Stephens: Failing Up With Susan Rice Benghazi was not her first African fiasco.
By BRET STEPHENSLike this columnist
Long before Susan Rice became a household name thanks to her part in
the Benghazi fiasco, she was building a career from the ruins of other
African fiascoes.
To some of these she merely contributed. Others were of her own making.
Ms. Rice's misadventures in Africa began nearly two decades ago when,
as a 28 year-old McKinsey consultant with an Oxford Ph.D. (her
dissertation was on Zimbabwe), she joined Bill Clinton's National
Security Council. The president, who had been badly burned by the
Black Hawk Down episode in October 1993, was eager to avoid further
African entanglements.
So when a genocide began in Rwanda the following April, the
administration went to great lengths to avoid any
involvement—beginning with the refusal to use the word "genocide" at
all. Giving voice to that sentiment was none other than Ms. Rice:
."At an interagency teleconference in late April [1994]," writes
Samantha Power in her book "A Problem From Hell," Ms. Rice "stunned a
few officials present when she asked, 'If we use the word "genocide"
and are seen as doing nothing, what will the effect be on the November
[congressional] election?' Lieutenant Colonel [Tony] Marley remembers
the incredulity of his colleagues at the State Department. 'We could
believe that people would wonder that,' he says, 'but not that they
would actually voice it.' "
Ms. Rice has said she can't remember making the remark, but regrets
doing so "if I said it." Some accounts say she was so burned by the
Rwanda debacle that she became determined to make amends upon becoming
assistant secretary for Africa policy in 1997. To judge by the record,
she didn't quite succeed.
The best account of Ms. Rice's time in that office comes from a 2002
article in Current History by Peter Rosenblum of Columbia University.
Ms. Rice was the architect of a policy that invested heavily in a new
crop of African leaders—Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia; Isaias Afewerki in
Eritrea; Yoweri Museveni in Uganda; Paul Kagame in Rwanda—presumed to
be more progressive-minded than their predecessors.
In May 1998, Ms. Rice had an opportunity to prove her diplomatic
mettle when she was sent to mediate a peace plan between warring
Ethiopia and Eritrea.
"What is publicly known," notes Mr. Rosenblum, "is that Rice announced
the terms of a plan agreed to by Ethiopia, suggesting that Eritrea
would have to accept it, before Isaias had given his approval. He
responded angrily, rejecting the plan and heaping abuse on Rice. Soon
afterward, Ethiopia bombed the capital of Eritrea, and Eritrea dropped
cluster bombs on Ethiopia. . . .
"Susan Rice was summoned back to Washington in early June after the
negotiations collapsed. Insiders agree that the secretary of state
[Madeleine Albright] was furious. According to one, Rice was
essentially 'put on probation,' kept in Washington where the secretary
could keep an eye on her. 'Susan had misread the situation
completely,' according to one State Department insider who observed
the conflict with Albright. 'She came in like a scoutmaster, lecturing
them on how to behave and having a public tantrum when they didn't act
the way she wanted."
An estimated 100,000 people would perish in the war that Ms. Rice so
ineptly failed to end. And the leaders in whom she invested her faith
would all become typical African strongmen, with human-rights records
to match. Yet that didn't keep Ms. Rice from delivering a heartfelt
eulogy for Meles at his funeral three months ago, in which she praised
him as "uncommonly wise," "a rare visionary," and a "true friend to
me."
A 2011 State Department report offers a different perspective on
Meles. It cites his "government's arrest of more than 100 opposition
political figures, activists, journalists and bloggers," along with
"torture, beating, abuse, and mistreatment of detainees by security
forces."
Then there is the Congo. Human-rights groups have long accused the
Clinton administration of acquiescing in the efforts by Rwanda and
Uganda to topple the Congolese government of Laurent Kabila in 1998,
which by some estimates wound up taking more than five million lives.
In congressional testimony, Ms. Rice angrily denied any U.S. role in
condoning or supporting the intervention.
But Ms. Rice may not have been completely forthcoming. "Museveni and
Kagame agree that the basic problem in the Great Lakes is the danger
of a resurgence of genocide and they know how to deal with that," Ms.
Rice is said to have remarked confidentially after a visit to the
region, according to reporter Howard French of the New York Times.
"The only thing we [the United States] have to do is look the other
way."
Which is what the U.S. did.
There is more to be said about Ms. Rice's skills as a diplomat,
particularly during her tenure at the U.N. For now, let's give Prof.
Rosenblum the last word on the person who might yet be the next
secretary of state:
"Rice proved herself brilliant, over time, in working the machinery of
government. But along the way she burned bridges liberally, alienating
and often antagonizing many potential allies. . . . Susan Rice seems
not to have convinced colleagues that her real interest was Africa, or
even foreign policy."
Received on Tue Dec 11 2012 - 23:26:03 EST
