Rice targets 6 ‘outposts of tyranny’

Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice yesterday branded six countries, including Iran and North Korea, as “outposts of tyranny,” coining a term reminiscent of President Bush’s “axis of evil” three years ago.

Miss Rice, during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, vowed to use diplomacy to address “the threats to our common security” and to “spread freedom and democracy throughout the globe.”

“That is the mission that President Bush has set for America in the world, and it’s the great mission of American diplomacy today,” she said.

“To be sure, in our world, there remain outposts of tyranny, and America stands with oppressed people on every continent,” she said, naming Cuba, Burma, North Korea, Iran, Belarus and Zimbabwe.

The only “axis of evil” member missing from the new group is Iraq.

Miss Rice, who will succeed Colin L. Powell after her all-but-certain Senate confirmation, said the Foreign Service “will need to develop new skills and rise to new challenges” to be able to carry out “transformational diplomacy.”

“More than ever, America’s diplomats will need to be active in spreading democracy, fighting terror, reducing poverty, and doing our part to protect the American homeland,” Miss Rice said.

She conceded that her famous remark during the 2000 presidential campaign that the United States did not have to bother with nation building is no longer valid.

But even as she laid out an activist agenda for the diplomatic corps, Miss Rice spoke in “balance of power” terms, characteristic of the realpolitik school of foreign policy to which she belongs.

“We must use American diplomacy to help create a balance of power in the world that favors freedom,” she said. “The time for diplomacy is now.”

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., Delaware Democrat and the committee’s ranking member, said the time for diplomacy “is long overdue,” referring to the negative image of the United States in the Middle East and other parts of the world.

“Despite our great military might, we are, in my view, more alone in the world than we’ve been in any time in recent memory,” he said.

Miss Rice promised that public diplomacy will be a top priority for her at the State Department and that she “will increase our exchanges with the rest of the world.”

“Americans should make a serious effort to understand other cultures and learn foreign languages,” she said. “Our interaction with the rest of the world must be a conversation, not a monologue.”

She said she would consult closely with allies and be personally engaged in negotiations between Israeli and Palestinians. She plans “to spend an enormous amount of effort” on the Middle East peace process.

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