Rice went up the Hill on Tuesday to make her case before Senator John McCain and others who have threatened to block her nomination after they indicated they might relent if she could explain why she repeatedly said the attack was a result of spontaneous protests when it was a terrorist assault. But although Rice conceded she was wrong, and the President and his team has said she was only echoing the briefing points given to her by the administration in a fluid situation, the Senators did not relent. Instead, they dug in their heels. Her prospects of succeeding Clinton remain uphill.
"Bottom line, I'm more disturbed now than I was before [by] the 16 September explanation about how four Americans died in Benghazi, Libya, by Ambassador Rice," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said following the closed-door briefing also attended by acting CIA Director Michael Morrell, echoing his Republican colleague John McCain. Republicans would prefer Democratic Senator John Kerry as Secretary of State and have indicated their fellow lawmaker would have an easy confirmation.
In a statement following Tuesday's meeting, Rice acknowledged "there was no protest or demonstration" in Benghazi and conceded that she had relied on faulty briefing notes prepared by the intelligence community that underplayed the terrorist attack. "While we certainly wish that we had had perfect information just days after the terrorist attack, as is often the case, the intelligence assessment has evolved," she said. But the Republican senate guard was unimpressed by her explanation despite President Obama backing her and taking the blame for the fiasco.
The ball is now in President Obama's court on whether to press ahead with her nomination or save his energies for other taxing battles such as an agreement on the so-called fiscal cliff. Rice can clear the first step of the nomination process in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where Democrats have a simple majority, but she will need approval of a filibuster-proof majority of 60 in the 100-member full Senate to clinch the post. Democrats, with supporting Independents, have 55 and will need five Republican senators to win the battle.
While that may be possible with lobbying by Obama, the contentious process could undermine her position even if she wins.
Rice's setback was one of the two faced by the Obama administration on Tuesday ahead of its second term starting January. In another development, the administration's Special Representative for Af-Pak (SRAP) Marc Grossman announced he is leaving for the private sector.
Grossman, who was an undersecretary of state, was coaxed out of retirement and a private sector job to take over as SRAP in 2011 after the death of Richard Holbrooke. Nearly two years later, with the imminent departure of Hillary Clinton, the drawdown in Afghanistan, and the continuing flux in ties with Pakistan, Grossman reportedly told his staff this week that he would leave in December.
The Obama administration's Af-Pak policy itself has floundered between ostracizing Pakistan and tactically co-opting it to help with the US drawdown in Afghanistan. Washington appears to have virtually abandoned Islamabad to its own devices, literally, after inter-agency battles about how best to handle the troubled country.
In a recent interview, Cameron Munter, the former US envoy to Islamabad, related how he was at odds with Washington over US drone strikes inside Pakistan, going to the extent of clashing with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. The account had both of then telling each other, "I don't work for you."
Munter's replacement, Richard Olson is attempting to rebuild bridges with Islamabad, promising a $ 150 million aid for a dam project on Tuesday even as Pakistan burned up a few more million in a nuclear-capable missile test. Meantime, the U.S military-intelligence agencies have held back from drone strikes for more than a month now. The last drone strike occurred on October 24.
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