U.S. Relations With the People's Republic of China (2008)

U.S. Department of State

Interview With Steve Scully of C-SPAN

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
November 10, 2008

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QUESTION: But as you know, even overseas, some of that sharpness, some of that derision has been aimed at George W. Bush. So despite all of the accomplishments that you just outlined, why is he, in some parts of the world, detested?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, the President had to do some very difficult things. Look, we came out of September 11th having to make a choice about how we were going to defend this country. Were we going to stay with a strategy that essentially considered terrorism a law enforcement problem, or were we going to go to war against them? And in some quarters, it wasn't popular to talk in the terms and act in the manner in which we – at recognizing that we were at war with these people. And yes, we had to do some very tough things.

But you know, I think I've found over the years, particularly in these most recent years, that much of that rancor is gone. We have outstanding relations with our European allies now. When I go to a NATO meeting, it is about the incredible fact that NATO is fighting together in Afghanistan. Yes, we'd like to see more contribution here. Yes, there are national caveats there that are constraining. But imagine NATO fighting in Afghanistan as its core mission.

When I go to Europe, I no longer see any difference in the view that a stable and secure Iraq is in everybody's interest, and that an Iraq that is democratic and in which Saddam Hussein, that brutal monster that caused three wars in the region, including dragging us in twice, that used – who used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, that an Iraq that is democratic and friendly to the West is better for the Middle East. I don't see much disagreement about that.

I see no disagreement that Iran has to be prevented from getting a nuclear weapon. And on the Middle East, I've never seen greater harmony behind the Annapolis process as the basis on which a two-state solution will eventually come into being.

And so whatever we went through in the difficult days of 2003, 2004 it would be a mistake to think that we have problematic relations with our allies. We simply don't. We may not agree on everything, but the transatlantic relationship is in very, very good shape. And you can even say that more so for our core relations in places like Japan and South Korea and India and, indeed, China.

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QUESTION: At what point do you think history can judge the last eight years?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, history is a funny thing. You know, I keep four secretaries of state's portraits near me. Thomas Jefferson, everybody has Thomas Jefferson, although I think he might have been a little surprised that two of his successors in a row were African Americans. He was still a founding father. George Marshall, probably the greatest Secretary of State. But I keep also Dean Acheson, because when he left, perhaps it was who lost China that was most thought, and yet now we remember him really, I think, as the architect of the foundation for – on which we won the cold war, NATO and all the associated institutions. And I keep William Seward because we all remember that he bought Alaska and that was Seward's Folly, of course.

History's judgment and today's headlines are rarely the same. And I think that when this President's story is written, yes, there will be controversy. And yes, there will be mistakes that we undoubtedly made, and things we should have done differently. But that the core values of the unassailable right of every man, woman, and child to live in freedom, and how critical that is to having an answer to ideologies of hatred that caused September 11th, that will be affirmed and it will be vindicated.

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QUESTION: What advice do you give him and how do we deal with Iran?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I thought that the President-elect said it himself the other day when he said it's unacceptable to have an Iranian nuclear weapon. The – we have set up a strategy, an international strategy through the European Union 3 -- that's Britain, Germany and France, plus the United States, Russia and China, so the P-5 of the UN, plus Germany – that has the international voice now for getting Iran to stop enriching and reprocessing. Because once you enrich and reprocess and learn that at a certain level, you can enrich and reprocess at 5 percent --that's for civil-nuclear use -- or at 97 percent -- that's for a bomb. And nobody trusts the Iranians with the fuel cycle. And so the question has been: How do you get them to come to the negotiating table?

We in 2006, this President and I, made an offer to the Iranians. We will reverse the more than 28 years of American policy and sit down and talk about any and everything; just stop enriching and reprocessing and let's have negotiations. They've not been able to do it. And so the international community has passed four Security Council resolutions demanding that they do so. We have also used unilateral national measures, as have other countries, like Australia and Great Britain and others, to sanction Iranian entities that are engaged in proliferation or terrorism – banks and financial institutions. And it's no coincidence then that major financial institutions and really all of the major, now, energy companies – Total of France was the last to leave – are no longer engaged in Iran.

So I think the stage is set that Iran, with an economy that is really in very deep trouble and will be in greater trouble with lower oil prices, might be amenable, I would hope soon, to a strategy that is a negotiated strategy to allow Iran civil nuclear power but not the fuel cycle that leads to a nuclear weapon.

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QUESTION: So what is the art of diplomacy? How do you serve as a diplomat? What do you bring to the job?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think the art of diplomacy is to recognize that it's not just talking. Sometimes it's talking. Talking is a good thing. But you have to have something you're trying to achieve. And when you're dealing with friends, closest allies, it's usually appealing to our common values and our common interests. When you're dealing with adversaries, you'd better have leverage. You have to have established that there are consequences for not coming to agreement.

It's often the case that when you're dealing with adversaries, it's best not to be doing it alone. So one of the things I think we've done well is to structure with the North Korean nuclear problem a circumstance in which North Korea – we may talk to North Korea bilaterally, we may even negotiate with them bilaterally, but they always know that we're doing it on behalf of and with China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea. Because it's easy for North Korea to make it a problem between the United States and North Korea. It's harder to face down or to cheat on China or South Korea that have different kinds of leverage than we do.

So I'm a big fan of multilateralism done the right way, which means that it's about having something that you're trying to achieve and finding common purpose with others.

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QUESTION: Is there a moment during the last four or eight years that you remember the most?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think the moment – if I could have two, because one is still unfinished business. But the moment I remember most was flying over Baghdad for the first time. I had gone out there and things were pretty tough when I was first Secretary. Things were pretty tough. But I looked at this great city and I saw the two rivers coming together, the Tigris and Euphrates. I saw the great agricultural land. I saw the great monuments going all the way back to Mesopotamia and to their great heritage. And I called the President from the plane and I said, "Mr. President, this is going to be a great country again, and it'll be a great country and it'll be America's friend."

Because Iraq is a powerful country in the center of the Middle East, and the Middle East's future is still evolving and unfolding. It is still a part of the world that has to come to grips with the demands for popular legitimacy that are there and that are growing. It is still a part of the world that has not reached its great scientific and economic potential, I think, in part because of the freedom gap. And the Iraqi example had always been one of a powerful state, a bulwark against Iran, a center of the Arab world. There was only one problem: It was run by Saddam Hussein, who attacked his neighbors, tyrannized his own people, and loathed the United States. And it was very, very hard to get there, very hard to get there, and the lives lost will never be forgotten and they can never be brought back. But it will be, I am quite certain now, a powerful, democratic state in the center of the Middle East, and it will be a friend of the United States. And that will matter.

The other is that I was in China and I went out to the earthquake zone to meet some of the people there. And a little 12-year-old boy came up to me and he said, "Oh, I know who you are." He said, "I see you on television." He said, "You're that lady from America." And I thought, yeah, that's right. That's how I'd like to be remembered, not as the Secretary of State or Condi Rice, just that lady from America who could go anywhere and anyplace and the 12-year-old, that's what he thought.

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