So Secretary Rice just completed a tour of North Africa, hitting Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. For obvious reasons her meetings with Muammar Qaddafi of Libya received a great deal of attention; click here for a little State Department commentary on Libya's role in the international community since its diplomatic relations with the US have been restored.
It's been interesting reading about and hearing Rice's commentary on the new chapter this administration has opened up with Libya – “The United States has no permanent enemies” is one phrase that has been frequently quoted. David Schenker (in the Weekly Standard) points out that Washington is setting a precedent for other state sponsors of terror to observe; you may not agree with most the analysis in here (I don't, for example, share his horror that terrorism will be treated as crime rather than as war) but it is accurate that a precedent has been set, and being on the “State Sponsors of Terror” list is by no means a permanent status.
In short, I have no trouble visualizing Barack Obama and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in just this pose – although we all know Ahmadinejad would never wear that.
