Diplomacy is so much more interesting when the participants don't know their microphone is on. A meeting between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was supposed to be private...but it wasn't. Apparently Rice repeatedly interupted Lavrov, objecting to the Russian's wish to criticize the Iraqi government following the recent kidnapping and murder of their four diplomats.
That the U.S. would object to such a criticism is not surprising, but it's interesting to see how Rice talks about Iraq when she doesn't think the cameras are rolling. Not a lot about all that progress we're making:
The problem is you have a terrorist insurgent population that is wreaking havoc on a hapless Iraqi civilian population...
Wreaking havoc? I thought the violence was isolated...hyped by the media who are ignoring all the good news. Who knew?
And of course she is sensitive to the great sacrifice our soldiers are making:
You know, on a fairly daily basis we lose soldiers and I think it would be offensive to suggest that these efforts are not being made. ... We are making those efforts and we are making them at quite a sacrifice.
She is right in that this war of choice has been going on for more than three years and 2529 U.S. soldiers have died, making death common on a "fairly daily basis," but why that means the Iraqi government can't be criticized is unclear. She says that:
I understand that in the wake of the brutal murder of your diplomats that it is a sensitive time, but I think that we can't imply that this is an isolated problem or that it isn't being addressed.
The only people implying that the non-stop violence in Iraq is "an isolated problem" is the administration, but I will give her that it is being addressed...stay the course.
According to MSNBC, Rice also revealed what the real problem in Iraq is...you know, besides terrorists wreaking havoc:
The problem isn't diplomatic missions. The problem is journalists and civilian contractors and, yes, diplomats as well.
God knows, it's never the administration and their policies that are the problem.