RICE TALKS TO SYRIA

AFTER EXCORIATING NANCY PELOSI FOR TALKING TO THE TERROR MASTERS OF SYRIA (REMEMBER, "IF YOU'RE NOT WITH US, YOU'RE AGAINST US"?), CONDY RICE HAS HER OWN LITTLE TET-A-TET WITH THEM.

U.S. and Syria Discuss Iraq - Helene Cooper and Michael Slackman
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met on Thursday with Syria's foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, in the first high-level diplomatic contact between Washington and Damascus in more than two years. The 30-minute meeting came in the middle of two days of international talks on Iraq at Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt. Rice asked that Syria, with its porous border with Iraq, do more to restrict the flow of foreign fighters. Rice characterized her meeting with Moallem as "professional," adding, "I didn't lecture him, and he didn't lecture me." (New York Times)

SHE DID NOT BRING UP SYRIA'S ARMING OF HEZBOLLAH, DESTABILIZATION OF LEBANON AND THREATS AGAINST ISRAEL. I DOUBT IT. NOR DID SHE CREDIBLY DISTINGUISH HER VISIT FROM PELOSI'S:

Rice begs to differ with Pelosi (JTA)
Condoleezza Rice said her meeting with a top Syrian official differed from that of top Democrats because she limited discussion to Iraq and no photographers were present.

"OK, it's one thing to go to Damascus and to have those pictures that suggest a relationship that doesn't exist with Syria," the U.S. secretary of state told CNN on Thursday when asked why her meeting in Egypt this week with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moaellem differed from the visit to Syria last month by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, who met with Syrian President Bashar Assad. "This was really very, very limited to Iraq."

Pelosi delivered a message to Assad from Israel saying that the Jewish state harbored no plans to launch a war against Syria, and also made inquiries about captive Israeli soldiers.

AT LEAST CONDI DIDN'T GET A CHANCE TO CHAT WITH THE IRANIANS. NOT FOR LACK OF TRYING THEY WALKED OUT ON HER.

Iranian Minister Avoids Dinner with Secretary of State Rice
Iran's foreign minister abruptly left a dinner where he was to sit opposite U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, complaining that a red dress worn by an entertainer was too revealing, a U.S. official said on Friday. Expectations had been high that Rice might use a dinner held on the sidelines of an Iraq conference in Egypt on Thursday to get to know Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, but instead the foreign minister left as guests were being seated. "I am not sure which woman he was afraid of, the woman in the red dress or the secretary of state," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. (Reuters)