Neocons for Middle East War, Against Rice

This Sidney Blumenthal article is pretty provocative. Read the whole thing at Salon; I have just snipped a few gems below. If it's true, it ought to give Bush apologists pause...or perhaps a stomach ache. And Condi Rice has been marginalized by the neocons. She just isn't hawkish and machiavellian enough for them, I guess (or maybe she reminds them too much of Powell? Kind of a "they all look alike to us" syndrome maybe?)...

By secretly providing NSA intelligence to Israel and undermining the hapless Condi Rice, hardliners in the Bush administration are trying to widen the Middle East conflict to Iran and Syria, not stop it.

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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is said to have been "briefed" and to be "on board," but she is not a central actor in pushing the covert neoconservative scenario. Her "briefing" appears to be an aspect of an internal struggle to intimidate and marginalize her. Recently she has come under fire from prominent neoconservatives who oppose her support for diplomatic negotiations with Iran to prevent its development of nuclear weaponry.

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Despite Rice's shunning of the advice of the Bush I sages, the neoconservatives have made her a convenient target in their effort to undermine all diplomatic initiatives. "Dump Condi," read the headline in the right-wing Insight Magazine on July 25. "Conservative national security allies of President Bush are in revolt against Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying that she is incompetent and has reversed the administration's national security and foreign policy agenda," the article reported.