Rice loads up foreign agenda

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By Betsy Pisik

UNITED NATIONS

The Bush administration embarks on a late series of foreign policy initiatives this week with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the United Nations seeking help fighting Somali pirates, trying to avert a humanitarian disaster in Zimbabwe and reaching for momentum in Middle East peace efforts.

The State Department did not release details of Miss Rice's schedule before her trip, but the U.S. is circulating a resolution that would authorize military force against pirates in Somalia, including land and air attacks on pirate bases.

The U.N. mission said the 15-nation Security Council could vote as early as Tuesday.

"The pirates come from land, and that land happens to be in Somalia," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

On Monday, Miss Rice is expected to attend a closed-door meeting of the Quartet, a 3-year-old initiative of the U.S., the United Nations, the European Union and Russia to create a blueprint for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

On Saturday, the United States and Russia introduced the draft resolution intended to reinforce the principles of the Quartet.

"We think this is an important for the council to express itself on the Israeli-Palestinian issue," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters, with just more than a month remaining before Barack Obama takes the presidency.

Expectations for substantive progress in Middle East peace have faced multiple setbacks in the past year. The latest obstacle emerged Sunday when the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, said it would not extend a six-month truce with Israel.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the U.N. envoy to the Quartet, will appear by video link instead of in person.

Miss Rice, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, EU commissioners Bettina Ferrero-Waldner and Javier Solana, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will participate in the 60-minute discussion, as well as a second meeting with Arab foreign ministers.

On Tuesday, Miss Rice will attend the Security Council session on Somalia.

While broadly agreeing that the increasingly bold pirates threaten global commerce, some of the European and African nations are concerned that the proposed resolution, as written, would allow foreign armies, such as the United States or its proxy, Ethiopia, to conduct amphibious assaults on another country's soil.

The commander of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, on Friday told the Associated Press that he didn't care for the idea of chasing pirates onto land, stressing the potential for killing innocent civilians.

The lack of an effective central government has allowed piracy to flourish, with hundreds of merchant ships attacked this year. About 1,500 pirates operate from bases in Somalia. Pirates recently seized a Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of crude oil.

Miss Rice also hopes to achieve a consensus on steps to pressure Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to quit after 28 years in power.

In recent weeks, U.S., European and some African leaders have called on Mr. Mugabe to step down amid a cholera epidemic caused by a lack of clean water and basic necessities such as bars of soap. Mr. Mugabe's government contends that the epidemic is under control.

Several U.N. watchers said the broad agenda of Miss Rice's visit reflects improved ties between the White House and the world body during her four years as secretary of state.

"It's oversimplified to say the Bush administration is anti-U.N., but it did start off poorly in the first term and improved under Condi," said Spencer Boyer of the Center for American Progress. "She brought a pragmatism and helped the administration get further away from ... the American exceptionalism."