Condoleezza Rice: A seasoned political campaigner

Dubai: She was the first African-American woman to serve as a secretary of state. She was also the first woman to hold the position of a national security advisor. Before that, she became the first woman and first African American to serve as provost of Stanford University.

To put it simply, former US secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is a quite extra-ordinary person.

She is among the prominent figures of the 21 century, and everything about her makes her different.

The woman has not only excelled in political sphere, but has also excelled musically and athletically. A pianist, a golfer as well as a foreign policy expert, Rice has served her country’s in the best way (though she was not equally popular outside her country).

“She is a forceful, well-prepared, extremely attractive, smart and impressive woman,” said Evan Thomas from Brincton University of Rice in a video posted online about her.

she “was not at the table, she was among those chairing the table,” another American citizen said of Rice was quoted as saying in reference to her influence and powerful presence.

Born on November 14, 1954, in Birmingham, Alabama, Rice was raised in an environment surrounded by racism in the segregated south. Yet, her expectations were high enough to show her the way.

Rice was the only child of a Presbyterians minister and a teacher. She continued to remember the huge encouragement she received from them.

“My parents had me absolutely convinced that, ‘well, you may not be able to have a hamburger at Woolworth’s but you can be president of the United States’,” she was quoted as saying in an interview with Newsweek magazine.

Rice has earned bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Denver in 1974, and a master’s degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1975. Six years later, she earned her Ph.D. from the University of Denver’s Graduate School of international studies in 1981. In the same year, she joined Stanford University as a political science professor.

Earlier, her political views were democrat. However, in 1982 she changed her political affiliation to Republican, for many reasons, including her disagreement with the foreign policy of Democratic president Jimmy Carter and her father’s influence.

In 2000, she told the Republican National Convention, “My father joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The republican did.”

Rice was described as being one of the Repulicans’ Hawks.

The beginning of her political career in Washington, D.C. goes back to the mid eighties of the last century, when she worked as an international affairs fellow attached to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A few years later, Russian-speaking Rice became director of Soviet and East European Affairs with the National Security Council, and special assistant to President George H.W. Bush during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and German reunification.

Her abilities were clear enough to take her up the political ladder. In December 2000, Rice was appointment National Security Adviser by President George W. Bush. Strong nerve and delicate manners earned her the title of “The warrior princess” in the US.

A year later, three big terrorist attacks were launched against the US in September 11, 2011. Several months after the attacks, the US started its war on terrorism and launched attacks on Afghanistan.

To her, the attacks were rooted in “oppression and despair”, and so the US must advance democratic reforms and support basic rights throughout the greater Middle East – a vision that was looked at with suspensions, especially in the Arab region. .

It was during those years that Rice became unpopular outside the US, especially in the Arab region. Moreover, she was a strong advocate to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and one of the architects of the Iraq war that ousted late president Saddam Hussein.

Her statements regarding the nuclear capabilities of the former Iraqi president made headlines at one point. “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” Rice said in an interview with CNN.

But after it became clear the Iraq has no nuclear weapons, she was criticized for “deception”, and “hoax” statements.

After war on terrorism and in Iraq, Rice further advanced in her political career. And in appreciation to her efforts and abilities, she became the 66th Secretary of State. She served from January 2005 to 2009 and became the first African-American women to be appointed as Secretary of State, and the second African-American politician after Colin Powell, who served from 2001 to 2004.

On January 26, 2005, the Senate confirmed her nomination by a vote of 85-13. The number of negative votes was described as the most cast against any nomination for Secretary of State since 1825. They came from senators who wanted to “hold Dr. Rice and the Bush administration accountable for their failures in Iraq and in the war on terrorism,” according to what a press report quoted Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer as saying.

But at the same time, when Rice was in office, a significant development in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was recorded; Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Israel’s Knesset approved a unilateral disengagement plan and began evacuating Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip on August 15, 2005 – a process that was completed on September 12, where all colonies were dismantled and its inhabitants were forcibly evicted.

Rice has authored and co-authored a number of books, including two bestsellers, “No higher Honor: A Memoir of My years in Washington (2011), and Extraordinary, ordinary People: A memoir of Family (2010), Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A study in Statecraft (1995) with Philp Zelikow.

During the Republican National Convention on August 29, 2012, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice received unanimous praise after her speech, which was described as “spellbinding”

“I’ll go back and be a happy Stanford faculty member. And obviously I’ll do what I can to help this ticket. But my life is in Palo Alto. My future is with my students at Stanford and in public service on issues that I care about like education reform.”