Press Briefing: Situation in the Middle East

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Press Briefing released by the White House, Office of the Press Secretary
Strelna, Russia
July 16, 2006
12:20 P.M. (Local)
www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/69024.htm

...
QUESTION: In your conversations with Prime Minister Olmert, did you suggest,
in describing a need for restraint, a tipping point at which civilian
casualties or damage done in Lebanon would no longer be acceptable to the
United States?

SECRETARY RICE: We're saying to the Israelis privately precisely what we're
saying to them publicly. Of course, we have more extensive talks, but the
message is the same, which is that we understand that -- and believe
strongly that every state has a right to defend its sovereignty, every state
has a right to defend its people from terrorist attacks and to take actions
to prevent those attacks.

In the current circumstances, there is a strategic picture to keep in mind,
because the ultimate security and safety of Israelis and Palestinians,
Israelis and Lebanese, is going to come from the political framework that
has been established by the international community; 1559 in the case of
Lebanon, and the road map in the case of the Palestinian Territories.

We have said to Prime Minister Olmert and to other Israelis that we are
deeply concerned about the effect on innocent civilians, and would hope that
Israel would be mindful of, and restrained in, its operations so that the
innocent civilians do not suffer -- innocent civilian casualties, civilian
infrastructure -- and so that the Lebanese government, which is a good and
democratic and, in fact, young democratic government, is not undermined by
those actions. But that has been the message to the Israelis, just as we've
been saying publicly, and I think as the President said yesterday.

QUESTION: There is no line, though, at which you would withdraw your
support?

SECRETARY RICE: I think it's not useful to speculate about something that
is -- would, indeed, be hypothetical, but rather to continue to ask all
parties to act responsibly, and really to recognize that until we address
the conditions that began this, which is that extremists launched attacks,
had been launching -- we forget, there had been missile attacks that had
been launched for an extended period of time. We also forget that we -- we
should not forget that this took place despite -- perhaps, because of --
positive political developments that were taking place, particularly in the
Palestinian Territories where President Abbas was engaging with elements of
the elected government to try and move the entire Palestinian government
toward the Quartet conditions so that you could get back onto the road map.

That is really the appropriate course. But, obviously, extremists in Hamas,
Hezbollah, and their supporters in Syria and Iran do not want to see a
resolution of these situations on the basis of 1559 and the road map,
because then they would have no reason for violence.

Yes.

QUESTION: You say that the leaders here are working together on coming
together on a common position. How do you square that with President
Putin's comments last night about Israel pursuing wider goals, and also
President Chirac's comments about Israel using excessive force? There
doesn't seem to be much of a common position.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, let me just -- you can cite specific statements by
people, or you can look at, for instance, the meeting that President Chirac
and President Bush had this morning where President Chirac said in no
uncertain terms that the United States and France see similarly what needs
to be done here.

There is a great concern on all sides about civilian casualties. There is a
great concern about damage to civilian infrastructure. I don't think that
there is anyone here who would say that Israel does not have a right to
defend itself. And I think that everyone here would note that the
extremists who are attacking not just Israel, but the very foundation for
peace need to be stopped. After all, the United States and France are
cosponsors of Resolution -- were cosponsors with Great Britain of Resolution
1559. Russia is a member of theQuartet, which is a sponsor of the road map.

And so you can pick out a comment here or a comment there, but I would ask
you to look at the strategic agreement between all of the parties here that
the current situation is only going to be resolved by getting back on the
road map, only going to be resolved by Resolution 1559, and that the largest
impediment to that is those parties that are outside of that framework.

The Lebanese government of President Siniora is not outside of the framework
of Resolution 1559. Hezbollah, apparently, believes that it is. And on the
road map, President Abbas is clearly committed to it; Israel is clearly
committed to it. But you do have extremist elements in Hamas, and perhaps
all of Hamas -- we haven't heard from Hamas -- that do not want the road map
to succeed, and don't recognize the very basis of it, which is the existence
of two states.

Yes.

QUESTION: Is Israel currently showing restraint? Or would restraint be a
change in behavior?

SECRETARY RICE: The Israelis are trying to defend themselves, but we
continue to remind Israel that any operations that it undertakes will have
consequences in addition to anything that they can do to improve their own
security situation. And so the Israelis themselves have said that they want
to spare innocent civilian life; they themselves have said that they are
mindful of problems of civilian infrastructure -- they've said this to me --
and of the humanitarian situation.

