FEBRUARY 8: TIME EUROPE COVER: BACK TO REALITY Posted Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Why Iraq and Iran are Forcing Condoleezza Rice to Rethink U.S. Foreign Policy and Deal With the World as it is (London, February 8, 2007) In this week's issue, TIME assistant managing editor Romesh Ratnesar and State Department correspondent Elaine Shannon report, "With the U.S. military tied down on two fronts and the rest of the world growing resistant to American power, the challenges for [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice are as daunting as they have been for any Secretary of State in the past three decades…. The fate of Bush's legacy, and perhaps even the future shape of the international system, may hinge on whether Rice can pull off some kind of diplomatic breakthrough in the 23 months she has left." TIME reports that in conversations with her counterparts overseas and in two interviews with TIME in the past month Rice has sketched out a vision of a "new alignment" of forces in the Middle East, in which a "stabilizing" group of U.S. allies, like Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, could unite to contain the "destabilizing" threat posed by Iran and radical groups like Hamas and Hizballah. "There is a recognition that things are really splitting," Rice tells TIME, "with extremists on one side and what I call responsible [governments] because they're not all reformers on the other side." On Iran, Rice tells TIME, "The point here is to get the Iranians to change their behavior, to get them to change their strategy, to get them to negotiate in good faith on their nuclear program. I've heard people say, 'Well, you're escalating.' Well, this is responding, really, to a series of Iranian moves that are dangerous for American interests and dangerous for the international system." Ratnesar and Shannon write, "Whether Rice can steer the U.S. away from a military confrontation with Tehran is one of the two big challenges that will define the final years of her tenure and the legacy she leaves for her successor. The other is even more daunting: making peace to the Middle East." TIME reports, however, that Rice "did herself few favors in Arab eyes by failing to restrain Israel's bombing campaign against Lebanon last summer. Her refusal to negotiate with Syria baffles diplomats in the region…. And Rice's relationship with [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas, in particular, is frosty." Ratnesar and Shannon conclude, "Rice's influence with Bush is considerable, thanks to their personal bond and the departure of her rival, Donald Rumsfeld; but few believe she will ever usurp Vice President Dick Cheney's policymaking supremacy. If she hopes to be remembered in the same breath as the Secretaries of State she most admires … Rice will have to shed her famous equipoise, risk failure in the Middle East and begin to deal with the world as it is, rather than how the Administration wishes it to be. Given the limited time available for the task ahead, it's admirable that Rice still exudes optimism. Asked whether this is an interesting time to be Secretary of State, she laughs. 'No better moment,' she says." - more - INSIDE TIME
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