[Mb-civic] At State, Rice Takes Control of Diplomacy - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

<>At State, Rice Takes Control of Diplomacy
Secretary Summons 'Practical Idealism'

By Robin Wright and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 31, 2005; Page A01

Three weeks after taking office, Condoleezza Rice hosted Defense 
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and their Japanese counterparts at the 
State Department. When Rumsfeld began to speak, Rice gently cut him off. 
The message was clear: I'll take the lead, Don. Both Japanese and U.S. 
officials noted the decisive nudge.

Now six months on the job, Rice has clearly wrested control of U.S. 
foreign policy. The once heavy-handed Defense Department still weighs 
in, but Rice wins most battles -- in strong contrast to her predecessor, 
Colin L. Powell. White House staff is consulted, but Rice designed the 
distinctive framework for the administration's second-term foreign policy.

In short order, she has demonstrated a willingness to bend on tactics to 
accommodate the concerns of allies without ceding on broad principles, 
what she calls "practical idealism." She also conducts a more aggressive 
personal diplomacy, breaking State Department records for foreign travel 
and setting up diplomatic tag teams with top staff on urgent issues.

<>U.S. foreign policy has always had "a streak of idealism, which means 
that we care about values, we care about principle," Rice said in an 
interview last week. "The responsibility, then, of all of us is to take 
policies that are rooted in those values and make them work on a 
day-to-day basis so that you're always moving forward toward a goal."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/30/AR2005073001081.html 

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