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U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaking on Thursday at the State Department in Washington. (Reuters)
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Rice consults Clinton, Carter in run-up to Annapolis summit
By The Associated Press

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is looking to the past for lessons on how to make next month's Mideast peace conference a success.

As she prepares to host the international meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, Rice has delved into the history of U.S. attempts to mediate peace in the region, plunging into the diplomatic annals and seeking out the major players responsible for both successes and failures.

"She's trying to draw on the historical record and the experiences of others to see what she can glean and how that may be applicable to the current day," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday, ahead of Rice's Nov. 4-6 trip to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, her second in three weeks to organize the Annapolis gathering.
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Most recently, she met this week with Jimmy Carter, sitting down in her office on Wednesday for a talk with the former president who brokered the 1978 Camp David peace accord between Israel and Egypt, the first between Israel and an Arab nation.

Carter has been a vocal critic of the Bush administration's Middle East polices and wrote a recent book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, that some believe is anti-Israeli. McCormack said the differences in approach were not a subject of her conversation.

Rice has also spoken by phone with former President Bill Clinton about his work on the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace deal. She discussed with both Clinton and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright the unsuccessful 2000 attempt in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, to mediate an Israeli-Syrian agreement and their bid later that year at Camp David to forge an Israeli-Palestinian pact.

Others she has reached out to include former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and James Baker, and to one-time U.S. peace negotiators like Dennis Ross, who played a key role in the Clinton administration and the administration of former President George H.W. Bush.

In addition, Rice, whose background is in Soviet studies, asked the State Department historian's office to prepare a voluminous, and classified, compendium of its records on the U.S. role in Middle East peacemaking.

McCormack declined to offer details of her private readings and conversations or discuss any conclusions she may have drawn from them. But he noted that Rice, especially given her background as an academic, has intense interest in studying past diplomacy for clues about what might work as the Annapolis meeting approaches.

"We view the situation as qualitatively different than it has been, the history moves on, people change roles, situations," McCormack said.

"That said, you can take the lessons of history and apply them," he said. "She is a student of history and has a keen appreciation for how we can apply the lessons of history, what we can learn from those who have gone before us."

Rice faces serious obstacles in organizing Annapolis, with both Israel and the Palestinians far apart on a joint statement to be presented to the meeting that she and President George W. Bush hope will launch the start of formal peace talks.

The two sides have fundamental differences over how detailed the document must be and whether it should contain a timeline for progress in the eventual negotiations.

The Israelis want the statement to be as vague as possible while the Palestinians are pushing for deadlines and specific references to the key issues in the conflict, among them the borders of a Palestinian state, the status of disputed Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.

Rice's last trip to the region, a furious four-day shuttle diplomacy mission earlier this month, produced little apparent progress on bringing the two sides together.

However, she did win at least public support for the Annapolis conference from Egypt and Jordan, two critical Arab allies of the United States that had both expressed skepticism about the utility of the meeting.

