Debbie Schlussel: More Condi Clueless: U.S. Missed Russian/Georgian Conflict Because . . .
. . . incompetent Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a/k/a Condi Clueless was too busy pressuring Israel, and creating and shaping Great HAMASastan and Fatahstan and recognizing Kosovostan.
I've always said--repeatedly on this site and elsewhere--that the choice of Rice, a Sovietologist in an age when that was mostly not the hot spot and the Soviet Union was gone, was a stupid move and one that could only be attributed to affirmative action. Her area of expertise was not and still isn't the Middle East, which is why huge new terrorist states in Gaza and Lebanon crystallized under her blind "watch." Ditto for Kosovo, an Islamic terrorist state, which she and Bush recognized.
And it's not just me saying it. It's the Wall Street Journal and many Russian affairs experts:
[O]fficials said, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seemed so preoccupied with Iraq, Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict that she didn't have time to fashion an effective response to Russia's muscle-flexing on its borders.They note that Ms. Rice, herself a Russia scholar, was largely wrapped up with Middle East affairs and that, as a result, policy involving the former Soviet states was largely delegated to more junior officials.
This occurred despite the importance Washington placed on democracy in the former Soviet states, and despite growing signs in recent months that an increasingly confident and oil-rich Moscow wasn't going to allow pro-Western governments to flourish on its doorstep.
"The vast majority of the time, this administration is not focused on Georgia or Russia," said Sarah Mendelson, a senior follow the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
Now, as she prepares to leave office, there is actually a conflict she might have foreseen. But she was so busy creating Greater Barbaria, she was basically useless and failed to notice or intercede.
Condoleezza Rice--if she is even slightly remembered--will go down in history as an ineffective and ignorant Secretary of State, who more than even just incompetence, helped her boss usher in Islamic terrorist states around the world that grew in power and threatened us and our allies.
Buh-Bye, Condi. T Minus 4 Months. Tick Tock.
Posted by Debbie on August 12, 2008 09:27 AM to Debbie Schlussel