Ambitious first trip for Rice sets new foreign-policy tone

The US is interested in hearing what more the Europeans will be willing to take on in Iraq - a special meeting of NATO foreign ministers has been called to greet Rice, with training of Iraqi security forces on the agenda. For their part, Europeans want to know in particular what steps the second-term Bush White House will be taking in a newly promising environment between the Israelis and Palestinians, and toward Iran. They are also pressing the US to become more engaged in efforts by Britain, Germany, and France to negotiate an accord with Iran to end nuclear-weapons development. The US has so far limited its role to supporting the European initiative while periodically dangling the option of more sticks, such as sanctions or military strikes.

Prospects for concrete measures from Rice appear brighter as she takes the pulse of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That's because Bush is signalling his desire to see the "moment of opportunity" translate into some signs of progress, some analysts say.

Rice's "immediate visit wouldn't be happening if the president didn't give her a cue, and a very different cue than the one he gave Powell in the first term," says Michael Hudson, head of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University in Washington. At the same time, Rice appears to be taking on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with less of the fixed pro-Israeli stance that influenced the administration's action in the first term, he says.

At the State Department this week, Rice emphasized the importance of pressing for a two-state solution that gives the Palestinians a viable and contiguous state. By picking up on requisites that President Bush has himself outlined, Rice appeared to be signaling that the US will be looking for hard choices and sacrifices from the Israelis as well as from the Palestinians.

Mr. Hudson says it won't be enough for Rice to simply take the region's pulse. "If the moment is to be seized, then her presence has to be more than symbolic. She should come back with something fairly tangible to show." That means steps from both sides, he says, including Israeli measures to ease the hardship of Palestinians.

Stephen Cohen, national scholar at the Israel Policy Forum in New York, says it is crucial for the US to take concrete steps of support toward Mr. Abbas before the "showdown" he faces in Palestinian parliamentary elections later this year.

"She has to start going beyond 'continuity' to talking about 'land continuity' when she talks about a Palestinian state," he says "so there's no suspicion the US is backing" the notion of what has been called a "Swiss cheese" state of small enclaves linked by bridges and tunnels.

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