Condi will head to the Middle East next week.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice intends to travel to the Middle East as early as next week to press for a political solution to reduce fighting between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, her spokesman said on Thursday.
The aim of the trip was “to address the tactical situation but also to try to address the root causes and bring about a strategic change,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.
Trying not to be too cynical here, but hasn’t there already been a multitude of attempts from previous administrations to “address the root causes and bring about a strategic change” in the region? Yeah, I know it’s just a scripted statement from a spokesman, but I can’t help but wonder what Rice expects to accomplish. Cease fire? I wrote about the ramifications of that yesterday. Full-on peace? Unlikely if not impossible.
But, let’s look at the glass as half full and hope that Condi’s mission results in something more than just a set of colorful photos of people sitting at conference tables.