Word: rice
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...Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made her way around the Middle East this week trying in vain to convince Arab governments to cut all funding to a Hamas-led government, the U.S. and Israel both found themselves struggling to find a workable response to an unanticipated reality. The only way the U.S.-Israeli effort to isolate a Hamas-led Palestinian government will succeed, right now, is if Hamas were to launch new terror strikes against Israel. And that's precisely the reason why Palestinian observers and Israeli security analysts expect the radical Islamist movement to maintain and extend the cease...
...Secretary Rice is also looking to strengthen diplomatic pressure on Iran to desist from its defiance on the nuclear issue. In Cairo and Riyadh and during her Thursday session with Persian Gulf ministers gathered in Abu Dhabi for a Gulf Cooperation Council meeting, Rice is seeking to solidify moderate Arab support for U.S. and European efforts to pressure Iran to suspend its quest for a nuclear weapon...
...prepared for her trip, Rice said she hoped Iran would reassess its defiance once it realized that "the countries that support [Iran] are Syria, Cuba, and Venezuela; not the major Arab states, not any of the European states. This isn't just about the United States. This is about incredible isolation...
...Rice will also make another pitch for Arab political and financial support of Iraq: "I would hope that Iraq's neighbors are ready now to support Iraq as it moves toward the establishment of a permanent government," she said last week. "The Iraqis are going to need the support of their neighbors. The neighbors have been very helpful, by the way, in working with the Sunnis to get them more involved in the political system and so, I think we'll talk some more about that...
...Even though Islamists have been winning elections in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Egypt, Rice has sworn not to soft-pedal the touchy subject of President Bush's democracy agenda during this trip. She says she is more convinced than ever that instability in the Middle East will only worsen if politics remain polarized between authoritarian governments and violent extremists, and she is determined to use her own bully pulpit to exhort the region's governments to make a space for non-violent mainstream opposition parties and candidates...