Thank you for this intelligent breakdown on Condi's tenure as Sof S. Good to hear the good and the bad. I don't like or trust her since she did such a bang up job as NSA. Her ability to understand the English language needs improvement.

I am not in the least happy that Rice, a willing accomplice to this administration's lies about WMD in Iraq, is currently Sec. of State. I have nothing but contempt for her. Before the WP falls all over itself praising her diplomacy, it might be wise to wait until we see the outcome of the various 'engagements.' Iran said today that it would be restarting its nuclear program on Monday and that the Europeans would get 'used to it.' Doesn't seem to be much progress there yet, if indeed there should be from an Iranian point of view. After a good start to talks with North Korea, it seems that some problems have arisen.
Iran and North Korea, as members of the 'axis of evil,' must have a great deal of trouble trusting whatever the US has to say now, and trusting that the US won't attack them in the sequel to 'shock and awe.' I don't blame them one bit.

Thanks for your contribution Mr. Kupchan.

If Rice has seized the reins of US foreign policy since taking over at the State Department, then what I want to know is who held those reins before Rice went to State?

Certainly not the National Security Advisor! One wonders if the recent administration changes in foreign policy direction and emphasis might be due just as much to her leaving her *old* job, which she apparently handled very poorly, as it is to her acceding to her new position. Under her watch as NSA, US foreign policy fell into extremism and incoherence as State and Defense battled it out in a bitter, rancorous turf war, and a neoconservative bureaucratic insurgency subverted long-standing bi-partisan practices and policies. Despite having the President's ear more than any other foreign policy official, Rice's own published views on foreign affairs largely lost out to the ideologues. One gathers that she caved, and that she performed very weakly in her function of harmonizing aims and views of the powerful departments with foreign policy responsibility.

The Post credits Rice with "pursuing a diplomatic strategy more pragmatic and less ideological than during Bush's first term." But she was the chief official charged with formulating that policy in the first term. One can hardly say that Colin Powell sought to pursue an unpragmatic and ideological foreign policy. His hands seem to have been tied by the White House, however, and his efforts undermined by scheming, extremist underlings like John Bolton, who worked to subvert their own boss's agenda and served as spies for the VP and his allies. Powell was not so free as Rice to run about the world pushing the US case with zest and aplomb, since he had to stay in Washington to wage a non-stop bureaucratic battle with his many enemies, and since so many of the things he said on the road were later contradicted back home by his enemies. Apparently Rice now has the green light to pursue a diplomatic agenda that Powell himself was not allowed to pursue.

The changes in the direction in US foreign policy may have more to do with a sea change at the Pentagon than anything else. The chief ideologues and policy commissars are gone. Wolfowitz is gone to the World Bank; Feith has left along with his lieutenant Larry Franklin - whose legal problems have helped discredit the old regime. And the reservations of the officer corps now seem to be making their way to the top.

Also, John Bolton has been shipped out to the UN, presumably to remove him from his trouble-making role at State; and the stove pipes seem to have been shut down. And yes, the weak and incompetent performance of Condoleeza Rice as NSA has been replaced by that of Stephen Hadley, who seems to have a firmer grip on the situation. I always thought Rice was in the wrong spot as the NSA to begin with, since her communication skills are her greatest asset.

One can only hope that Bush himself now has half a clue, and isn't in quite so much over his head as he was in 2001-2004. His first term was marked by a near-total breakdown of discipline in the the executive branch foreign policy departments, with chaotic infighting and inter-departmental struggles ravaging the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department, and the country launched on a stupidly conceived and poorly planned military adventure. As the institutional structures foundered, the country's foreign policy was seemingly directed out of the VP's office by a dimly accountable and secretive group of intriguers. Perhaps historians will later help us draw the lesson that one shouldn't elect *just anybody* as President - uneducated halfwits and blockheads need not apply in the future.

Dan raises some good points. Dr. Rice is a "yes-man" type who aims to please and enable others. This should reduce tensions within the administration. Don't look for Rice to establish strong policy goals. She will be a weak player who does the bidding of others.

One also must question whether the new tone in US relations is due to factors that have nothing to do with Dr Rice. The US just had an election and Bush won. The Europeans (and the world) must now accept Bush as the legitimate voice of the American people instead of the illigitimate leader, the loser of the popular vote who snuck into office on a 5-4 Supreme Court vote. Before the election, Europe could hope for a new president who was more aligned with their views. Now that is out the window.

Now that the US is bogged down in Iraq, the US has quit pushing the rest of the world to sign onto bad policies. This somewhat reduces the tensions. Plus the US has its hands full with Iraq and must give up some diplomatic initiative to other countries. Europe is more content to watch Bush flounder in Iraq and to do so requires little tension on their part. Our Arab allies have responded to criticism of their lack of democracy by producing an election facade.

While foreign relations are thawed, we don't see other countries rushing to send troops to Iraq to help secure that country. The Uzbeks just kicked our ass out of Central Asia and China and Russia have signed onto a pact that will leverage the US out. The new deal with India may strain US relations with other Asian nations and we will see how successfully that turns out.

Charles point about speaking honestly is spot on. Honesty means admitting that Iraq has been a huge mistake. Unless we are honest, it will be more difficult to extract ourselves from that quagmire. This will require a major turnabout for Dr Rice who has not been honest with Congress or the American people and has served her share of misinformation to enable administration goals. Had Dr Rice and this adminstration been more honest they might not have blundered into unwise policies that are now not supported by the American people.

Thank you Mr. Kupchan for treating your readers as adults with some amount of developed grey matter between the ears. I am repeatedly surprised as the reporting behavior of the Post (you point out excellent an example) and their extraordinary inability to connect related events such as high cost of war, contractor fraud-servicing the war, declining budgets for education, to mention a few. Might this be an indication that something is the matter with our schools of journalism?

It's almost beginning to appear we're living in a closed society, similar to the dictatorships of the Cold War with a controlled press and personality cults of their leaders.

Until Secretary Rice retracts and apologizes for outright Big Lies such as "This (Iraq) war came to us", there is no reason to have the slightest respect for her integrity or work.

Dan K. above makes excellent points about the incoherence of the view that Rice herself deserves any credit for the changes in BushCo foreign policy.

"To applaud the State Department for actually engaging in diplomacy with Iran and North Korea is a bit like applauding McDonalds for serving hamburgers."

Apart from the direct ill effects of the invasion of Iraq, the other thing that I've always found troubling about it is that it diverted attention at the top levels of the administration, as well as U.S. military assets, from the sort of "coercive diplomacy" we should have been pursuing with Iran and North Korea.

The one relatively hopeful sign, though, is that they seem to have given up on the fantasy that some sort of democratic revolution in Iran would end their nuclear program -- now that it has become clear that our presence in Iraq helped drive the Iranian electorate in a more hardline direction.