WASHINGTON, 18 January 2005 — Considering the dismal state of trans-Atlantic relations, Colin L. Powell’s farewell trip to Europe as US secretary of state last month drew an impressive outpouring of personal affection as he readied to convey his office to Condoleezza Rice.
Gifts, spontaneous applause and effusive praise from fellow foreign ministers at almost every stop testified both to Powell’s renowned personal warmth and the conviction among many Europeans that his views somehow differed from those of his controversial president.
As America’s next top diplomat, Rice is unlikely to generate as much Old World affection on either count.
Although both Rice and Powell share a strong personal bond, their styles, skills and experience are a study in contrasts. As Rice prepares to take over America’s daunting foreign-affairs agenda — including the task of repairing relations with important European allies — she will be calling on very different strengths to get the job done.
Rice’s confirmation hearing will begin today. Although her quick confirmation is expected, Rice will face tough questioning, especially on the justification for the Iraq war. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said last week she planned to challenge Rice’s actions and statements, including a comment by Rice implying that Iraq could someday attack the United States with nuclear weapons.
Powell, at 67 nearly a generation Rice’s senior, has drawn on lessons from a successful military career and his experience as a child of immigrant parents in New York’s inner city. Rice, 50, grew up in a relatively privileged black family in America’s segregated South. Her two great assets, according to those know her well: A dazzling, nimble mind and arguably the closest relationship to her president than any secretary of state since Henry Kissinger in the 1970s.
Maintaining her closeness to Bush could be a challenge, according to others who have served in top national-security jobs. Rice not only will move out of the White House but will become the prime architect, chief negotiator and main public face of America’s relations with the outside.
In addition, she will also take on the responsibilities of running a far-flung department with nearly 30,000 employees and a budget of more than $8 billion.
During her career, Rice has accumulated varying amounts of experience as a negotiator and an administrator. As the leading White House Soviet specialist to Bush’s father, she helped shape America’s response to the collapse of communism in Europe in 1989. As provost of Stanford University during the 1990s, Rice earned a reputation as a tough but impatient executive with an expressed distaste for committee meetings.
Former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski believes the pressures of her new post are likely to generate a degree of distance between Rice’s thinking and that of the president.
“The relationship won’t be as close six months from now as it is today,’’ Brzezinski predicted. “Just the (reduced) physical proximity will make it different.’’
Rice’s views on key issues also could change as she begins traveling frequently, meeting foreign leaders in their homelands and confronting issues firsthand, foreign affairs specialists said.
“She is going to bring the president a different kind of evaluation, because it will be a different experience,’’ said Judith Kipper, a Middle East specialist for the Council on Foreign Relations. “This won’t be just cables coming over from the State Department, it will be more nuanced, more hands-on.’’
Still, those who know Rice well believe the energy and intellectual vigor she devotes to issues will help make her succeed as secretary of state.
“She’s extremely disciplined in her thinking, yet she’s also open to new ideas,’’ noted a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity, but who has worked with Rice. “She’s a great conceptualizer, who understands we’re in a new era and can reach out and embrace the unexpected.’’
Insiders say she seized on the potential of an Arabic reform initiative launched last year at a meeting of leading industrial nations to foster economic development and the growth of civil society. The initiative has encountered resistance across much of the Muslim world.
Her choice of veteran diplomat Robert B. Zoellick as her principal deputy is considered by at least some experts to add to Rice’s strengths rather than compensate for her weakness. “Both are brilliant, but brilliant people do things quickly, sometimes without the right people skills,’’ Kipper said.
Rice will need to summon all her skills as she starts on the foreign affairs challenges that face Bush during his second term. With a huge budget deficit, a weak dollar and the financial and military drain of the war in Iraq, any headway the administration makes on other issues — such as Israeli-Palestinian peace or nuclear proliferation — likely will require the help of old friends.
It is that reality that drives what is likely to become the focus of Rice’s first weeks in office: Bush’s February trip to repair relations with European allies who have still not recovered from the fallout of the US-led invasion of Iraq. By all indications, it won’t be easy.
“The fact that Bush’s personal foreign policy assistant is now secretary of state isn’t a good sign. There will be lots of papering over of cracks, but the divisions themselves will remain,’ noted Christoph Bluth, a specialist on terrorism and international security at Leeds University in Britain.
Yet, for all of Powell’s popularity in foreign capitals, even those who dealt with him understood that his position as a perceived outsider within the administration on so many crucial issues diminished his abilities to influence the president’s thinking. Whatever foreign leaders may think of Rice personally — or the policies she advocates — they will know she is a more powerful figure within her government than Powell.
“She will be seen as a credible interlocutor, because whoever deals with her can assume that she has the backing of the White House; that was a problem with Colin Powell,’’ noted Francois Heisbourg, a former senior French Defense Ministry official and now chairman of the Geneva Center for Security Policy. “We all liked Colin Powell, but he spoke largely for himself.’’
