Forum without a future? Condoleezza Rice bails on Dubai meeting

In his second inaugural address, President Bush declared the United States would push for as long as it took to bring democratic reform to countries around the world, including, of course, in the Middle East.

That was then.

In a suggestion that the moving vans may already be loading up in the State Department driveway, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called off her trip this weekend to a U.S.-designed event in Dubai called Forum for the Future.

The event is an annual gathering of foreign ministers from large industrial powers and Arab countries, and is tied to the administration’s effort to promote democracy in region.

“Rice's absence will signal waning American interest in the region's political and economic reform, and will probably cause other ministers to stay home,” J. Scott Carpenter, a former Bush State Department official, wrote in a column for the Washington Insititute for Near East Policy.

In his view, the next president needs to “reinvent and reinvigorate” the effort, Carpenter said.

As for Rice, the State Department said she was hanging back in Washington on account of the world economic crisis.

-- Paul Richter

Photo: Charles Dharapak / Associated Press

Comments

[PolitikObserver]

It would have been nice if the State Department had advised us if the cancellation of her trip was due to lack of funds, or whether, Ms. Rice was suspending State Department business until she personally solved our economic crises.

[John]

So that is the Neo-Cons idea of a smooth transition? Hell, they've now destabilized the entire world what's one more region?

[Hemi]

So that is the Neo-Cons idea of a smooth transition? Hell, they've now destabilized the entire world what's one more region?

Posted by: John

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I love the way you sum up 8 years of the Bush administration in two lines.