Rice sees growing realm of political possibilities in Mideast – USDOS press release/Non-UN document (excerpts)

Rice Sees Growing Realm of Political Possibilities in Mideast

United States remains committed to diplomacy on Iran's nuclear ambitions

The United States, through its efforts to encourage democratic reforms in the Middle East, is opening “the realm of the possible” to the people of the region, according to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

“[I]n a sense, what you're seeing in the Middle East is that what looked impossible, what looked frozen, what looked as if there was never going to be any change in these authoritarian governments, now people believe it's possible and they're acting on that possibility,” Rice said in an April 14 interview with the Wall Street Journal.

The secretary said that the United States has managed, in recent months, to build agreement among the world’s democratic states around a common agenda focused on the promotion of democracy in the Middle East.

She noted that there has been broad international consensus behind calls for Syria to remove its forces from Lebanon, behind using Israel’s disengagement from Gaza as a step towards achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and behind supporting the new Iraqi government as it works to build political institutions and overcome the insurgency.

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Following is the transcript of Rice’s interview:

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
April 13, 2005

INTERVIEW

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice With The Wall Street Journal

April 13, 2005
Washington, D.C.

(10:45 a.m. EDT)

QUESTION:  I think we're going to start on proliferation.

SECRETARY RICE:  Oh, all right.

QUESTION:  Well, we just wanted to start with a question on Iran.  Obviously, when Sharon was at Crawford, and also evidently yesterday was pushing a sense of urgency out of Israel on terms of how far along Iran might be and wanting very much this to go the UN Security Council route perhaps faster than you would like it to go, I'm just curious how you — what your sense is of that urgency and how much longer you're wanting to give the EU process.

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, I would say that the discussions we had with the Israelis was not unlike discussions that we've had before and this has all been taken into account as we thought about how to move the process forward.  So there wasn't a new revelation.

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QUESTION:  Can you elaborate a bit on what — obviously, that has become clear going into the second term and there have been very many high-level speeches that you've given and the President's given.  But what changes you plan to make on actual implementation of things from the active U.S. side that would push that along?

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, you're seeing some of it in that we've managed, I think, over the last several months to unify the states that are on democracy's side, the democratic states, in a pretty common agenda about the democratization agenda, and it has several parts.  Obviously, people are particularly interested in what's going on in Lebanon and Syria now, where our relationship with the French has given a kind of impetus to international cooperation to get the Syrians out of Lebanon.  And while I know that there is a long road ahead for the Lebanese and people ask, well, what's going to be the role of Hezbollah and what's the role of this and what's the role of that, the enabling condition here is to get the Syrians out and then to see what the real balance of forces looks like in Lebanon.

Similarly, I think you've seen a pretty united front on what needs to be done in the Israeli-Palestinian issue, where there may be shades of difference here or there but where people are very focused on making the disengagement work and then where the roadmap provides a kind of unifying force.

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QUESTION:  You know, I was going to say you're — the (inaudible) in a lot of ways is through development (inaudible) and the interesting question of how you modulate the message, how hard you push, how soft you make the message.  Crown Prince Abdullah is going to be in Crawford sometime soon.  What's the dialogue with the Saudis like on this subject of democracy and what else do you have on the agenda with them besides that?

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, it's a big agenda with the Saudis.  The Kingdom, since May of last year, I think has recognized the threat of al-Qaida terrorism directly to the Kingdom and has been a very active and aggressive partner in the war on terrorism.  On the terrorist financing side we've gotten very much further.  They closed down, for instance, Al Haramain and places.  I mean, this is a big set of moves for the Saudis.

Secondly, we obviously share an agenda about bringing — taking advantage of this opportunity for the Israeli-Palestinian issue to move forward.

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QUESTION:  Can I ask one more back on proliferation for a second?  I mean, it's kind of conventional wisdom that there are no military options on North Korea because they are already a nuclear power.  And even on Iran, having just finished reading a book about the long planning of the Israeli operation against Iraq, is it — is one safe in assuming that the U.S. Government does have military options?

SECRETARY RICE:  The President always leaves his options open and, you know, there are always options.  The better option is to be able to do this diplomatically and particularly given all that is going on in the Middle East, I mean, it's important to put Iran in context.  You know, we're very concerned about its nuclear ambitions, we're very concerned that we get the diplomacy on this right.

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