I hope you're right, but I doubt it. Rice has given, if anything, an even more ambivalent message than Powell. We now seem to have dictators bubbling up all over the place believing that if they talk tough, the US will be rushing to "negotiate" with them (i.e., give them more money and plead with them to be nice for at least the next three months). Maybe there are things going on behind the scenes that we're not seeing, but if so, I don't think we're seeing results, either. Just escalation by a bunch of nuts, ranging from Kim to Hugo to the Palis.
Don'cha just love diplomacy?