And so I don't think that there is a quarrel here. I'm not going to try to
judge each and every Israeli operation or each and every Israeli attack.
But we are going to keep this framework in place with Israel, because, while
we concentrate on trying to deal with the immediate consequences, what we
really need to do is to concentrate on a way forward that is going to permit
the cessation of violence to, first of all, be sustainable -- that means
that we won't be back here three weeks from now talking about trying to get
another cessation of violence -- and that means getting back on a political
path in each of these distinct crises.

QUESTION: Why not call for a cease-fire until you can get back on that
political path?

SECRETARY RICE: We want a sustainable cessation of violence. I --

QUESTION: -- you want the violence to end?

SECRETARY RICE: I can tell you that -- of course, we want violence to end.
But I can tell you right now if violence ends on the basis of somehow
Hezbollah or Hamas continuing to hold in their hands the capabilities
anytime they wish to start launching rockets again into Israel, if violence
ends on the basis of no change in the underlying political support for
Resolution 1559 or for the work that President Abbas is doing, if violence
ends on the basis of Syria and Iran being able to turn on the key again
anytime, we will have achieved very, very little, indeed, and we will be
right back here, perhaps in a worse circumstance because the terrorists will
assume that nobody is willing to take on what has been a very clear assault
now on the progress that is being made by moderate forces in the Middle
East.

We're working also with the Arab states, with the Egyptians, with the
Saudis, with the Jordanians, and of course, there's going to be a U.N.
mission out there on behalf of Secretary General Annan -- I've talked to him
several times. We have a number of diplomatic venues in which to pursue
this. But we also need a program to pursue, and that program has got to
address the underlying circumstances that caused this situation.

...
QUESTION: You said that you want to get back on the diplomatic track, but is
there any sense whatsoever that, given the effectiveness of the early
attacks by Israel, that Hezbollah might, in fact, be rendered obsolete
militarily? Is that on the table? And also, on a related point, some
foreign governments have already started trying to get their people out of
Lebanon. Is the U.S. government, other than the travel warnings that have
been issued, is the U.S. government contemplating anything like that?

SECRETARY RICE: On the last point, Dick, we're assessing the situation
practically hour-by-hour, in terms of our own people. We obviously have
plans and contingency plans should we need to bring people out. I get
reports on this every couple of hours as to how this is going. But our
Ambassador who is on the ground will obviously do what we need to to protect
Americans.

As to the basis for diplomatic action, obviously the most important issue is
that we do have to find a way to isolate and disable extremists who are
trying to frustrate the aspirations of moderate forces in the region, and
the democratic aspirations of moderate forces in the region. They're also,
by the way, not just trying to frustrate the aspirations of democratic
forces, they're trying to destabilize the region at the same time.

Now, the Israelis are, I think, trying to defend themselves. It's obvious
that when you have rockets being fired into your territory, I believe eight
or nine people killed today in Haifa, that there is a responsibility of
Israelis to defend their people. I don't think you can ask any less of any
state.

But the broader context here is that moderate forces have to draw together,
with the support of the international community, through international
vehicles that are already available to us -- 1559 in Lebanon, the road map
and the work that Mahmoud Abbas has been doing in the Palestinian
Territories -- in order to lay a foundation where these extremists cannot do
what they're trying to do.

And so this is a time of -- obviously, it's a complex time, it's a worrying
time, it's a time of great concern about the toll on civilians. It is also
a time when we have an opportunity to lay a foundation for a cessation of
violence that this time will be a permanent cessation of violence, which
would then allow us to really make a permanent peace.

QUESTION: Is there any role for the United States other than diplomacy?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think the United States' role is a diplomatic role.
It's also a role to support our friends and allies in the region who are
going -- who are now living under extremely difficult circumstances. So, for
instance, the Siniora government -- which is a friend of the United States,
and which I've been in touch with the Prime Minister, the President has been
in touch with the Prime Minister; of course, we are talking to the Israelis;
we are also talking to the Egyptians and the Saudis and to others -- so, in
part, the United States needs to make clear that we're going to adhere to
principle, we're going to stand strong with those who are moderate forces
and who want this to come out the right way, and, of course, we are going to
throw the full diplomatic influence and weight of the United States behind
these efforts.

We are -- I've talked to Javier Solana, who I know will probably go to the
region, and we are -- I've also been in constant contact with Kofi Annan,
because we hope we can support this U.N. mission.

But, principally, this is really a time for diplomacy, but it's not just
diplomacy of talking and talking and talking. It's diplomacy of moving
toward a goal of using the diplomatic vehicles -- in fact, in the case of
the road map, the international vehicle; in the case of the 1559, the
Security Council vehicle -- that we have established over the last couple of
years, and using that now. This is the time to use those vehicles to get
results, because those vehicles are going to give us the best outcome for a
permanent peace.

