Rice's Toughest Mission

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Such talk may amount to spin for an Administration that needs silver linings. But for Bush and Rice it may also reveal a deeper philosophical shift. In recent years the Bush team has split over whether to abandon the ambition that underpinned the invasion of Iraq--to bring Western-style democracy to the Islamic world--in favor of conventional Realpolitik, in which idealism takes a backseat to stability. The most obvious signals that the U.S. is tilting back toward realism came on Rice's trip to the Middle East last month, in which she toned down calls for democracy for the Arabs and talked up her desire to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, something she and Bush have avoided for six years.

But is it too late? Rice's best qualities are her optimism and self-belief, but, like Bush, she is prone to stubbornness and resists admitting mistakes. Her uneven management of the State Department has left her without a strong team to execute bold new initiatives, even if she's inclined to pursue them. If Rice disagrees with Bush's determination to hold the line in Iraq, there are no signs that she has tried to change his mind. But right now a military victory in Iraq is out of reach; at most, the U.S. is fighting not to lose. And so the fate of Bush's legacy, and perhaps even the future shape of the international system, may hinge on whether Rice can pull off some kind of diplomatic breakthrough in the 23 months she has left. "Condi has a very positive frame of mind in the way she looks at the world and, I think, the way she looks at her job," says Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, a close adviser. "She's someone who believes every problem has a resolution." But answers won't be easy to find this time.

To this point, Rice's tenure as Secretary of State has been long on procedural victories but short on substantive policy results. Her most clear-cut successes have been forging a strategic alliance with India and improving the U.S.'s tattered relationship with its European allies. "She's been a good diplomat in the true sense of the word, going around talking and listening," says Charles Grant, director of the London-based Center for European Reform. "Although America's image hasn't changed, she's blameless in that."

But Rice has been slow to recognize the extent to which the U.S.'s prestige has declined. In 2005, the convergence of elections in the Palestinian territories and Iraq and the popular uprising against Syria's presence in Lebanon spurred Rice all but to declare that Washington was guiding the march of history. In a speech at the American University in Cairo, she criticized the government of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for failing to liberalize and said, "For 60 years, my country pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region ... and we achieved neither. Now we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people."

Less than two years later, Rice rarely speaks in such exalted tones; when she visited Egypt last month, she went out of her way to praise the U.S.'s "strategic relationship" with the Mubarak regime. Rice told TIME that she "always" raises the issue of democracy in private meetings with Arab leaders, including Mubarak. But the time for public tongue lashings is over.