In The Ties That Bind I discuss Russian proposals for selling nuclear capable missiles to Syria. And then I learn today that an Obama adviser was recently in Syria at an oil company sponsored conference to discuss what? Dried fruit exports? Maybe. Oil exports? Much more likely.

Barack Obama's Middle East Policy Adviser recently discussed presidential politics with high-level Syrian officials during a conference underwritten Syrian business interests and a Canadian oil company.

Adviser Daniel Kurtzer told the New York Sun the trip was not related to his campaign work, but that he did discuss the next president's role in Syria's relationship with Israel with Syria's Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem.

"I urged him to move ahead in the Israel-Syria negotiations as much as possible so that whoever is the next president would not start from too far down the track," Kurtzer told the Sun. "I did not say anything about Obama or McCain. I said whoever is the next president is not going to want to inherit a process that isn't going anywhere."

The exchange took place at lawyer's conference organized by the British Syrian Society in Damascus in early July. Kurtzer was invited because he is on the board member of the American Bar Association's Rule of Law Initiative.

I think we have to get serious in America and turn on the oil spigot to restrict the incomes of folks who mean us ill. Democrats - are you listening?

Cross Posted at Power and Control