Wolfensohn: It was Rice's clout that sealed Gaza border deal

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Quartet special envoy James Wolfensohn, who labored for months seeking Israeli and Palestinian agreement on a key accord for a Gaza-Egypt border crossing, credited a marathon drive this week by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for sealing the elusive deal.

"The breakthrough came in the last couple of days, and I think that one should give credit to the Secretary of State of the United States, Condoleezza Rice," Wolfensohn said in remarks broadcast on Wednesday.

"She is a woman who has both greater power, and greater influence than I do," he told Israel Radio. "She and I worked together, and she was able to bring the sort of necessary weight in the end, that brought about each side reaching a conclusion."

Israeli and Palestinian officials clinched the long-awaited deal on the manning of the Gaza-Egypt and Gaza-Israel border crossings on Tuesday, after talks through the night and well into the morning.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/646213.html">continues here...

But, it is the first foreign policy success by the Bush Administration in a long time. Not exactly a show of strength by Madam Secretary of State.

She can put it on her resume, as she'll be looking for another job.

This is a very good thing though. But, it hasn't materialized just yet, so not a success at this point. One can only hope. Even if it does go to the Shrub camp, I do hope this works out for the best.

As for the first foreign policy success in a long time, was there another one?!

so strong arming Sharon to pretend to make progress on the Palestinian issue shouldn't take much.

IMHO this would have come to pass with or without Rice.

there seems surely to have been set up as a PR stunt.

She's the only one in the WH inner circle who has any kind of mainstream credibility at the moment (wrongly of course, but the MSM hasn't caught up yet with what DUers know).

I mean it is the natural next step...

The moron who took over for Rush yesterday was talking about West Bank settlement settlements...

To have The SOS get all excited about an agreement to see who mans the border crossings at what time is like George Stienbrener getting all excited about a double A farm club win.....

I understand from her time at Stanford, that she has perfected the game of never being attached to blame but maneuvering for credit whenever possible.

Rice couldn't organize herself out of a paper bag. Maybe if she paid enough people enough money (stolen from US taxpayers, no doubt) she might be able to bribe somebody to issue a cheerful press release. But to actually accomplish something? Where's the proof?