Rice: Hezbollah acts ‘outrageous provocation’

‘Strangle it in its crib’
Rice plans meetings in Jerusalem and the West Bank with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as sessions in Rome with representatives of European and moderate Arab governments that are meant to shore up the weak democratic government in Lebanon’s capital Beirut.

Rice’s trip resumes a role the United States has long played as the key Mideast peace broker, but Rice is not expected to try to get a signed deal during her brief visit.

“I know that there are no answers that are easy, nor are there any quick fixes,” Rice said. “I fully expect that the diplomatic work for peace will be difficult.”

The United States is relying on Arab and other intermediaries to pressure Hezbollah and Syria. The United States considers Hezbollah a terrorist group, and has cut high-level ties to Damascus in a dispute over what it says is Syrian meddling in Lebanon.

Hezbollah also exerts political control in southern Lebanon, overshadowing the democratic central government. The U.N. and U.S. plan for long-term stability would give international help to the Beirut government to expel Hezbollah and install its own Army troops, something it has been unable to do.

Hezbollah “extremists are trying to strangle it in its crib,” Rice said of the Lebanese government.

Broader diplomatic outreach
President Bush, asked what he hopes Rice will achieve on her trip, said he would discuss it with her when he returns to the White House on Sunday. He was speaking at a restaurant in Aurora, Colo., as he met with 10 members of the military who recently returned from Iraq.

Announcing plans earlier for a weekend meeting that Bush and Rice will have with Saudi officials, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, “This is part of the president’s broader diplomatic outreach on the developing situation in the Middle East.”

Bush and Rice will meet at the White House with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, chief of the Saudi National Security Council.

The plans emerged following two days of meetings in New York with Annan and envoys he sent to the region this week. Annan outlined basic terms of a proposed cease-fire and the longer-range goals to remove the Hezbollah threat in southern Lebanon in a speech on Thursday.

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