Picking up where Powell left off

For four years, US Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his team faced off against administration hawks on one foreign policy issue after another, and usually went down in defeat.

These days, his successor, Condoleezza Rice, is pushing nearly identical positions, and almost always winning.

An administration that was criticised in the first term for an assertive, go-it-alone approach has reversed ground again and again, joining multinational efforts to keep nuclear arms from North Korea and Iran, mending ties with Europe, and softening a hard line on the United Nations and International Criminal Court.

"She's clearly trying to accomplish a number of the goals that Powell was going after, until he found himself stymied,"said Stewart Patrick, who served in Powell's policy planning office.

A former senior State Department official put it more bluntly: "It's Powell's policy without Powell."

The shifts have surprised many in the foreign policy community, who had expected a different approach from Rice, who as President George W. Bush's first-term national security adviser was a blunt advocate for the tough White House line.

But Rice's course says a lot about the arc of the administration's foreign policy in the second term.

The new diplomacy of compromise has grown in part from the way that the continuing burden of Iraq has limited US options.

After a post-9/11 period of military action and assertive self-interest, the United States has been obliged to give ground to other countries to solve problems.

Rice's stance also raises intriguing questions about how much her instincts really differ from those of her predecessor.

Although her ringing rhetoric suggests she shares the neoconservative view that America must move aggressively to reshape other countries, her deeds over the past nine months hint at an old fashioned "realist", someone willing to deal with flawed regimes and settle for less-than-perfect solutions.

The new direction stems partly from the fact that Rice has shifted from a neutral post as national security adviser to a job in which she is more removed from the influence of other powerful administration figures such as Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld while facing daily pressure from foreign leaders, current and former officials and other experts say.

The foreign policy change shouldn't be overstated, experts said. Even so, the change has been undeniable.

The most striking shift to an approach like Powell's came three weeks ago, when Rice's envoy to the talks on the North Korean nuclear issue joined a tentative deal that promises the regime of Kim Jong Il energy aid, light-water nuclear reactors and security guarantees if it forswears nuclear weapons.

Powell's State Department wanted the kind of engagement with the North Koreans that led to last month's deal.

But the more hawkish officials who dominated in the first term hoped they could force an agreement from Pyongyang without concessions, and allowed the State Department officials only limited contacts.

In 2002, when Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly wanted to try to open a discussion with North Korea, other senior officials decided that he could travel to Pyongyang only in the company of other US aides, who would keep an eye on him.

"They made sure that there couldn't be anything like the kind of engagement that led to this [new] deal," said one former Powell aide, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of comparing the two leaders' approaches.

Too conciliatory

On the Iran nuclear issue, Powell pushed to have US officials work with European countries.

Powell obtained clearance from the White House to begin working in this way, but only over the objections of others in the administration, who argued that the Europeans would be too conciliatory and that their efforts would yield nothing.

In March, Rice took a significant additional step in this direction by announcing the administration's official support for the efforts of Britain, France and Germany to work out a deal.

Another important foreign policy shift came in April, when the administration for the first time set aside its strong objections to the International Criminal Court.

Administration officials, led by UN Ambassador John R. Bolton, who was then the State Department's arms control chief, had taken an unyielding line on the court, which was created to judge war crimes and genocide cases.

Bolton argued that the tribunal infringed on US sovereignty and could lead to trials by foreign judges of US troops and military and civilian leaders.

But in April, US officials abstained from voting on a UN resolution, thus allowing the United Nations to recognise the court's jurisdiction over cases arising from the fighting in Sudan's Darfur region.

Powell had recommended an abstention months earlier, former aides noted.

Bush administration officials say that policies have changed along with circumstances.

Some analysts argue that Rice's vigorous effort to promote the president's showcase "democracy promotion" campaign in the Middle East lines her up with neoconservatives.

Yet there is a debate over how aggressive the administration's democracy promotion effort has turned out to be.

James Dobbins, a former Bush administration envoy now directing RAND Corp's International Security and Defense Policy Centre, said the democracy promotion effort cannot be portrayed as contributing to a new moderation in administration policy.

Yet dealings with individual countries, with the possible exception of Syria and Lebanon, are "being pursued with some degree of pragmatism," he said. "They've been looking for incremental progress rather than dramatic change."