Perhaps Dr. Rice thinks she’s in the cast of Miss Congeniality. In today’s Washington Post, she declares she has a plan to end the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. It matters not that the parties involved haven’t bought into her plan. This is typical neo-con arrogance: the US knows best, even when it doesn’t, and the rest of the world should just shut up and fall in line.
LONDON, Jan. 18 — As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to Europe on Wednesday after four days of talks in the Middle East, her Boeing 757 jet passed high over Baghdad. On a cloudless day at 37,000 feet, the city seemed sparkling and calm; the U.S. military presence and the sectarian violence below could only be imagined.
The moment was an apt metaphor for Rice’s latest — and her 12th — visit to the region in the two years she has been the nation’s top diplomat.
Through much of her trip, she seemed to cruise at a very high altitude as she pitched President Bush’s new plan for Iraq, tried to revive peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians and sought to organize an Arab coalition against “violent extremists” such as Iran. But her results after six stops on the ground in the Middle East did not match her lofty rhetoric.
Rice announced that she had arranged a three-way meeting to discuss the contours of a Palestinian state, sidestepping questions about the political weakness of the Israeli and Palestinian leaders who would make a deal. She found generally tepid support from Arab leaders in the region for Bush’s proposed military buildup in Iraq. She shrugged off a request from the emir of Kuwait that the United States engage directly with Iran and Syria to prevent the Iraqi conflict from spilling over its borders.
I wish I thought she had a chance to bring about an end to conflict in the Middle East, but this sounds like more overreaching Bush administration rhetoric. The reaction in the Arab world is summed up here:
The Arab media was highly skeptical of Rice’s efforts. The Arab News, a Saudi newspaper, asked the day after she left Riyadh, “To what extent is Rice just another siren, mesmerizing the Middle East with pleasing songs while dragging it onto the rocks of fresh conflict because of her own country’s incompetence?”
Even an amateur like me knows that no Middle East peace negotiation will succeed if either side feels it is losing face. Having Condi fly in and announce that she has all the answers is no way to start. Could we please tell her to go somewhere and write about the history of the Soviet Union while we bring in a real Middle East expert to salvage whatever we can from the mess we’ve exacerbated there?
I hate to say this about the most powerful black woman in the country, but gosh…I wish she would just sit down and shut up!!
She has a plan, but it is in the lock-box that is under the Senate Majority Leader’s car. I want to hear the plan that will get the Israeli’s to agree to the original borders and get the violent groups that attack Israel to stop antagonizing the conflict.