NYT: Rice’s Hurdles on Middle East Begin at Home

Rice’s Hurdles on Middle East Begin at Home

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 —

-snip-
The approach, which President Bush approved the next morning and has served as the basis for American strategy during the crisis, was more than a policy blueprint. It was also Ms. Rice’s answer to opposing camps within the Bush administration. Ms. Rice, one senior administration official said, “staked out a position that was sufficiently unlike the usual State Department” approach to satisfy conservatives in the government, including Vice President Dick Cheney, who were pushing for strong American support for Israel.

As Ms. Rice has struggled with the Middle East crisis over the last four weeks, she has found herself trying to be not only a peacemaker abroad but also a mediator among contending parties at home.

-snip-
The tensions in the region and within the administration have left Ms. Rice visibly weary and she has at times spoken in unusually personal, emotional terms. After the meeting in her suite, Ms. Rice, Mr. Abrams, Mr. Welch and Richard Jones, the United States ambassador to Israel, had dinner with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. There, Ms. Rice showed a rare flash of impatience with him. When Mr. Olmert responded to her request to suspend airstrikes for 48 hours by saying that Israel had warned residents to evacuate, Ms. Rice shook her head, according to two American officials.

“Look, we’ve had this experience, with Katrina, and we thought we were doing it right,” she reportedly said. “But we learned that many people who want to leave can’t leave.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/10/washington/10rice.html?hp&ex=1155182400&en=2b32f16a4d278231&ei=5094&partner=homepage

"On her recent trips to the Middle East, Ms. Rice was accompanied by two men with very different outlooks on the conflict: Elliott Abrams, senior director at the National Security Council, and C. David Welch, a career diplomat and former ambassador to Egypt who is assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs.

Mr. Welch represents the traditional State Department view that the United States should serve as a neutral broker in the Middle East. Mr. Abrams, a neoconservative with strong ties to Mr. Cheney, has pushed the administration to throw its support behind Israel. During Ms. Rice’s travels, he kept in direct contact with Mr. Cheney’s office.

One administration official described how during the trip — including a July 29 discussion in Ms. Rice’s Rabin suite at the David Citadel Hotel, with its panoramic view of Jerusalem’s Old City — Mr. Welch and Mr. Abrams served as counterfoils, with Mr. Welch arguing the Arab view and Mr. Abrams articulating the Israeli stance.

Ms. Rice selected Mr. Abrams for the National Security Council staff in 2002 when she was national security adviser. His return to government service was unexpected. After President George H. W. Bush pardoned Mr. Abrams in 1992 for his role in the Iran-Contra affair during the 1980’s, Mr. Abrams said he would never work as policy maker again."

Oh yeah, his last venture into American foreign policy (Iran/contra) went so well, didn't it? I wonder if there's a Guinness record for most times pardoned for war crimes and crimes against humanity? Looks like Abrams will have a chance to accomplish a rare feat.

But what's all this talk of division in the Bush White House? I thought they were all steely-eyed men and women of decisive decisiveness! Why isn't Herr Decider riding herd on his staff and getting all unified on one message? Instead, Chimpy's off pursuing his relentless vacation schedule, to be interrupted only if he wants to play doctor for a brain-dead woman in (of all places) Florida.

Looks like that $140K position for Office of Lessons Learned was worth every penny.

:sarcasm:

in this administration.

with people who do not exactly hold women in the highest regard.

Oh, I almost forgot--this administration is lead by an idiot.

It is against every principle that the New Testament expouses.

If she were a true Christian she would speak up quickly for the atrocities that her boss(es) are committing. Could you imagine she walks to a podium and starts talking about how GW and Darth Cheney are the ones who are making the Israeli situation worse? OK, it would ruin her Republican career, but it would ethically be the right thing to do.

Will any of these bushbots ever grow a concious and do the right thing?

choose which of the commandments you will believe in. You either believe in them or you do not. She has no moral courage.

Imagine that Canada finally had enough Seattle grunge and started dropping leaflets over Washington state telling people to get out of their homes, we're going to bomb you. Hell, it's hard to get people to evacuate Florida for a hurricane. How hard would it get people to leave the only homes they know? Some would refuse to leave. Some wouldn't want to take their chances on the kindness of strangers. Or some refugees would rather die than do it again. Some might think - probably rightly so, that if they left they would never be able to return again.