No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

by Condoleezza Rice

  35

  THE MIDDLE EAST PLUNGES INTO WAR

  WITHIN A COUPLE of weeks, though, events in the Middle East and Asia exploded, diverting my attention from Iraq for the better part of two months. I’d just returned from a trip to Vienna for a U.S.-EU summit and to Budapest for the fiftieth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution. The latter event was emotional for me as a student of communism in Eastern Europe—especially so when the Hungarians unearthed my long-forgotten academic article called “The Soviet Decision to Invade Hungary.” The trip ended on the twenty-fourth, and I was to leave again for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

  On June 25, a calm Sunday morning, I sat sipping coffee in my Watergate kitchen, hoping to have a few hours to myself and perhaps play golf before departing the next day. The phone rang. It was Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister. Eight Palestinian militants in Gaza, including members of Hamas, had entered Israel through a secret tunnel and killed two Israeli soldiers, wounded three others, and kidnapped a nineteen-year-old corporal named Gilad Shalit. I could hear the rage in Tzipi’s voice. “The Israeli people will demand that we do something,” she cried out.

  “Tzipi, stay calm and don’t just react,” I said. “Hamas will pay a price internationally for what they’ve done.” But I knew that it wouldn’t be long before Israel avenged the attack and we’d again be deep into a crisis in Gaza.

  After hanging up, I called the President. “They [the Israelis] are loaded for bear,” I said. “Do you want to call Olmert?”

  “No, what is he going to tell me except what you’ve already heard?” he asked quite reasonably.

  “Do you want me to call him?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said the President, “and give him my condolences.”

  Sometimes it was better for me to make the first call, allowing the President a “second bite at the apple,” if we needed one—and when the situation on the ground was clearer.

  The conversation with the Israeli prime minister was much like the one with Tzipi. I made some points about the need to be cognizant of the vulnerability of civilians in Gaza. Olmert acknowledged that responsibility but said that the attack would not go unanswered. It was better that he had the conversation with me. You don’t want to put the President of the United States in the position of asking for restraint when you know the request will fall on deaf ears.

  I left the next morning for Pakistan and Afghanistan, trying to concentrate on the problems there while awaiting the news—certain to come—of an Israeli attack in Gaza. My agenda in South Asia was a familiar one: to continue to push for cooperation between these unlikely and prickly partners in the war on terror. But in Pakistan the news took a different and consequential turn. My dinner with the foreign minister had gone later than expected, and it was already midnight when we met the press. I expected to take a few questions critical of India and of Karzai, call for cooperation, and end the encounter.

  The last question was from a journalist who noted that the United States had not called for “free and fair elections.” Frankly, I wasn’t sure if he was right, and I didn’t want to blindside my host. But what else could I say? “The United States stands for free and fair elections and will help the Pakistani government to achieve them.” At that moment I had no idea how elaborate my involvement would become. Within a year I would arrange a deal between Benazir Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf, insisting that the general take off his uniform to facilitate a return to civilian rule. And I would help clear the way for Bhutto’s tragic reentry into Pakistan.

  My attention to matters in South Asia didn’t last, however, because the Middle East was erupting. By the time I arrived in Moscow to meet with my G8 counterparts and lay the groundwork for the upcoming summit, the expected Israeli response was unfolding in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were sent into southern Gaza, where they conducted air strikes against bridges and energy infrastructure. Israeli forces also seized members of Hamas in the West Bank. The clashes in Gaza had a predictable rhythm. Hamas would provoke, Israel would respond militarily, and the international community would wring its hands. This time was no different. With the help of Peter MacKay, the Canadian foreign minister, I fought back the idea of a G8 statement urging the Israelis to cease their military action. “Who are we kidding?” I said to my colleagues. “We can call for a ceasefire until we’re blue in the face. It isn’t going to happen until Israel has completed its operation.”

  The problem was that the Israelis always seemed to overreach. Initially, there was some sympathy for a response but sooner or later the inevitable Al Jazeera pictures of civilian misery would turn the tide of public opinion. Israel, determined to damage Hamas and to send a message of deterrence, was never sufficiently aware of when it was running out of time before it, and not the terrorists, was considered the aggressor. It was the job of the United States—and the secretary of state in particular—to walk the fine line that affirmed Israel’s right to self-defense and protected U.S. interests with a broad set of allies and friends. Every secretary of state since 1948 has had to do that. I sometimes wonder how many more of us will come and go before that challenge goes away.

  THE FIGURATIVE EXPLOSION in the Middle East would soon give way to headlines about a literal one in Asia. On the Fourth of July, North Korea test-fired seven missiles, including a Taepodong-2 ICBM. The North Korean issue had festered since the breakdown of talks almost a year before. Seeking to blame the United States, the North had offered to return to the Six-Party Talks on condition that the U.S. unfreeze Pyongyang’s assets in a Chinese-owned bank in Macau. The money in Banco Delta Asia totaled only $25 million, but it was symbolically important to Kim Jong-il. When the President met with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the White House in April, Hu asked him directly to unfreeze the assets so that the talks could resume. At the time, the President reminded Hu that the problem was not one of sanctions but of North Korea’s threats and bad behavior. The missile test put the Chinese in a corner.

