According to this front page article in the Washington Post, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has taken control of U.S. foreign policy. This means George Bush has taken control of U.S. foreign policy, and so any successes we might enjoy as a nation are subject to some degree of skepticism, in spite of a litany of achievements.
It is too early to know whether the new tactics will ultimately bring results, and many of Rice's steps so far this year have been limited to overtures or temporary fixes. But those have at the least created momentum where before there was deadlock.
On North Korea, Rice got the prickly Pyongyang government back to six-nation talks last week on nuclear disarmament by publicly recognizing it as a "sovereign state," then empowering her top aide on East Asia to repeatedly meet privately with the North Koreans -- extended contact forbidden during Powell's era.
On Iran, Rice agreed to offer incentives -- allowing the Islamic republic to apply for eventual membership in the World Trade Organization and buy badly needed spare parts for aging passenger aircraft -- in exchange for a European pledge to support U.N. Security Council action if talks fail. Powell had trouble just getting the White House to drop language including Iran in an "axis of evil," which implied eventual confrontation.
With India, she brokered a deal to sell peaceful nuclear technology that will cement U.S.-India relations, but which may also risk undermining the treaty to halt nuclear weapons proliferation.
On Sudan, Rice found middle ground between the administration's rejection of the International Criminal Court and U.N. efforts to launch a war crimes investigation into violence in the Darfur region. The State Department helped draft a U.N. resolution supporting an international probe that would pass -- but on which Washington could abstain.
Secretary Rice is the perfect choice to head the Department of State. Philosophically in tune with President Bush, she enjoys his trust and shares his inclination for direct and firm talk. They are a world shaking team, in a world that has desperately needed shaking.
On her first trip abroad, Rice warned the European Union not to lift an arms embargo on China, telling diplomats they would rue the day if U.S. troops ever faced European-armed Chinese soldiers across the Taiwan straits. Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who then held the rotating European Union presidency, was so startled by her tough talk that he spilled his coffee in the lap of European foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
"The Europeans sent delegation after delegation saying, 'Please be more flexible.' She did not yield," Burns said. "She told them, 'You've united the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress. That's not an easy thing to do.' " The Europeans ultimately shelved their plan.
Colleagues have dubbed Rice the "velvet hammer." Philip Zelikow, State Department counselor and a close adviser, said that "one of her gifts is that she knows how to say very direct things to foreign governments in a way that is not confrontational. She is very assertive, very firm, but doesn't leave them feeling sullen and resentful."
It must really suck to be the Washington Post right now -- faced with U.S. successes at nearly every turn and forced into reporting them, when they'd really rather not. Fortunately for our mainstream press there is always Iraq.
Rice's legacy is more likely to be determined by two historic challenges: salvaging the U.S. intervention in Iraq and making headway in promoting democracy in the Islamic world. On both, long-term strategies are not yet visible.
Ace reporters Robin Wright and Glenn Kessler find no strategies, but they keep digging. In search of insight they go to Derek Chollet who served in the U.S. State Department as chief speechwriter to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke.
"If we are not able to find a meaningful or satisfying closure to Iraq, whatever definition of success we can rally around, whatever good ideas they have for the rest of the world will be undermined," said Derek Chollet, former foreign policy adviser to John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate. "All of this will be words if they don't get Iraq right."
Hmmm. Mr Chollet was also advisor to John Edwards' 2004 presidential campaign. An interesting source for opposing viewpoint. Are opposing viewpoints that hard to find? I guess so. For the last word, the ever fair and balanced Washington Post goes to former and future failed presidential candidate Joe Biden.
"She's off to a strong start. But it takes time to turn a supertanker," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "The administration is beginning to realize it's not enough to be strong. We also have to be smart, that we can't secure America's interest solely with force, acting alone. I hope Condi completes the turn from ideology to reality."
"We also have to be smart," he says. Good lord, will they ever stop kicking that dead horse?
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