SUSAN RICE IS A POTENTIAL SECRETARY OF STATE

 The name of Ms Susan Elizabeth  Rice is doing the rounds as a potential choice for the post of Secretary of state when Hillary Clinton vacates the post. Mrs Clinton wants some rest and she intends to leave the Government  after the 1st term of President Obama. The names of stalwarts like John Kerry are also in the list of potential candidates. However Rice has a good chance to win the post because she was foreign policy adviser to President Obama during the electioneering time of 1st Presidency and is also close to him.  Besides, just a few years back Condoleezza  Rice was in that post under George Bush and at times the History has a way of repeating itself in name or in person.  Just a guess.

Susan Rice is as good  a foreign policy expert as Ms Condoleezza Rice and similarity wise there are some more too. .

Susan Rice and Condoleezza Rice, hailing from well educated families are connected with Stanford University, Condi Rice as a teacher and Susan Rice as a student. Their birthdays fall in November Condi. Rice on November 14, 1954 and Susan Rice’s exactly 10 years and three days after on November 17^th 1964 and both of them are African-American women in the field of foreign policy. While Susan Rice has worked as Assistant Secretary of State under Bill Clinton Condoleezza  Rice is famous as Secretary of State under George Bush.

 They both have incidents of poor judgments while in office. Condoleezza Rice could not prevent the tragic Iraq war while she was Secretary of State and the war was on a miscalculation that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. similarly the Rwanda Genocide could have stopped if the U S had intervened on time and Susan Rice could not positively contribute anything in the matter while she was Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs. Both the tragedies presented permanent regrets for everyone connected with them, including for Condi Rice and Susan Rice.

There are contradictions too between them. Condoleezza Rice is unmarried while Susan Rice is married and has two children. They represent different political parties. While the Democratic party has Susan Rice, the Republicans have Condoleezza Rice making the Democrats to quip  ‘ they have got their Rice and we have got our Rice’ As Susan rice was critical of Bush foreign policy, she would not be exactly an admirer of Condoleezza Rice.

Like Condoleezza Rice, Susan Rice was also an intelligent student. After graduation from Academy in Washington D.C. she joined Stanford for further studies. She earned her M Phil and D Phil from Oxford University in international relations. Susan Rice started her career joining Mc Kinsey & Company as an international Management consultant in Canada. She got married in 1992 with her Stanford collage mate Ian Cameron who was also in Canada working for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In 1993 she left Canada to work in National Security council under President Clinton. Later she became Assistant Secretary for African affairs. She was foreign Policy adviser to Barack Obama during the 1st election which paved way for her present post as U.S. Ambassador in the United Nations.

 It has been one of Rice’s credit points as Ambassador to U N that she could bring around all nations to condemn and slap stiff sanctions against North Korea after its flopped rocket launch. The condemnation has since cooled N.Korea into a subdued silence. Susan Rice’s timely interventions have made U.S. possible to do its Mission in Afghanistan and Libya.

Susan Rice often fall prey of her own utterings. When the death of Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi was announced Susan Rice tweeted : " Prime Minister Meles leaves behind an indelible legacy of  major contributions to Ethiopia, Africa and the world"  The tweet brought in sharp criticism for praising a  vicious dictator.

 Similarly in September last Susan Rice walked in to an unnecessary controversy by her explanation of Benghazi terrorist attack as a mob attack. When she was asked in her weekly T V show about the latest information on the Benghazi attack at the U.S.Ambassador in Libya, Christopher Stevens,  she said that it was mob attack on account of the U tube film against the Prophet. It was later proved  wrong as it turned out to be a planned terrorist attack linking groups like Al Quaida. She said that her intelligence in put at that time was as such. The opposition alleged that she was willfully covering facts in order to prevent any election debacle for Obama.

 Hillary Clinton when confronted by the same question, she answered deftly that full information about the attack was not available.  Any way the controversy has been terribly politicized and  has not ceased yet.

Susan Rice is  generally considered as bright,ambitious, outspoken and also inexperienced among her peers.

The posting of Susan Rice as Secretary of State is still not certain and the coming days have much to do in the matter as  she is still a fiercely criticized person in the U S politics.


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Latest News: Susan Rice decided to avoid a confrontation with the Republicans and withdrew from the  candidacy for the post of Secretary of State and informed it President Obama.. If the unfortunate controversy had not cropped up she would have become another Rice in the hot seat of  the office of the Secretary of State, U.S.