Many Damascus residents say her private visit with Mr. Assad and senior ministers shattered Washington's attempt to isolate the regime.
"She was enormously popular here, a hero," said one such resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "This is the best thing that has happened here, if it proves [Mr. Assad] was right not to give concessions."
Along with recent visits by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and officials from the European Union, the resident added, Mrs. Pelosi's trip "bolsters the regime with the Syrian people, and it shows that isolating Syria won't work."
More than burnishing the regime's image in Syria, Mrs. Pelosi is seen as the well-dressed woman who stood up to President Bush, possibly the most unpopular figure in the Arab world after former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
But didn't the lefty bloggers claim Pelosi's visit might help things in Syria? She wasn't undermining our foreign policy! No! And since she wasn't speaking for the U.S. government, there was no way Syrians would see her as representative of the government, right? Just because she's third in line for the presidency.
I guess somebody needs to tell the Syrians that Pelosi is just another dumb girl in a headscarf and that she wasn't trying to stick it to the president. They certainly got the wrong message from her trip.
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