26 June 2003
Rice Says Pursuit of Mideast Peace Requires Determination
(Peace must be based on democracy, economic freedom, defeating
terrorism) (2170)
U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice says true peace
between Israel and a future Palestine must be based on democracy and
the rule of law, respect for human rights, prosperity stemming from
economic freedom, and the defeat of terrorism.
"Europe and the United States must turn to the Middle East with the
same vision, determination, and patience that we exhibited in building
a united transatlantic community after 1945," Rice said June 26 in an
address to foreign affairs analysts, politicians and journalists at
the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "If we
and the people of the Middle East are not bold enough today, we face a
future in which the freedom deficit continues to create ideologies of
hatred that threaten civilization as we know it."
Rice is en route to the Middle East for a weekend of talks with
Israeli and Palestinian leaders. She said the advance toward a
peaceful resolution between Arabs and Israelis is, like other bold
struggles, "the work of a generation, continuing long after most of
the governments currently in power have faded into memory."
The United States does not seek a unipolar world dominated by a single
nation, she said. "It is the combined strength of Europe, the United
States and other freedom-loving democracies that stands against the
tyrants and the angry few seeking to impose their will on the many."
Rice said that as European nations worked in the post-World War II
world to make conflict there a memory and to complete a process of
transformation and integration, the United States strongly supported
those efforts. It was in the interests of the United States to do so,
and it was consistent with the shared values of the United States and
Europe, she said.
"Through this transformation and in the defeat of communism, Europe
and America proved our determination and ability to stay the course
until the task is done," she said.
Following is the text of Rice's prepared remarks:
(begin transcript)
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
June 26, 2003
Remarks by Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs, at The International Institute for
Strategic Studies
London, United Kingdom
(As prepared for Delivery)
This is a wonderful opportunity to speak to such a distinguished group
of thinkers -- and to be able to do so on the soil of one of America's
oldest and truest allies is a special honor.
I feel a personal affinity for the International Institute for
Strategic Studies, because -- like the Institute -- I got my start
studying strategic weapons and arcane terminology like "throw weights"
and "MIRVs." And, like you, I've subsequently branched out into other
areas of strategic studies.
I was last in London when President Bush visited Prime Minister Blair
in July of 2001 -- two years and what seems like a lifetime ago.
Since then the United States, the United Kingdom, and all civilized
nations have been presented with unparalleled opportunities and tested
by unprecedented challenges.
No less than Pearl Harbor, September 11 forever changed the lives of
every American and the strategic perspective of the United States.
September 11 produced an acute sense of our vulnerability to attacks
that come with no warning. In the terrifying hours and days following
the attacks, we resolved that the only true defense against a threat
of this kind is to root it out at its source and address it at its
fundamental and ideological core.
A great coalition of freedom-loving nations works everyday in many
different ways to detect and defeat this menace. As we have been
reminded in recent days, victory comes at great sacrifice, as British
and American soldiers gave their lives in defense of freedom.
With the help of our coalition partners, we have deposed two of the
cruelest regimes of this or any time. The al-Qaeda network has been
deprived of its chief sanctuary. Half its leadership has been captured
or killed, and the rest is on the run -- permanently. Many nations are
uniting around tougher measures to fight proliferation, and are
determined to address the challenges posed by North Korea and Iran.
But these efforts will not succeed alone. To win the War on Terror, we
must win also win a war of ideas by appealing to the decent hopes of
people throughout the world . . . giving them cause to hope for a
better life and brighter future ... and reason to reject the false and
destructive comforts of bitterness, grievance, and hate. Terror grows
in the absence of progress and development. It thrives in the airless
space where new ideas, new hopes and new aspirations are forbidden.
Terror lives when freedom dies.
True peace will come only when the world is safer, better and freer.
That is why we are helping Afghans and Iraqis build representative
governments that will serve the decent aspirations of their people.
That is why we are committed to building a global trading system that
is more and more free, to expand the circle of prosperity into the
Americas, Africa, and the Middle East.
That is why President Bush has proposed a 50-percent increase in U.S.
development assistance, with new funding going to countries that
govern justly, invest in the health and education of their people, and
encourage economic liberty.
That is why the President has announced -- and Congress has approved
-- a $15-billion dollar commitment to fight AIDS, a disease that
threatens whole societies and challenges our humanity.
And that is why the President has committed America's influence to
alleviating -- and, where possible, ending -- destructive regional
conflicts, from the Middle East, to Kashmir, to the Congo, and beyond.
Two years ago, President Bush told a European audience: "We share more
than an alliance. We share a civilization. Its values are universal,
and they pervade our history and our partnership in a unique way."
Increasingly, this civilization is shared by countries throughout the
world. The bankruptcy of fascism, Nazism, and imperial communism has
given way to a paradigm of progress, founded on political and economic
liberty. The United States, our NATO allies, our neighbors in the
Western Hemisphere, Japan, and our other friends and allies in Asia
and Africa all share a broad commitment to democracy, the rule of law,
a market-based economy, and open trade. And since September 11th, the
world's great powers see themselves as falling on the same side of a
profound divide between the forces of chaos and order.
