Condi Rice has hired a new counselor. The announcement was made on a Friday afternoon, the time that guarantees the least media resonance. As usual this tactic was successful and hardly any of the major news outlets did some analysis of this move.
To understand this move and why it may not be Rice’s man at all, a short look at recent foreign policy events is needed.
On February 8 Abu Abbas and Hamas announced an internal peace deal under the tutelage of Saudi King Abdullah. Cheney and his henchmen were pissed: How the Saudis stole a march on the US
The positive response to "the Mecca declaration" was nearly unanimous among international diplomats, excepting those from the US and Israel. Even Quartet members seemed relieved, announcing that they viewed the Palestinian accord in a "positive but cautious manner".
…
Elliott Abrams was enraged and more surprised by King Abdullah’s initiative than any other US official.
Abrams is essentially the Israeli ambassador to the Vice President’s office. He was working on starting a civil war within the Palestinian people.
He blamed Rice for this happening:
Privately, he remained convinced that Rice’s opening with Abu Mazen to restart the peace process had undermined his own program of support for Fatah radicals.
The next big foreign policy issue was a deal with North Korea. Here Rice circumvented Cheney and his gang: Rice is said to have speeded North Korea deal
After a meeting in Berlin in mid-January with her top negotiator on North Korea, Christopher R. Hill, who had just held lengthy sessions with his North Korean counterparts, Rice called back to Washington to describe the outlines of the deal to Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, and then to President George W. Bush.
But to some, it seemed the usual procedures were cut short — vetting the details through an interagency process that ordinarily would have brought in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, the Defense Department and aides at the White House and other agencies who had previously objected to rewarding North Korea before it gives up its weapons.
This did blow off the lid for Abrams:
Abrams fired off dozens of e-mails to government officials questioning the decision.
Questioning the President’s decision, which was leaked to the Washington Post, is not what anybody inside is allowed to do.
In the wake of his public tantrum, NSC director Stephen Hadley upbraided Abrams in a meeting in Hadley’s office, telling him that he was not the secretary of state.
Now Cheney had a problem. With his front man burned and Rice out of control he had to arrange for new influence on foreign policy.
This is the context which explains how one of the most ideological neocons, Eliot A Cohen, suddenly landed at Foggy Bottom.
In a move that has surprised many foreign-policy analysts, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has appointed a prominent neo-conservative hawk and leading champion of the Iraq war to the post of State Department counselor.
Cohen is the replacement for "realist" Philip Zelikow who left late last year.
Some moderates spin this as a move by Rice against Cheney:
"Condi may feel she needs to have a neo-con right next to her to protect her flanks," said Chris Nelson, editor of the widely read Washington insider newsletter The Nelson Report. "And if she’s really planning to put her foot down on the Israelis, which [Washington] will have to do if it wants to get a real process with the Palestinians under way as part of a bigger regional deal with the Saudis and Iranians, then a guy like Cohen up there on the [State Department’s] seventh floor who is in on it and can claim influence on the outcome can help."
The move came out of the blue, and though it was presented as Rice’s choice, the preceding events lead me to a different opinion. Glenn Greenwald also has his doubts:
The Cohen appointment is clearly another instance where neoconservatives place a watchdog in potential trouble spots in the government to ensure that diplomats do not stray by trying to facilitate rapproachments between the U.S. and the countries on the neoconservative War hit list.
We do not yet know how Cheney has arranged this, but I doubt that Rice did this voluntarily. The restart of the peace process with Abbas — that and the North Korean deal would most probably not have happened had Cohen been in the position he now occupies.
Cheney used one of his weekly private dinners to suggest Cohen to Bush who already liked him and Bush then suggested it to Rice. Obedient, she did what her ‘husband’ asked for.
Cohen, who was the first to declare World War IV after 9/11 and immediately promoted regime change in Iraq and Iran, will hardly sit back and protect Rice from other neocon attacks. He will try to stop any progress or rapprochement in Palestine. He will also stop any real negotiations with Iran and may even reverse the North Korea deal. He will want to make active policy and certainly not in the way Rice’s old counselor and she herself would prefer.
Rice now has a new consigliere but not one who will answer her orders. From now on it is again all Cheney and neocon imperial foreign policy.
Bush is now away on a longer trip in South America. Cheney has some room and time for the next steps in his program and now there will certainly be no more resistance from Rice’s side when he comes up with some surprises.