Commencing on Oct. 3, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice journeyed between various Arab capitals, conferred with Arab leaders, then shuttled between Israeli and Palestinian officials, before eventually joining a few of her counterparts in London, on Oct. 6, in a six-nation conference, with the aim of fanning the flames against Iran.

Rice, the most faithful foreign policy ambassador of the Bush administration, even before her infamous takeover of the State Department, seems hell-bent on reining in Iran, ensuring the failure of the Hamas government, and restructuring the political landscape of Lebanon in the post-war era in a way that would deny Hezbollah the opportunity to capitalize on its astounding military achievements.

One can easily dismiss Rice’s attempts as futile and, indeed self-defeating. The logic is simple: Rice represents all that is insidious about the Bush regime, one of the most loathed US administrations in the modern history of the Middle East, if not the world. Her visits to the region, despite the official fanfare that often awaits her at Arab capitals, coupled with her disagreeable and untimely grins, are often associated with her government’s disastrous foreign policy, political plots and anti-democratic efforts.

Nonetheless, Rice is intelligent enough to deduce such a realization. All she has to do is look at caricatures of her in Arab daily newspapers the following day: the gap between her front teeth matures into a dark abyss, her insolent attitude and inconsiderate expectations, all turn the former academician into the regions’ fiend, one that is strongly associated with political instability and disorder.

But the fact is, Rice cares little for Arab public opinion, nor any other public opinion for that matter. Her definition of democratic transformation hardly resembles the people’s collective desire. She simply stands at odds with the people’s aspirations for greater freedom and change, and undoubtedly she knows it.

Her declaration, following Israel’s devastating war on Lebanon in July 2006, that time had arrived for a “New Middle East”, and her full backing of the Israeli military adventure, earned her “enemy of the people” status that towers far beyond that of former Secretary Madeline Albright.

Her incessant attempts to chastise and sanction Iran — while leaving all other options open — for allegedly striving to obtain nuclear capabilities for the purpose of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, while turning a blind eye to Israel’s full-functioning mass killing capabilities, made her another double-faced foreign policy hypocrite.

Even her promise — during her Oct. 4 joint press conference with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas — that the US will “redouble” its efforts to help “improve conditions for the Palestinian people” was quickly snubbed by Palestinian media and by a mass rally held in Gaza two days after her visit to the West Bank. Palestinians understood well that the purpose of her visit was to support President Abbas’ disgruntled faction, that of Fatah, against Hamas, now the ruling party.

In the span of the three days prior to her visit, 10 Palestinians were killed in clashes between the two groups; Fatah was and continues to fight in order to infuse further chaos, render the government inoperative to pave the way for a presidential decree to dismantle it, while Hamas is fighting to retain control of what it perceives, and rightfully so, as its political achievement, resulting from the democratic choice of the Palestinian people during the January elections.

The greatest irony in Rice’s visit is that it came to cement the anti-democratic forces in the region. It’s ironic because the democratization of the Middle East seemed, at least for a few months, the Bush administration’s winning ticket out of Iraq. It was the only possible pretense that would relieve the administration from its failure to uncover Iraq’s nonexisting WMDs, or turn Iraq into a coveted oasis of order and democracy. That delusion quickly vanished when Hamas came to power, riding the same democracy wave stirred by the Americans, and opening up the horizon of aspiring Arab opposition groups, Islamic or any other.

Now Rice is back, pushing to abort the same democratic process that her boss had alleged to champion. [In his Middle East “vision” speech on June 24, 2002, President Bush had considered free and fair elections in the Palestinian territories a key priority to the success of what was later termed the road map peace initiative.]

Rice might not be the most amiable person, in the eyes of most people. However, she understands that her problems are much greater than that of her personal image and chances of likeability. The Israeli military failure in Lebanon had ruled out, at least for a while longer, the desire of her government’s warmongers, the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington and the Israeli government, to challenge Iran militarily. That setback has empowered both Syria and Iran to challenge the Bush administration more candidly than ever, with Iran calling the American bluff for war. Hezbollah too has moved in to ensure that full-scale American-Israeli involvement in reinforcing the anti-Hezbollah alliance within Lebanon itself doesn’t undermine its political relevance and future import.

But, for now, the core of the American Middle East battle is focused on Palestine. If Palestinian democracy prevails and withstands the intense Israel-American-Fatah pressure, then US foreign policy will suffer its greatest loss as of yet, whose outcome will reverberate across the entire region.

The Palestinian democratic experience thus must fail, even if the price that would ensure its failure is a full US re-engagement and political backing of the embattled Palestinians’ President Abbas and his fractious followers, equally desperate not to lose the decisive battle against Hamas.

Rice’s visit to the region was neither intended to “reinvigorate” the peace process nor to support the voice of “moderation” in the region. It was meant to ensure the fortitude of her allies that would secure and extend the collective punishment of the Palestinian people, until they repent and throw out their democratically elected government, a scenario that was tried with success in Nicaragua decades ago, of course, at a very high price.

Unfortunately, many are in agreement with Rice’s iniquitous objectives, thus giving her good reason to all but abandon her unpleasant grin.