UN Ambassador Rice: Nations Want to 'Work with America Again'
NEW YORK – My question – lifted from Barack Obama's last prime time press conference – was a reporter's ploy to extend a Wednesday afternoon interview that had already run past its scheduled half hour. But United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, the Obama campaign veteran with the most high-profile foreign policy post in the new administration, mulled it carefully, reluctant to offer a flip answer.
"What's humbled me the most (in this job) are the outsized expectations that the rest of the world has of the Obama administration, which I think only God and the three trinities would be able to meet," she said in a soft voice. "What has surprised me – although it is not entirely a surprise – has been the degree to which there has been this opening and welcoming hand, and the desire to renew relations and cooperation with the United States."
The 44-year-old Rice, who was assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Clinton administration, can point to tangible examples at the United Nations of the world community's eagerness "to work with America again and to trust and respect our leadership." She is particularly gratified by the Security Council's strong statement (supported by China and Russia) last month deploring the recent North Korean missile launch over Japan – and the consensus agreement to tighten international sanctions against the Pyongyang government and its nuclear program.
"Is this the best (deal) we could get?" she asked rhetorically. "Yes. Is it pretty damn good? Yes. And do the North Koreans hate it? Apparently, because they have reacted very negatively and seem to have seen this as a significant step by the Security Council."
As the only Cabinet member required to reside outside the Washington area, Rice's mastery of the logistical details of her new post remains a work in progress. Her original theory was to spend virtually every Friday at the State Department, which would allow her to have a semi-normal Washington workaholic weekend with her husband, ABC News producer Ian Cameron, and their 6-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son. But with weekend sessions of the Security Council and international trips, so far that orderly plan is more an aspiration than a reality.
Rice admits she is also grappling with the social aspects of her U.N. post, which comes with a sprawling apartment in the Waldorf Towers on Park Avenue that predecessors like Richard Holbrooke used adroitly to set a very high profile for the U.S. mission in both diplomatic and social circles. "I'm up here as essentially a single ambassador with family obligations in Washington," Rice said. "So the advantage of that is that when I'm here in New York, I could do the social aspects of the job. And I think it's fair to say that I've been all but overwhelmed by the number of invitations that I've had for receptions and dinners and events in my honor. So in the early months, I've been eating and drinking my way through other people's homes."
When Michelle Obama dropped by the U.S. mission Tuesday afternoon, she pointedly praised Rice as someone whom the president "trusts and respects and admires." These personal ties to Obama were forged during the marathon quest for the Democratic presidential nomination, when Rice was an indefatigable foreign policy coordinator and surrogate speaker for the campaign. And it is perhaps these bonds of loyalty that serve as Rice's best protection against the risk of being marginalized by the larger-than-life Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Dating back to the Kennedy era when Adlai Stevenson was all but exiled to New York, the U.N. post often comes equipped with more prestige (like the Cabinet-level title) than actual decision-making power.
Asked about her relationship with Clinton – the candidate whom she opposed in the primaries-Rice made no effort to sidestep the question. "I think we have an excellent working relationship. That's not spin, that's reality. It's been collegial and professional from Day One. We've worked together before, not as peers at the same table (but in the White House). I've known her; I respect her enormously. I think she was a brilliant choice for this job. And she has been nothing other than respectful and supportive of me. So we have yet to have a difficult patch."
And yet Rice inadvertently signaled her heightened sensitivity to even the slightest hint of a rift with Clinton. "I read somewhere today that we had a 'fractious' relationship. That was in the National Journal." Indeed it was – exactly one sentence referring to Rice and Clinton buried in a lengthy article about the nomination of a new assistant secretary of state for African affairs. But Rice insisted on treating it seriously. "I don't know where that comes from," she said. "It's just not true. And I know that my people are not saying that. And I don't think that hers are saying that."
The daughter of a former Federal Reserve Board governor, Rice is also sophisticated enough in the ways of Washington to understand that a certain number of turf battles with the State Department are inevitable no matter who is the nation's chief diplomat. "There have sometimes been difficult institutional relations between USUN (the acronym used to describe the UN Mission) and State," Rice conceded. "We're working very hard not to let that happen. If I get through my tenure and it never happens, that will be close to miraculous."
With Clinton at State and short memories in the White House, senior positions have not been plentiful for veterans of the early Obama foreign policy team. "I certainly feel a personal desire and obligation to do as much as I can for those good people, particularly those who started off at the very beginning when (the campaign) was only about vision and conviction," Rice said, referring to the veterans of the 2008 foreign policy team who are still compulsively checking their Blackberries in hopes of a message from the White House personnel office. "A number of them have, thankfully, landed well and there are others that we hope to see land. But the painful reality is that there are more good people than good jobs – jobs that people feel are worthy...I think inevitably there will be some who are disappointed and I will be disappointed on their behalf."
Rice gave a wrenching talk at the UN last month commemorating the 15th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. Rice, who handled African issues on the staff of the national security council in the Clinton White House at the time, recalled a visit to Rwanda in which she was forced to walk around "the decomposing bodies of those who had been so cruelly murdered" in a churchyard. "For me," she said, "the memory of stepping around and over those corpses will remain the most searing reminder imaginable of what our work here must aim to prevent."
Memories like that may help explain the idealism that Rice brings to a job that will inevitably bitterly disappoint those unable to accept the incremental steps that come within working with the framework of the United Nations –even in the Age of Obama. |
