Posted on 03/05/2007 8:55:30 AM PST by dervish
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Rice's "Sunni strategy" is running into trouble.
Her idea was to bolster a ring of moderate Sunni Arab allies as a front-line defense against Iran's regional ambitions. But the Sunnis don't appear to be cooperating, and the proponents of the plan within the State Department are heading for the exits.
This weekend, Iran's Holocaust-denying president was fêted by King Abdullah, the Saudi monarch who rules the linchpin Sunni state in Ms. Rice's attempted anti-Iran alliance. Meanwhile, Iran's Sunni proxy in Gaza, Hamas, is divvying up key posts with Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Party in a Palestinian unity government. The negotiations stem from a Saudi-brokered deal forged last month in Mecca, a pact that has worried Israeli leaders and some in Congress because it does not require Hamas explicitly to recognize Israel.
The Saudi diplomatic maneuvers run parallel to key personnel shifts inside the State Department. On Friday, Ms. Rice named a Johns Hopkins University professor, Eliot Cohen, to be her counselor, a job held until January by Philip Zelikow, one of the main architects of the Sunni strategy. Another one of the boosters of the Sunni strategy, the current director of the State Department's policy and planning office, Stephen Krasner, is said to be returning next month to Stanford University.
Mr. Cohen intellectually is neoconservative. He was an early supporter of the military intervention in Iraq and came out against recommendations from the Iraq Study Group in December to launch negotiations with Iraq's neighbors. At the same time, he has also pulled no punches in his criticism of the military occupation of Iraq and, in an interview published in January by Vanity Fair, predicted that the future in the Middle East carries many dangers as a result of the war.
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
"Last year, Mr. Cohen wrote a blistering critique of a paper by University of Chicago professor, John Mearsheimer, and a Harvard University professor, Stephen Walt, that contended the Iraq war was the result of the machinations of a widespread "Israel lobby" that stifled public debate on foreign affairs and skewed American foreign policy away from its national interest. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Mr. Cohen said the paper was anti-Semitic."
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Cleaning up the mess at aisle State
Typical response from our ME "allies." Don't call us for any help, but we have the White House number on speed dial in case the Iranians start causing us any problems.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned...
Condi plays piano while the rest of the Middle East smolders?
Sorry, I have no confidence in SecState Rice, as I see it, she was co-opted by the Arabist clique at State long before she became the Secretary.
This is what happens when you negotiate with Muslims of any sort. When will they ever learn these folks want us dead? All they're arguing about is which of them gets to kill us.
It's hard to consider seriously the point of your post when you present it like the rant of a lunatic.
Is anybody surprised that Rice's plan is a disaster?
__________
1) Rice has a boss. His name is George Bush. He is the president of the United States of America. She goes nowhere without his blessing, and no plan she lays out goes without his OK.
2) If #1 above is incorrect, you are suggesting the GW may be the most disengaged president ever.
So which is it?
fyi
The "Sunni Strategy" is actually a misnomer. It is an "Arab/Persian" strategy. The failure of Hezboallah to topple Siniora in Lebanon was key. Nasrallah has been contained by Saudi money and, for now, the Boy President is back in his cage.
It suits the Iranians to talk now, rather than fight. We have the assets to beat them.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
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