  I called my Chinese counterpart, Li Zhaoxing, and told him that the time had come for Beijing to step forward. North Korea had had plenty of warning not to conduct the test but had gone ahead anyway. In fact, the prospect of the test had led us to mobilize for the first time our nascent missile defense system. Using components in Alaska and at sea, the Pentagon had cobbled together the ability to shoot down a North Korean missile should it threaten the United States or U.S. assets. I’d favored the idea but told the President that it might cost us internationally or even on Capitol Hill. (The issue of missile defenses was still sensitive, and seeing interceptors put into position might trigger a negative response.) It did neither. Our allies, Congress, and even the Russians seemed to see the wisdom of a “defensive” challenge to North Korea’s aggression.

  Li and the Chinese were isolated internationally and they knew it. In Paris at a previously called meeting of the P5+1 to discuss Iran’s nuclear activities, the Chinese had first refused to send a representative, claiming scheduling conflicts, but had ultimately dispatched Li’s third in command. I am convinced that it had little to do with Iran. Li didn’t want to talk about North Korea, so he avoided the meeting. Sitting in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on an unbearably hot day with no air-conditioning, I found myself angry at Beijing for this policy of avoidance. I made a mental note to tell Li that China was a great power but never acted like one. Then a little voice inside my head whispered, Maybe that’s for the best.

  Despite China’s reticence the Japanese and United States sponsored a Chapter VII UN resolution imposing strong sanctions on the North. On this issue the Chinese had never voted for Chapter VII, which called for all necessary means to protect against a “threat to peace and security.” In the end, they weren’t ready to do so on this occasion either. But when John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, called me only one week after the missile test to say that he had UNSC agreement on imposing sanctions if we would delete the reference to Chapter VII, I readily agreed. John had cleverly used muc
h of the language of the more consequential resolution in this new draft. Now China was on record agreeing to sanction its client. Pyongyang’s missile test had been too much for even Beijing. More importantly, these steps laid the foundation for much tougher action against Pyongyang when in a few months Kim Jong-il again, to quote President Bush, “threw his food on the floor in a very noisy way” by exploding a nuclear device.

  AS THE NEGOTIATIONS on North Korea were unfolding, I was on my way to meet the President for his bilateral sessions with his European counterparts. On the heels of the trouble in Gaza, more consequential and dangerous events were taking place in the Middle East. Hezbollah had launched an attack across the Blue Line (the internationally recognized border between Israel and Lebanon), killing Israeli soldiers and kidnapping others. After conversations with Tzipi Livni and Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, I issued a statement condemning the attack. The region was exploding again.

  I caught up with President Bush in Germany, trying to keep tabs on what was transpiring in the Middle East without detracting from the visit meant to showcase our friendship with Berlin. Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to stage a German barbecue dinner for the President, complete with a whole roasted pig. The scene was a little odd, as if the cultural event had been flipped on its head—the Texans sitting there in their cowboy boots with Chancellor Merkel similarly attired. But it was a very nice outing, and I spent a good deal of time with Merkel’s husband, a professor with whom I shared stories about the crazy goings-on in universities.

  But by the time we reached the Konstantinovsky Palace just outside St. Petersburg, the situation in Lebanon was deteriorating quickly. I had been looking forward to a brief, somewhat routine stop there to attend a bilateral between the President and President Putin before the G8 summit of heads of state. Foreign ministers didn’t usually attend the meeting with their bosses, and I was glad to head for Washington for an extended home stay—two whole weeks before heading to Southeast Asia.

  My room was in a separate building on the palace grounds from where the President was staying. After several calls with the Israelis, I called Steve Hadley to see if the President was available. “He says you should come on over,” Steve said. I dressed hurriedly while my security detail figured out how to get the car to me quickly. The Russians had decided that there would be no cars on the premises, so my agents were also without transportation. A nearby golf cart seemed the quickest way to get to the President.

  Having so recently been angered by the Gaza provocation, Israel was in no mood to be counseled to exercise restraint. There was little doubt that Olmert—needing to show that he was as strong as his predecessor, Sharon—would come down hard on Hezbollah. Within a day, Hezbollah compounded the problem by launching a near-continuous assault of rockets into northern Israel. The pictures across Israeli television of citizens scrambling into bomb shelters further enraged public opinion.

  In response to the Hezbollah infiltration, Israel blockaded the Lebanese coast and began a bombing campaign against Lebanon’s main airport, hitting fuel tanks that caused dramatic and fiery explosions. When I later asked Olmert’s aides why they’d gone after fuel tanks, he was honest. “Because we needed the Israeli people to see that we were doing something spectacular,” he said.

