Why Her Dreams Crashed
Rice's Worldview Flipped, And Her Policies Flopped
By Fred Kaplan
Washington Post
As Condoleezza Rice jets around the world, she must sometimes wonder where she's going. Over her three years as secretary of state, she has squandered great opportunities by putting faith and loyalty above her old worldview. The problem isn't just that she has swerved from the realism that propelled her to prominence; it's that the result has been a shambles.
Rice isn't used to failure, and most Americans aren't used to thinking of her as one. In Beltway wisdom, she's the star of President Bush's second-term team, someone who has employed smarts, sense and style to try to steer a wiser course in the world. But if she is now veering back to realism, it's after too long a detour into post-9/11 messianism. Rice remains one of the architects of a fantasy foreign policy, and her record as secretary of state gives little hope that she'll be able to reverse that verdict in the administration's final months.
The case against Condi starts with her dismal tenure as national security adviser in Bush's first term -- perhaps the worst in the office's history. Her main task was to coordinate policy, but she was outmaneuvered at every turn by the ruthless infighters around her, especially Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. So she focused on the job's other mandate: counseling the unschooled president on foreign affairs. As Bush's tutor in the 2000 campaign, she'd gained his trust, which became the basis of her power: When she spoke, everybody knew that she was speaking on Bush's behalf, not advancing her own agenda.
The State Department seemed a place where she could make the most of that asset. She would finally be a player, a Cabinet secretary with a budget, a bureaucracy and something her beleaguered predecessor, Gen. Colin L. Powell, never had: unfettered access to the commander in chief. At first, she did things that Bush had previously resisted -- reopened nuclear talks with Iran and North Korea, pushed a U.N. Security Council resolution on war crimes in Sudan, and (unlike Powell) traveled, a lot.
The early reviews were glowing. The media compared her to George Marshall, marveled at her "perfectionist drive" and parsed "the Condi doctrine." But she was only doing things that most secretaries of state do routinely. The substance of her views and the fruits of her globe-trotting weren't clear -- and still aren't.
(Continued here.)
By Fred Kaplan
Washington Post
As Condoleezza Rice jets around the world, she must sometimes wonder where she's going. Over her three years as secretary of state, she has squandered great opportunities by putting faith and loyalty above her old worldview. The problem isn't just that she has swerved from the realism that propelled her to prominence; it's that the result has been a shambles.
Rice isn't used to failure, and most Americans aren't used to thinking of her as one. In Beltway wisdom, she's the star of President Bush's second-term team, someone who has employed smarts, sense and style to try to steer a wiser course in the world. But if she is now veering back to realism, it's after too long a detour into post-9/11 messianism. Rice remains one of the architects of a fantasy foreign policy, and her record as secretary of state gives little hope that she'll be able to reverse that verdict in the administration's final months.
The case against Condi starts with her dismal tenure as national security adviser in Bush's first term -- perhaps the worst in the office's history. Her main task was to coordinate policy, but she was outmaneuvered at every turn by the ruthless infighters around her, especially Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. So she focused on the job's other mandate: counseling the unschooled president on foreign affairs. As Bush's tutor in the 2000 campaign, she'd gained his trust, which became the basis of her power: When she spoke, everybody knew that she was speaking on Bush's behalf, not advancing her own agenda.
The State Department seemed a place where she could make the most of that asset. She would finally be a player, a Cabinet secretary with a budget, a bureaucracy and something her beleaguered predecessor, Gen. Colin L. Powell, never had: unfettered access to the commander in chief. At first, she did things that Bush had previously resisted -- reopened nuclear talks with Iran and North Korea, pushed a U.N. Security Council resolution on war crimes in Sudan, and (unlike Powell) traveled, a lot.
The early reviews were glowing. The media compared her to George Marshall, marveled at her "perfectionist drive" and parsed "the Condi doctrine." But she was only doing things that most secretaries of state do routinely. The substance of her views and the fruits of her globe-trotting weren't clear -- and still aren't.
(Continued here.)
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