8/9/2013 Susan Rice's First Month On The Job Has Been A Doozy » News » OPB

Ben Rhodes works closely with Rice as deputy national security adviser at the White House, where he says “there’s definitely a lean towards action, because there’s an understanding that there’s really no margin for error.”

 

“Action” is a word that comes up a lot when people talk about Rice.

8/16/2013 Thrust Into Nonstop Turmoil, an Obama Adviser Counsels Pragmatism - NYTimes.com

Given her reputation as an outspoken defender of human rights and advocate of American intervention to prevent abuses, some analysts wondered if Ms. Rice, a former United Nations ambassador, would bring a more muscular, idealistic cast to Mr. Obama’s foreign policy. [....] Ms. Rice pushed Mr. Obama to back a NATO intervention against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya and has expressed regret, as an official involved in the debate, that the Clinton administration did not do more to prevent the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. [...] She was assistant secretary of state for African affairs when truck bombs simultaneously destroyed the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on Aug. 7, 1998, killing more than 250 people. In the weeks afterward, Ms. Rice traveled to both countries to survey the damage — an experience that friends say left lasting scars. [...] “Fifteen years ago, the bombing of the embassies in Africa happened on her watch,” Mr. Riedel said. “Because of her background, because of Benghazi, it’s not fair, but it’s going to be an issue for her.”

8/28/2013 Rehabilitating Susan Rice | National Review Online

As national-security adviser to President Obama, she plays a critical role in shaping our foreign policy. At this juncture, that means she has a great deal to say about what we will do in the Middle East, particularly Egypt and Syria. In my view, however, she remains a significant part of the problem in the bungling of U.S. foreign policy. [...] we should remember that one of the most famous errant cruise-missile attacks — on a pharmaceutical plant thought to be a chemical-weapons factory in Sudan — came on Ms. Rice’s watch in the Clinton administration in 1998.  [...] Ms. Rice is not the only one responsible for the mess in U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, but she plays an important role. It seems to me that her media friends should wait to begin her rehabilitation until she has provided significant game changers in Egypt and Syria.