This historic change is vividly reflected in the experience of Europe.
We are rapidly closing the book on centuries of European conflict, and
opening a new, more hopeful chapter in which Europe is whole, free,
and at peace for the first time in its history. Next year, 10 European
nations will join the European Union; seven will join NATO. Russia is
our partner. Lingering conflicts, such as those in the Balkans, are
being put to rest.
This confluence of common interests and common values creates a
historic opportunity to break the destructive pattern of great-power
rivalry that has bedeviled the world since rise of the nation state in
the 17th century. This is, in fact, more than an opportunity. It is an
obligation.
Instead of repeating the historic pattern in which great-power rivalry
exacerbates local conflicts, great-power cooperation can now solve
conflicts.
In recent months some have questioned whether this is possible -- or
even desirable. Some argue that Europe and America are more divided by
differing worldviews than we are united by common values. More
troubling, some have spoken admiringly -- almost nostalgically -- of
"multipolarity," as if it were a good thing, to be desired for its own
sake.
The reality is that "multipolarity" was never a unifying idea, or a
vision. It was a necessary evil that sustained the absence of war but
it did not promote the triumph of peace. Multipolarity is a theory of
rivalry; of competing interests -- and at its worst -- competing
values.
We have tried this before. It led to the Great War -- which cascaded
into the Good War, which gave way to the Cold War. Today this theory
of rivalry threatens to divert us from meeting the great tasks before
us.
Why would anyone who shares the values of freedom seek to put a check
on those values? Democratic institutions themselves are a check on the
excesses of power. Why should we seek to divide our capacities for
good, when they can be so much more effective united? Only the enemies
of freedom would cheer this division.
Power in the service of freedom is to be welcomed, and powers that
share a commitment to freedom can -- and must -- make common cause
against freedom's enemies. This is not a description of a unipolar
world. As the President's National Security Strategy states, "there is
little lasting consequence that the United States can accomplish in
the world without the sustained cooperation of allies and friends."
Today, it is the combined strength of Europe, the United States and
other freedom-loving democracies that stands against the tyrants and
the angry few seeking to impose their will on the many.
For more than half a century Europe worked hard to make intra-European
conflict no more than a memory ... and to channel Europe's vast
resources and energies towards productive, life-affirming ends. The
vision was to rid Europe of "poles" and to unite Europeans around
shared goals and common values.
America has strongly supported the European project. We have paid
dearly to support Europe's transformation and integration -- because
it was in our interests and because it was so clearly consistent with
our values. Through this transformation and in the defeat of
communism, Europe and America proved our determination and ability to
stay the course until the task is done.
We need that same spirit today. We need that spirit to deny the
world's most dangerous weapons to the world's most dangerous regimes.
We need it to prepare NATO to take on critical missions beyond Europe
-- a project already well begun. We need that spirit to embolden the
great multilateral institutions -- particularly the United Nations --
to defeat the common enemies of civilization: terror, poverty,
sickness, and oppression. We need that spirit to help people across
the globe -- perhaps none more so than the people of the Middle East
-- who are seeking a future of greater freedom, greater prosperity,
democracy, and the rule of law.
We have learned, the hard way, that our values and our security cannot
be separated. The people of Afghanistan, Iraq, and throughout the
Middle East, deserve the same chance for a better life that we all
enjoy.
Democracy is not easy. Its institutions are not the natural embodiment
of human nature but its aspirations certainly are. Our own histories
should remind us that the union of democratic principle and practice
is always a work in progress. When the Founding Fathers said "We the
People," they did not mean me. My ancestors were three-fifths of a
man. But America has made enormous progress toward a multi-ethnic
democracy.
Our long and continuing journey is a reason for humility, not hubris
that leads one to say that there are those who are not ready for
democracy and therefore not deserving of freedom's promise.
In Europe, reconciliation between formally hostile peoples --
Hungarians and Romanians, Poles and Ukrainians, French and Germans --
was achieved through the spread of democracy, security, and freedom.
True peace between Israel and a future Palestine must be rooted in
prosperity through economic freedom, and democracy founded upon the
rule of law and respect for human rights, and the defeat of terror.
Europe and the United States must turn to the Middle East with the
same vision, determination, and patience that we exhibited in building
a united transatlantic community after 1945.
If we and the people of the Middle East are not bold enough today, we
face a future in which the freedom deficit continues to create
ideologies of hatred that threaten civilization as we know it. Like
other bold struggles before it, this is the work of a generation,
continuing long after most of the governments currently in power have
faded into memory.
We have important work to do ... work that cannot be done by any of us
alone ... and cannot be done well if we are working at cross-purposes.
Let us, then, lay aside the quest for new "poles" and turn our
energies to creating what President Bush has called "a balance of
power that favors freedom" -- where we defend freedom against its
enemies and support those across the globe seeking to build freedom in
their own societies.
As German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said recently, "Surely we are
all agreed that we only want one pole in global politics around which
we orientate ourselves, the pole of freedom, peace and justice."
I, for one, could not agree more.
Thank you.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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