A number of U.S. senators, among them Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, are touring the Middle East, visiting foreign capitals, hobnobbing with dictators and democrats, all under the guise of fact-finding.

"Fact-finding" is one way to describe what Kerry and his fellow senators are doing in the Middle East. "Undermining U.S. credibility" is another.

Kerry, in a teleconference Friday from Amman, Jordan, was careful to insist he was not in the Middle East to contradict Bush administration policy in any way. But Congress does have its own interests in the region.

"The administration has their position, and it's not my job at this point - from here particularly - to make comments about their policy," Kerry said. "They have their position as the executive branch and we have our position as a separate, co-equal branch of government."

Kerry was in Egypt last week, Iraq over the weekend and now continues on with Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., to Syria and a meeting with the dictator Bashar Assad.

Syria has been implicated in the assassination of democratically elected members of the Lebanese government who oppose its influence there. Syria is a supporter of the terrorist group Hezbollah, and is lending support to the Sunni faction in Iraq.

So it is no surprise that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week stated the Bush administration was going to pass on the naive recommendation in the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report that the United States engage in dialogue with Syria and Iran to stem the violence in Iraq. It's plain to nearly everyone that continued chaos in Iraq serves Syria's and Iran's purposes perfectly. Asking them nicely to stop supporting it won't accomplish anything.

White House spokesman Tony Snow criticized a visit earlier last week to Syria by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., as sending a mixed message on U.S. resolve and hindering democratic reform in the Middle East. The visits by Nelson, Kerry, Dodd and others are awarding the outlaw nation a public relations victory, he said.

Kerry claims he's not about to criticize U.S. policy while on foreign soil. But he did just that while standing in Cairo, Egypt's capital, last week. Kerry, as reported by the Associated Press, said the Bush administration's refusal to talk to Syria and Iran is "a mistake" and "the kind of policy that's got us into trouble" in the region.

Kerry and his fellow senators may believe they are merely "fact-finding" in the Middle East, and they may get a number of their constituents to believe that. But those with a different agenda in the Middle East, those who like Syria's Assad and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seek maximum chaos and the frustration of U.S. interests in a peaceful, democratic Iraq, see the senators differently.

They see the crack in U.S. resolve in the Middle East. The traveling senators give them just the lever they need to pry it open. The senators' message is: Bush may not listen to you - but we will.

Kerry's visit to Syria serves Assad's interests more than those of the United States.