Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii has been on the receiving end of harsh criticism for her 2017 meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California was once attacked for doing the same thing in 2007.
Republicans initially roundly critiqued Gabbard’s “fact finding” trip, which was reportedly undertaken without the knowledge of then-Minority Leader Pelosi. But now Gabbard’s fellow Democrats have joined in, taking aim at her trip as she campaigns for the presidency. Sen. Kamala Harris of California, who Gabbard grilled during Wednesday’s Democratic debate, was one of them.
“Listen, I think that this coming from someone who has been an apologist for an individual, Assad, who has murdered the people of his country like cockroaches,” Harris told CNN’s Anderson Cooper after the debate. “She has embraced and been an apologist for him in the way she refuses to call him a war criminal.”
After her visit to Syria, Gabbard recounted her experience in 2017.
“As I visited with people from across the country, and heard heartbreaking stories of how this war has devastated their lives, I was asked, ‘Why is the United States and its allies helping al Qaeda and other terrorist groups try to take over Syria? Syria did not attack the United States. Al Qaeda did.’ I had no answer,” Gabbard said.
“I return to Washington, D.C., with even greater resolve to end our illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government,” she added.
Assad has denied accusations of indiscriminately deploying chemical weapons against his own people in a war that has led to the deaths of an estimated 400,000 people. Gabbard cast doubt on Assad’s culpability in at least one example in an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Friday.
Although the U.S. is not officially at war with the Assad regime, it also does not have official diplomatic relations with Syria. Gabbard’s trip had some crying foul and accusing her of potentially violating the Logan Act, a federal law that makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to correspond with foreign governments with whom the U.S. is in dispute without proper authorization.
Pelosi’s visit, like Gabbard’s, came at a delicate time in Middle East politics. Tensions between Syria and the U.S. were high due to allegations that Syria allowed militants to cross through its territory into Iraq to join Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al Qaeda in Iraq. These militants would go on to lay the ground work for what would later become the Islamic State.
Despite Syria’s history of being used as a funnel for al Qaeda members, Gabbard insisted in February that “Assad is not the enemy of the United States, because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States.”
Tensions between Syria and Israel, whose rivalry goes back decades, were also high at the time of Pelosi’s trip due to Assad’s support for the Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad terrorist groups.
In response, the George W. Bush administration diplomatically isolated Assad for years. “Sending delegations hasn’t worked,” Bush said at the time. “It’s just simply been counterproductive.”
Pelosi contradicted that notion prior to her visit, saying it was “an excellent idea” for her to meet with Assad.
“When we go there, we’ll be talking about the overarching issue of the fight against terrorism and the role that Syria can play to help or to hinder,” Pelosi said prior to the visit.
Joining Pelosi at the time were Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman and Tom Lantos of California, Louise Slaughter of New York, Nick Rahall of West Virginia, and Keith Ellison of Minnesota. Republican Rep. David Hobson of Ohio also joined the delegation. Three other Republicans, Reps. Robert Aderholt of Alabama, Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania, and Frank Wolf of Virginia met with Assad during a separate visit at about the same time.
During a press conference after the meeting, Pelosi said she raised concerns about Syrian support for terrorism with Assad, adding she “expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria.”
Gabbard and Pelosi are not the first high-profile politicians to downplay Assad.
Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, famously said in 2011 that Assad was a “reformer.” At the time, protests were rampant across the country and Assad’s forces were brutally cracking down on dissent.
“There’s a different leader in Syria now,” Clinton told CBS’s Bob Schieffer on March 27, 2011. “Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he is a reformer.”
Three days prior, Assad announced plans to make some government reforms in an apparent concession to the uprising. A few months later civil war broke out.
A few days after her interview, Clinton claimed she “referenced the opinions of others. That was not speaking either for myself or for the administration.”
