Word: rice
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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That may be starting to change. In conversations with her counterparts overseas--and in two interviews with TIME in the past month--Rice has sketched out a vision of a "new alignment" of forces in the Middle East, in which a "stabilizing" group of U.S. allies, like Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, could unite to contain the "destabilizing" threat posed by Iran and radical groups like Hamas and Hizballah. "There is a recognition that things are really splitting," Rice says, "with extremists on one side and what I call responsible [governments]--because they're not all reformers...
Such talk may amount to spin for an Administration that needs silver linings. But for Bush and Rice it may also reveal a deeper philosophical shift. In recent years the Bush team has split over whether to abandon the ambition that underpinned the invasion of Iraq--to bring Western-style democracy to the Islamic world--in favor of conventional Realpolitik, in which idealism takes a backseat to stability. The most obvious signals that the U.S. is tilting back toward realism came on Rice's trip to the Middle East last month, in which she toned down calls for democracy...
...late? Rice's best qualities are her optimism and self-belief, but, like Bush, she is prone to stubbornness and resists admitting mistakes. Her uneven management of the State Department has left her without a strong team to execute bold new initiatives, even if she's inclined to pursue them. If Rice disagrees with Bush's determination to hold the line in Iraq, there are no signs that she has tried to change his mind. But right now a military victory in Iraq is out of reach; at most, the U.S. is fighting not to lose. And so the fate...
...this point, Rice's tenure as Secretary of State has been long on procedural victories but short on substantive policy results. Her most clear-cut successes have been forging a strategic alliance with India and improving the U.S.'s tattered relationship with its European allies. "She's been a good diplomat in the true sense of the word, going around talking and listening," says Charles Grant, director of the London-based Center for European Reform. "Although America's image hasn't changed, she's blameless in that...
...Rice has been slow to recognize the extent to which the U.S.'s prestige has declined. In 2005, the convergence of elections in the Palestinian territories and Iraq and the popular uprising against Syria's presence in Lebanon spurred Rice all but to declare that Washington was guiding the march of history. In a speech at the American University in Cairo, she criticized the government of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for failing to liberalize and said, "For 60 years, my country pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region ... and we achieved neither. Now we are taking...