Opinion (Fred Hiatt): A New Mideast, or Wishful Thinking?

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice obviously thinks that former secretary of state James Baker just doesn't get how the Mideast has changed since he last plied the peacemaking shuttle 15 years ago.

That's one thing that becomes clear when you listen to her talk for any length of time, as she did during a visit to The Post last week. Of course she makes it clear in characteristic Rice fashion: polite, correct, not personal -- but also forceful and eloquent and unmistakable.

Start with democracy, a word conspicuously deemphasized by Baker and co-chair Lee Hamilton in their Iraq Study Group report. They want Rice to talk with Iran and with Syria, which is busy undermining democracy in Lebanon. They speak more broadly for the burgeoning Washington consensus that the promotion of democracy in the Middle East was a dangerous pipe dream best abandoned before any more damage is done.

Not so, Rice says.

Read the rest at the Washington Post