the upcoming middle east peace conference. This is a terrific idea–both Syria and Israel and have been making noises about getting together, making a deal, for several years now. A crucial part of any deal would be the expulsion of the military wing of Hamas from Damascus–unless, of course, Hamas were willing to accept the existence of Israel and become a responsible player. Hamas probably won’t; in fact, it probably would not even agree to attend the conference–but it would be nice to have continuing Hamas’ intransigence on record. And it would be very interesting to see how Syria would respond.
Needless to say, the Bush White House–as opposed to the Bush State Department–will probably oppose the inclusion of Syria and Hamas. The New York Times has more on the continuing rift between Dick Cheney and (a) the rest of the administration and (b) reality…