...
QUESTION: When you talk about consequences with Israel, how do you define
those consequences? And are there consequences for U.S. Mideast policy if
civilian casualties mount, this back-and-forth continues and the U.S. is
seen as standing with Israel?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, we're standing with all responsible parties in the
region and with moderate parties in the region who want a Middle East that
is different than the 30-plus years of -- really, 60-plus years of Middle
East history.

And I want to say just a word about this notion that somehow this all arose
in the last couple of years, because we've been calling for democracy and
things have gotten stirred up in the Middle East. There was a false
stability in the Middle East over the last several years that produced a set
of circumstances and an atmosphere so malignant that you had the rise of
extremist forces like alQaeda. So the notion that somehow the Middle
East -- which has, of course, been a violent place now for any -- for a lot
of years -- that the Middle East was somehow undisturbed, and because now we
are fighting extremism, because now we are pressing for a democratic voice
for the people of the Middle East, that somehow that has now caused the
current crisis I think is grotesque.

What you had in the Middle East before was American policies -- bipartisan,
by the way, it had been pursued by Democratic Presidents and by Republican
Presidents -- that engaged in so-called Middle East exceptionalism and was
pursuing stability at the expense of democracy, and it turned out, as we
learned on 9/11 or July 7th here, or in any -- in London or across the
world, was getting neither.

And so we have a new day in the Middle East, and it is a day in which the
people of the Middle East, the people of Lebanon without Syrian forces
there, the people of the Palestinian Territories with a democratic leader in
Mahmoud Abbas, are seeking to find a democratic future, and on that basis,
to build a framework and a firm foundation for peace -- a two-state solution
in the Palestinian Territories, and an independent, sovereign Lebanon as a
result of 1559.

And so, yes, it's turbulent, and, yes, we are deeply concerned about
mounting civilian casualties. But we need to also recognize that the only
way that we're going to deal with the underlying problem in the Middle East
is to deal with the extremists, isolate the extremists, and put in place
moderate democratic states.

Yes.

QUESTION: If I may, has dissatisfaction in the region with progress in Iraq
affected U.S. leverage in this crisis at all?

SECRETARY RICE: No. In fact, we have very good relations with all of the
states of the region -- the responsible states of the region. But let's
remember that Iraq is a piece of the puzzle of a different kind of Middle
East. Can you really imagine a different kind of Middle East with Saddam
Hussein sitting in the middle of it? Of course not. That's why we went to
war in 1991, because he had a vision of a different kind of Middle East. It
was one in which Iraq dominated its neighbors. And so Iraq is a piece of
this different kind of Middle East.

And it will be difficult, but we are at an important juncture right now,
because extremists have showed their hand. They showed their hand as being
fundamentally opposed to the democratic aspirations and to efforts to bring
peace between Israel and its neighbors and efforts to have a democratic and
sovereign Lebanon. That's what's really happened here. And they've showed
that their sponsors are in Tehran and in Damascus. Things are clarified
now. We know where the lines are drawn. And we now have to respond in a
way that strengthens and emboldens in a more permanent way the more moderate
forces in this region.

I think I can take one more.

QUESTION: Is there a specific infrastructure site in Lebanon, a bridge, a
power plant, a road, that the U.S. has asked Israel not to target? And does
the U.S. believe Israel has hit any infrastructure target wrongly at this
point, that it wasn't a legitimate military target, they shouldn't have done
it?

SECRETARY RICE: As I said, I am not going to try to judge step-by-step,
target-by-target, Israeli military operations. We are continuing to press
the case that restraint is necessary in the cause of self-defense, in this
case, because as Israel defends itself, and we fully respect Israel's right
to defend itself, it also needs to look ahead to the partners that it is
trying to build, the moderate partners.

President Abbas is a moderate partner in the Palestinian Territories. Prime
Minister Siniora is a moderate partner in Lebanon. In the case of President
Abbas, Prime Minister Olmert was reaching out to President Abbas, as
President Abbas was trying to bring the Palestinian political leadership
toward the Quartet conditions. The Israelis and the Palestinians were
talking to each other and reaching out. That's what the extremists want to
stop.

And so, yes, we are urging the Israelis to be restrained; we're talking to
them about these things. We're talking about the need to minimize the
effect on civilians. We're continuing to talk about alleviating
humanitarian problems in the Palestinian Territories in any way that we can.
But we are also cognizant of the fact that the Israelis, moderate
Palestinians, the Lebanese, and Arab states like Jordan and Egypt and Saudi
Arabia have a common goal here, which is a Middle East that has a framework
for a stable peace. And that is what we are trying to work toward.

I guess I'm done. (Laughter.) Great. Thank you very much.

END 12:50 P.M. (Local)

Released on July 16, 2006