Ainda do artigo "New Middle East" Out of Control",de Jim Lobe:
(...) The one, at least partial, exception has been Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice whose State Department, a bastion of realism, has been under almost constant attack since the outset of the Lebanon crisis by the same coalition of neo-conservatives, assertive nationalists, and Christian rightists led by Vice President Dick Cheney that led the drive to war in Iraq.
In the early stages of the latest war, Rice, who is also the only senior administration official who has been in constant communication with European and Arab leaders, was most outspoken about the importance of Israel exercising restraint and not attacking civilian infrastructure in Lebanon. She was reportedly infuriated when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert failed to follow through on a pledge to suspend aerial attacks for two days late last month. Rice, a Scowcroft protégée, has supported talks with Syria on the crisis, and, according to an account published this week in Insight magazine, a publication of the right-wing Washington Times, has also argued in favour of engaging Iran. Before the Lebanon crisis, Rice appeared to be successfully moving U.S. policy gradually, if fitfully, towards a more realist position, particularly with respect to Iran. But she has now run into a brick wall in Bush himself, according to Insight.
"For the last 18 months, Condi was given nearly carte blanche in setting foreign policy guidelines," it quoted one "senior government source" as saying. "All of a sudden, the president has a different opinion and he wants the last word."
Her problems, however, may not be confined to Bush, according to another report in Thursday's New York Times, which suggested that Cheney - and his mainly neo-conservative advisers - has become increasingly assertive in the latest crisis in support of Israel's efforts to crush Hezbollah. (In fact, some of his unofficial advisers, such as Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and former Defence Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, have called for expanding the war to Syria and even Iran.) In that respect, the current situation recalls the humiliation of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's who in early 2002 sought to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to halt Israel's military offensive in the Palestinian territories - only to be undercut back home by Cheney and, ironically, by then-national security adviser Rice herself.
"She had as much to do with cutting his legs out from under him vis-à-vis the Middle East as anyone else - either through outright agreement with Cheney, or, at the minimum, complicity with his views so as to draw even closer to Bush," according to ret. Col Lawrence Wilkerson, Powell's former chief of staff at the State Department. (...)
