The Daily Background

There’s really no other way to put it. Condoleezza Rice is truly horrible at her job. She’s an absolute wreck of a Secretary of State. When she served as National Security Counsel to the president before changing roles, she admitted that she was doing a horrible job and tried to resign. Bush promoted her to Powell’s position instead.

There has been very little meaningful diplomacy with North Korea (much less than what happened under Clinton), and as a result they’ve developed a handful of nuclear weapons. Her efforts in the middle east have been nothing short of an embarrassment- the 34-day war between Israel and Lebanon last year proved that outright. And don’t get me started on her diplomatic efforts (or more precisely, cowardly lack of diplomatic efforts) towards Iran.

Years went by before she even considered addressing the Israeli-Palestinian situation (Powell never addressed it), and now that she’s finally addressing it (probably more out of want for a legacy than true interest in alleviating the suffering going on– otherwise she would have started sooner), she shows no sign of making any type of significant progress.

On the one side, you have Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (who is a true horror show of a PM), that the Bush Administration loves, and on the other side you have PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas (one of whom is bad and the other of whom is worse), that the Bush Administration hates, and somehow Rice has managed to suck at dealing with all of them.

Seriously, I’m pressed to think of another diplomat who is worse at dealing with the rest of the world, save perhaps for John “there is no such thing as the United Nations” Bolton, who President Bush appointed as the US envoy to the United Nations. Anyways, the Washington Post will report that Rice has scaled back her already non-ambitious plans for Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy:

The new plan, which Rice is expected to formally announce Monday in Jerusalem, represents a step back from her earlier ambition of bringing the Palestinian and Israeli leaders together to sketch what she called the “political horizon.” That approach fell apart after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in February struck a unity accord with the militant group Hamas to form a government.

Rice acknowledged Sunday that she spent most of her time in the three-way meeting she arranged last month simply dealing with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s anger at Abbas for making the deal.

See what I mean? She can’t even talk to the people this Administration is allied with. Even Bolton could have done that. The Post also quotes her saying “I have not been willing to try for the Big Bang. I don’t think that’s where we are… The question here isn’t speed.” What exactly is the “big bang”? Peace? A permanent peaceful solution to the conflict? Is that what she hasn’t been willing to try for?

Wait a minute, as a member of the Bush Administration, isn’t she required not to believe in the “big bang”?

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog