Friday, October 27, 2006

Condi's Soul

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is not only the most powerful woman in the world. She is also the most dangerous. It is not merely the diplomatic sledge hammer she wields as a top official in the world’s only superpower. Scarier still is the fact that she is a sleepwalker, slinging it around in a trance state. Unless America’s top foreign policy adviser wakes up soon, the United States may find itself stumbling into the darkest foreign policy nightmare of its history.

In a naïve embrace of sisterhood I had convinced myself that Dr. Rice could save the Bush Administration from its utopian fantasies in the Middle East. But as I watched the Secretary of State’s lies under oath regarding the lead up to the Iraq war, her description of the carnage in Lebanon as “birth pangs” and now Bob Woodward’s reportage in State of Denial that she brushed off top-secret intelligence reports of a possible al-Qaeda at on the U.S. just months before the 9/11 tragedy, I have reached a frightening realization. This is not the performance of a geo-political strategist at work. It is rather the empty clatter of wooden shutters hitting the sides of an abandoned house. She can and must do better than that.

Even so, I do not blame Condoleezza Rice for the Bush Administration’s failed policies in the Middle East. She did not issue the command in March of 2003 to invade Iraq, which has now brought that strife-torn nation to the precipice of civil war. Nor do I believe that she gave Israel the go-ahead to bomb Lebanon, which has killed hundreds of innocent women and children and raised Hezbollah’s stature in the Arab world to that of a savior. But to whom else in the Administration can one appeal? President George Bush’s understanding of the Middle East never matured past what he probably learned as a kid in Sunday School. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is so spaced-out on the neoconservative ideology of forcing regime-change in an already unstable Middle East, that I doubt whether he can hear above the din of Christian Right supporters shouting “Get Ready for Armageddon.”

Condoleezza Rice is not an ideologue. She is an intelligent and talented woman. But unless she arouses herself to the magnitude of Mid East horrors to which she has become an accomplice, she may end up evolving into something far worse -- a “Kul”. It is a Turkish term, which means “slave.” More specifically, it refers to a high-level servant of the state, often the vizier, who wields immense power second in prominence only to that of the ruler. However, the Kul is invariably of slave background and unmarried, thus negating the problem of competing family loyalties. Most importantly, the Kul’s value is predicated on an undivided fealty to the ruler alone.

The Secretary of State has now promised the world a “New Middle East Initiative.” In preparing the ground for what will hopefully be a more constructive policy for that war-torn region than what we’ve advocated in the past, there is something vital that Dr. Rice must realize. Nothing of enduring value can come from a Kul. Nor will Central Intelligence briefings, Cabinet meetings or United Nations Security Council debates tell her what she really needs to know. In order to succeed in this and any other meaningful endeavor, she will need to make a journey far more challenging than any of the diplomatic missions demanded of her in the Middle East. Dr. Rice has been feeding off the life force of her boss for too long. She needs to return home to the place where her own soul resides, if it’s not already too late.

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