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Condoleezza Rice Between the President and Her Mentors

President Bush did not shed any tear upon receiving Secretary Powell’s letter of resignation.  The President has not concealed his satisfaction when his National Security Advisor, Rice, agreed to replace Powell.

 

Powell has been popular throughout the globe, but not at the White House.  He has been considered by President Bush and (especially by) Vice President Cheney as an ideological and political rival, who was courted by President Clinton for the role of Secretary of Defense.

 

Powell has been one of the least effective US secretaries of state, and was operating under the shadow of the most dominant Vice President in US history (Cheney).  He clashed continuously with an assertive Secretary of Defense (Rumsfeld), who has been very close to the President and to the Vice President.  The President has usually ignored Powell’s advise, and followed that of Cheney and Rumsfeld, as attested by US policy toward Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Europe, the UN, the PLO (ignoring Arafat) and Israel (refraining from effective pressure).

 

Powell is retiring when the threats by Iran and North Korean escalate, when the prospect of democratization and stability in Iraq, and throughout the Arab world, is rapidly deteriorating, and when the UN and Europe (other than Britain) are systematically undermining US policy, notwithstanding Powell’s efforts.

 

While half of President Bush’s Cabinet has retired due to physical exhaustion, Secretary Powell has been a casualty of an ideological war of attrition.

 

No personal or ideological chemistry has existed between Bush and Powell, while Rice has become a “member of the family”, joining the First Couple during their weekends at Crawford and Camp David.  Rice has earned the trust of George W. and Laura Bush, as well as that of Bush #41.  Therefore, the President has decided to entrust her with the role of overhauling the Department of State, which has been accused (along with the CIA) by the White House of following a rivaling world view, and initiating damaging leaks to the media during the 2004 election campaign.

 

The appointment of Rice demonstrated the President’s resolve to leverage his November victory, sustain his hawkish policy toward Islamic terrorism, Iran and North Korea.  Contrary to Powell, Rice enjoys a wide open presidential ear, is an international relations specialist and an assertive manager, who has the potential of overcoming the problematic Foggy Bottom bureaucracy.

 

However, while identifying with the President on a personal level, Rice has embraced a world view, which is very close to the one professed by the Department of State.  Her mentor was Brent Scowcroft, who served as the National Security Advisor to Bush #41, who recommended her to President Bush, who constitutes a focal point of opposition to the Bush/Cheney global policy, and who has been one of Israel’s harshest critics in the US (Steve Hadley, who is replacing Rice, was a partner in Scowcroft’s consultancy).  Rice was Scowcroft’s assistant on Soviet affairs, and her senior “coach” on the Middle East at large and on  the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular was Richard Haas, who was Scowcroft’s assistant on the Middle East and a veteran critic of Israel, the settlements and a grand promoter of a PLO State and Israel’s withdrawal to the 1949 Lines. Rice has made public her admiration of Dennis Ross, who has been determined to resurrect the Oslo Process and to push Israel back to the 1949 Lines.

 

As a National Security Advisor, Rice has frequently supported Powell’s positions, maneuvering among the Bush, Cheney, Powell and Rumsfeld, realizing that the President has usually supported Cheney’s position.  As a Secretary of State, Rice will joggle daily her ideological affinity toward the bureaucracy of the Department of State and her loyalty to the President.  She will be bolstered by her unique intelligence and refined political senses, which have catapulted her to the highest political position ever held by an Afro-American.




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US-sponsored anti-Israel UN Security Council statement – acumen

*The US’ co-sponsorship of an anti-Israel UN Security Council Statement reflects the return of the State Department’s worldview to the center stage of US foreign policy-making. This was the first time, in six years, that the US enabled the UN Security Council to act against Israel.

*This is not merely a worldview, which is highly critical of Israel, as has been the case since 1948, when Foggy Bottom led the charge against the re-establishment of the Jewish State.

This worldview has systematically undermined US interests, by subordinating the unilateral, independent US national security policy (on Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian issue, etc.) to a multilateral common denominator with the anti-US and anti-Israel UN and international organizations, as well as the vacillating and terrorists-appeasing Europe.

*It has sacrificed Middle East reality on the altar of wishful-thinking, assuming that the establishment of a Palestinian state would fulfill Palestinian aspirations, advance the cause of peace, reduce terrorism and regional instability; thus, enhancing US interests.

*However, the reality of the Middle East and Jordan and the rogue Palestinian track record lend credence to the assumption that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River, yielding traumatic ripple effects, regionally and globally:

^Replace the relatively-moderate Hashemite regime with either a rogue Palestinian regime, a Muslim Brotherhood regime, or other rogue regimes;
^Transform Jordan into a chaotic state, similar to Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, which would be leveraged by Iran’s Ayatollahs to intensify their encirclement of the pro-US Saudi regime;
^Convert Jordan into a major arena of regional and global Islamic terrorism;
^Trigger a domino scenario into the Arabian Peninsula, which could topple all pro-US, oil-producing Arab regimes;
^Imperil the supply of Persian Gulf oil, which would be held hostage by anti-US entities, catapulting the price at the pump;
^Jeopardize major naval routes of global trade between Asia and Europe through the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal;
^Intensify epicenters of regional and global terrorism and drug trafficking;
^Generate a robust tailwind to US’ adversaries (Russia and China) and enemies (Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS) and a powerful headwind to US economic and national security interests.

*The State Department assumes that Palestinian terrorism – just like Islamic terrorism – is driven by despair, ignoring the fact that Palestinian terrorism has been driven (for the last 100 years) by the vision to erase the “infidel” Jewish entity from “the abode of Islam,” as stated by the charters of Fatah (1959) and the PLO (1964), 8 and 3 years before the Jewish State reunited Jerusalem and reasserted itself in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).

*Aspiring for a Palestinian state, and viewing Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria as an obstacle to peace, ignores the Arab view of the Palestinians as a role model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism, corruption and treachery. Moreover, the State Department has held the view that the Palestinian issue is the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a central to Arab interests, which has been refuted by the Abraham Accords. The latter ignored the State Department, sidestepped the Palestinian issue and therefore came to fruition.

*The State Department overlooks the centrality of the Palestinian Authority’s hate education, which has become the most effective production-line of terrorists, and the most authentic reflection of the Palestinian Authority’s worldview and vision.

*The State Department has also taken lightly the Palestinian Authority’s mosque incitement, public glorification of terrorists and monthly allowances to families of terrorists, which have documented its rogue and terroristic nature (walk), notwithstanding its peaceful diplomatic rhetoric (talk).

*The State Department’s eagerness to welcome the Palestinian issue in a “red carpet” manner – contrary to the “shabby doormat” extended to Palestinians by Arabs – and its determination to promote the establishment of a Palestinian state, along with its embrace of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood, have been interpreted by rogue regimes and organizations as weakness.

Experience suggests that weakness invites the wolves, including wolves which aim to bring “The Great Satan” to submission throughout the world as well as the US mainland.

Support Appreciated

 




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The post-1967 turning point of US-Israel cooperation

Israeli benefits to the US taxpayer exceed US foreign aid to Israel

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Exposing the myth of the Arab demographic time bomb