Posted on 02/11/2005 5:23:22 AM PST by SJackson
Condi's real opponents lie elsewhere, and the true measure of her mettle is in how, with a velvet glove, she is already confronting them.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit this week, now already overshadowed by the festivities in Sharm, was unremarkable. She said nothing unexpected or too challenging. She wisely stayed away from Sharm itself.
So why am I ready to go out on a limb and say she already has the makings of not just a good, but a great secretary of state?
The evidence is not from this trip, but her forays into the real lion's dens - not Jerusalem or Ramallah, but Foggy Bottom and Paris.
Think about it: Though the Mideast may seem to be a place that eats high-level envoys for breakfast, here she was pushing on an open door. All sides are paying homage to the road map, to the need to end terror, disengagement, democracy, a new era of peace, etc. It won't be easy or clean - it may not even work - but conceptually there is a clear, agreed-upon play sheet.
Condi's real opponents lie elsewhere, and the true measure of her mettle is in how, with a velvet glove, she is already confronting them.
The first question for a secretary of state is always, who do you work for, "the building" or the president? Speaking to her vast staff on day one she said, "The President has set forth a really bold agenda for American foreign policy... [that America] will stand with those who want their aspirations met for liberty and freedom. And I'm going to look and the President's going to look to this Department to lead that effort."
Colin Powell, as it happens, mentioned the president more than twice as many times in his maiden speech to the staff four years ago. But his opened thus: "I have always had a bias in my military life that the commanders in the field are always right... that is where real wisdom is, and those of us back here exist not only to support the President, but to support the President's representatives... that are doing the work."
That was before 9/11, when America seemed not to need a foreign policy. Now, as Rice implied, America is in a war in which its diplomatic arm is as important as its military one. And she is facing a building which, as Rice put it in Paris, paraphrasing President George W. Bush's speech in Whitehall, spent "60 years trying to buy stability at the expense of freedom, and getting neither."
As they say here, Bush and Rice have changed the diskette. The State Department, not to mention its counterparts in Europe and even here, have not.
How do we know this? Because promoting democracy has always taken a back seat to "maintaining stability." If you took a poll in any Western foreign ministry, including State, on which they agreed with more, Bush's inaugural address or Richard Haass's oped, "Freedom is Not a Doctrine," it is obvious which they would choose.
But Rice seems not willing to assume that the hand of America's foreign policy arm must remain stuck firmly in its pocket, in silent protest against a policy with which it does not agree. And not only does she want State to join the president's side, but even Paris and Berlin.
On the same day as the Sharm summit, Rice spoke in Paris to the prestigious Sciences Po. In a direct assault on the realist paradigm, she appealed to France's own revolutionary tradition: "We know we have to deal with the world as it is. But we do not have to accept the world as it is. Imagine where we would be today if the brave founders of French liberty or of American liberty had simply been content with the world as it was."
Rice continued, "Our charge is clear: We on the right side of freedom's divide have an obligation to help those unlucky enough to have been born on the wrong side of that divide."
Speaking this way in Europe is not as hopeless as it may seem. Already, France and Germany are beginning to adjust to the new reality created by Bush's reelection and the incredible bravery of the Iraqi people, who risked their lives for democracy. In Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told Rice: "We have a lot of experience with the building of functional institutions for countries... this is the kind of assistance we would like to make available to the Iraqi government."
The US is attempting to rekindle the democratic revolution that swept the globe with the fall of the Soviet Union, only to stall on this region's rocky shores. Pay close attention to what Rice said in the past week in London and on CNN: "Nobody will recognize" the "sham elections" that Iran plans to hold in a few months. Rice still won't say so yet, but this has Ukraine-style regime change written all over it.
America's most illustrious diplomats, such as George Marshall and Henry Kissinger, were credited as architects of its foreign policy. Rice may yet emerge as such an architect, but even if she becomes "only" the effective champion of Bush's revolution, she will have earned a place in the world's diplomatic pantheon.
Always worth a try but the reality is that these career diplomats really don't care. It'll take a generation to clean them out and make any progress.
I believe God has again smiled on America.
That's not saying much. One party is in total disarray. That leaves the stupid party, the GOP. Ok, so the pathetically and hopelessly lame short list of potential 2008 candidates include Frist, Romney, and Owens. I like Owens. He seems to have done a nice job out there in Colorado. But he ain't got a prayer. Too effeminate. Frist is even worse, and I don't even know of a single thing he's accomplished in government, other than climing up the greasy pole in Senate party politics. Romney is from Massachusetts, which pretty much disqualifies him.
So what's left? Well, I guess there's Rudy. And I'll tell you what. If it is true what I hear that Condi is pro-choice, then I would predict in head to head primary competition, Rudy would outpoll Condi 9-1.
I plan on travelling to the White House to speak with her, with the intent on offering to get on my hands and knees to beg her to run in '08, possibly bribe her with some chocolates and flowers.
I wonder if that will convince her. (shrug) It's worth a try.
;-)
Bones
... cleverly concealing brass knuckles.
Sorry, Huck. Rudy's a gun-grabber. Everything being equal, Condi wins that contest going away. Besides, we're not sure where she stands on life issues now. If she comes out as a "state's rights" pro-life person, she'll kick Rudy's butt (especially since Bush really doesn't trust Rudy-he supported McCain in 2000). Be Seeing You,
Chris
What a stark contrast with the Clinton years. They started out with the United States being represented overseas by an absolute twerp, Warren Christopher. (I'm sure everyone remembers him being left in the waiting room for over an hour, twiddling his thumbs, by Haffez Assad). He is then replaced by a bureaucrat with a bit more testosterone, the schoolmarmish Madeline Albright. She is best remembered by her brooch collection and her discovery late in life that she is a Jew. Neither had a single memorable achievment in eight years ( unless one considers Haiti as a positive).
Well, it'll be interesting if it comes down to Condi v Rudy. But is Rudy any more of a gun grabber than our president? He supports the AWB, doesn't he? Oh, you can argue it's tepid support, but it's support. It's not exactly a principled stand. My point being, I wonder which "hot button" conservative issues really are deal breakers. I think the pro life crowd is more powerful than the pro gun crowd in terms of influencing elections. I think guns and immigration peel votes away to third party candidates for disgruntled voters, but the mainstream GOP is center-right. The way to beat Rudy in the primaries is to be pro life, not pro gun. Just my own impression, for what it's worth (not much.)
To paraphrase Sharansky (who's book, "The case for Democracy," Bush read):
Don't bring stability to the world (by appeasing dictators), and then talk about Democracy. Bring Democracy and Freedom to the world, and stability will follow.
I think that Madeline is also remembered for chasing after Yasir Arafat when he walked out of their meeting in Paris.
Utterly craven.
bttt
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