  The G8 always seemed to be dominated by an unforeseen crisis. The year before, it had been the attack on the London public transit system that had killed fifty-two people. A tragedy of that kind at least permitted the G8 to be immediately united in its response—no one favored terrorist attacks. But reacting to the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East is a much more complicated matter. And the response would follow the familiar pattern seen a month before in Gaza: sympathy for Israel; alarm at the civilian toll resulting from the response; and a turn against the Jewish state, which would within a matter of weeks be seen as the aggressor. The difference this time was the magnitude of the confrontation. This wasn’t a raid into the Gaza Strip and a nasty skirmish with Hamas; it risked an all-out war between Israel and the state of Lebanon, which was held captive by Hezbollah.

  The President, Steve, and I talked about taking advantage of the G8 to craft a joint statement from the summit participants that would set the terms for the coming international debate about Lebanon. It helped that the French had no sympathy for Hezbollah and Jacques Chirac was a fierce defender of Lebanese sovereignty; it had been the United States and France that had spearheaded the effort to get Syrian troops out of the country. Even the Russians were furious at Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and were prepared to back strong language. They largely supported the view that a ceasefire had to ensure that Hezbollah could never again cross the Blue Line and attack Israel.

  Knowing their sentiments, Steve and I drafted a statement for the leaders of the G8. “Where are we going to get somebody to type it?” he asked.

  “I type eighty words a minute,” I replied, explaining that my mother had insisted on typing lessons “just in case” I needed secretarial skills. What irony! I certainly needed secretarial skills in this case—of both the clerical and diplomatic variety.

  We composed a statement that had several elements. First, the statement firmly laid the blame for the violence at the feet of the extremists who were responsible: Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Israeli operations were in direct response to brazen cross-border raids by the Iranian-sponsored groups. Hamas and Hezbollah had picked the fight, and it was important for the international community to affirm that.

  Second, it expressed our deep and growing concern about the human toll of the violence. The conflict was killing civilians, damaging infrastructure, and disrupting thousands of lives and livelihoods. We were sure Israel would get most of the blame for the perilous humanitarian situation; often overlooked, however, was how Hamas and Hezbollah worsened the crisis by deliberately enmeshing themselves among civilians.

  Third, the statement urged Israel to operate with utmost restraint, while reaffirming its right to defend itself. We couldn’t blame the Israelis for wanting to respond to the attacks on their territory, but how they responded mattered. The Israeli operations had strategic and humanitarian consequences, and we urged the Israelis to take the greatest care to avoid killing or injuring innocent civilians, as well as to avoid undermining the democratically elected government of Lebanon.

  Finally, it called for the cessation of violence by all sides—but, importantly, not on any terms. The fighting needed to end on terms that were positive and sustainable, and the framework for achieving this outcome had been outlined by previous Security Council resolutions. In Lebanon, this meant the disarmament of Hezbollah and the redeployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces to the south of the country, where they had been prevented from operating for decades. Only by reasserting its writ across its territory could the Lebanese government credibly enter dialogue with Israel and resolve the long-running—but not insurmountable—obstacles to lasting peace.

  That evening we met with the French and British national security advisors over dinner to agree to a text that we’d jointly present to the Russians the following day. There was back-and-forth about some of the exact terms, particularly concerning arms embargoes that clearly targeted Syria. The Russians were always careful to say nothing that might constrain their lucrative arms trade with Damascus.

  By lunch the next day, the statement was ready to be presented at the leaders-only meeting that afternoon. I told Steve that I’d likely go ahead and leave. He suggested that I stay. Referencing the President, he said, “He’ll want you around for this.” I returned to my room to make calls to European allies and check in with the Israelis.

  After about an hour, I received a call on the secure phone (though the Russians could undoubtedly “hear” us talking) from Jared Weinstein, the President’s personal aide. “The boss wants you to come over,” he said. The President had called Steve as well, and the two of us jumped in another golf cart and went to the building where the leaders were meeti
ng.

  When we arrived, the President, apparently having forgotten that he had summoned Steve, called me to the table with the other leaders and said, “Condi is going to work out the rest of this language.” I looked around and noticed that Blair and Putin were not at the table. They’d gone into a small room to discuss the terms. I joined them, motioning for Steve to come with me.

  When we walked into the room, Blair said, “Come on in, Condi.” In a relatively short time we had an agreement on precisely what the United Nations would be asked to do; that had been the sticking point, with the Russians wanting a larger UN role in “investigating” the circumstances of the attack and the Brits knowing that it would be unacceptable to Israel. The work finished, we went back into the other room and adopted the statement.

  I looked over at Steve. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I can’t be his national security advisor if he doesn’t trust me to do these things for him,” he said. “I have to resign.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me that the President’s decision to call me in had put Steve in an embarrassing position. He was right about the implications for how he would be viewed. I’d been in his place, knowing what it was like to occasionally have the President take me for granted in front of his peers. “I’ll talk to him,” I said.

  “No, don’t do that,” he insisted. “I have to handle this myself.”