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      1.   NEXT IN LINE TO CONSULT WITH........ 08:36  |  STUPID RICE 27/10/07
      2.   BUSH SHOULD FIRE RICE 08:39  |  AMERICAN 27/10/07
      3.   BILL CLINTON AND HILLARY CLITON RUNNING THE USA 08:47  |  Paul Revere 27/10/07
      4.   RICE, GO HOME, NO TO PLO STATE 08:48  |  BOB KING THE ZIONIST 27/10/07
      5.   Posts 1 to 4 all in capital letters. And the contents...Oy vey!! 09:12  |  S 27/10/07
      6.   Rice consults Carter, that anti-Semite who is the Arab world`s 09:15  |  Albert 27/10/07
      7.   Time running out 10:36  |  guy 27/10/07
      8.   A "PAL" STATE WILL BE A TERRORIST SPRINGBOARD 10:43  |  THE LIBRARIAN 27/10/07
      9.   Rice on a Useless and Unavailing job....... 11:13  |  Dagma 27/10/07
      10.   To THE LIBRARIAN # 8 - a `Pal State will be 11:21  |  Natasha 27/10/07
      11.   Carter??? 11:31  |  SystemF 27/10/07
      12.   CARTER IS AN OUTSPOKEN ANTISEMIT 12:02  |  Iskander 27/10/07
      13.   Partial solution = disaster for Israel 12:04  |  Gilad 27/10/07
      14.   To 11 # SystemF - Rice an Arabist at heart` 12:06  |  Onlooker 27/10/07
      15.   Consulting Carter is like consulting Haniyeh 12:11  |  Yonatan 27/10/07
      16.   Rice the political whore 12:22  |  Flickcool 27/10/07
      17.   perhaps rice will consider consulting 12:27  |  victor hardman 27/10/07
      18.   Let not Rice get counsel from Abu Gihad Levy , Abu Jihad Peres 12:58  |  Joseph E . 27/10/07
      19.   MONKEY DO WHAT MONKEY SEE 13:12  |  VIPER 27/10/07
      20.   Rice Consulting 13:18  |  Brod 27/10/07
      21.   A little too late for consultation 13:31  |  Tosefta 27/10/07
      22.   Makes no sense 14:16  |  Critical 27/10/07
      23.   Better advice available from a Ouija board! 14:32  |  Avi 27/10/07
      24.   On Consulting 14:52  |  Fahmi Natour 27/10/07
      25.   Consulting Carter on Mideast Peace... 15:03  |  D.R. Zukerman 27/10/07
      26.   Hopefully Rice heeds Carter`s advice 15:48  |  Steve 27/10/07
      27.   To D. R. Zuckerman # 24 Or Just Checking 16:18  |  Dagma 27/10/07
      28.   Catastrophic Consultants CC 16:26  |  Shekinah 27/10/07
      29.   Thank you No. 4 16:28  |  D.R. Zukerman 27/10/07
      30.   Secretary Rice indicates determination to have effective summit 16:39  |  Smadar 27/10/07
      31.   To Critical # 22 - NOT Jewish with Palestinians 16:40  |  Dolly 27/10/07
      32.   Rice Consults 16:43  |  Realist 27/10/07
      33.   The Peace Process REQUIRES Jews to ACCEPT Being Maimed & MURDERED 16:54  |  Linda Rivera 27/10/07
      34.   Carter and Clinton will tell her things she doesn`t want to hear 16:59  |  Michael 27/10/07
      35.   #32 Realist=delusionist 17:33  |  X` 27/10/07
      36.   #34 Michael 18:13  |  Labhras 27/10/07
      37.   To Michael # 34 - Where are those who are truly responsible... 18:18  |  Onlooker 27/10/07
      38.   Please autograph your excellent book on Israeli apartheid 18:25  |  Chick 27/10/07
      39.   Peace 18:37  |  Dr.J 27/10/07
      40.   cARTER SUPPORTED AND NURTURED THE TERRORISTS. 18:48  |  Avram 27/10/07
      41.   ISRAEL: WHY are you letting outsiders decide for you? 18:53  |  beats me 27/10/07
      42.   Is Wonder Woman really that dumb? 18:59  |  PK 27/10/07
      43.   One Thing is for Sure - Jerusalem....... 19:06  |  Dagma 27/10/07
      44.   cARTER was right!....In BIZARRO WORLD!! 19:27  |  Avram 27/10/07
      45.   Rice and her pilaf 19:50  |  Harold levine 27/10/07
      46.   LINDA RIVERA # 33 - "Stop that Global Islamic Terror State 20:20  |  Dagma 27/10/07
      47.   To # 40 beats me - 20:34  |  WINDY 27/10/07
      48.   #40 beats me 20:39  |  Bryan 27/10/07
      49.   Annapolis looks like a political train wreck 21:16  |  Michael 27/10/07
      50.   Jimmy Carter`s Brave New World 21:38  |  Sy Dill 27/10/07
      51.   Dr. Rice is Having a Nervous Breakdown 21:47  |  Ovadiah ben Avraham 27/10/07
      52.   Rice don`t look further than your plate ! 22:52  |  Akam Zekaria 27/10/07
      53.   Clinton and Carter? For those still thinking Rice isn`t an idiot. 23:32  |  Dr. L. Brnd 27/10/07
      54.   rice would do better to consult her retirement plans. 23:51  |  Maureen Ann 27/10/07
      55.   RESULTS! This Is Good BUT I`m Waiting For RESULTS. 23:55  |  Proud Pal Defender 27/10/07
      56.   BRAVO To Carter! I Support His & Others` Effforts. 00:11  |  Proud Pal Defender 28/10/07
      57.   For God Sake... 00:30  |  Eisenhower 28/10/07
      58.   Rice and Her Saudi Controlled Friends 00:32  |  ralphsrant1 28/10/07
      59.   Does not wasting yours time? There is only one solution. Jordan P 00:58  |  e.m 28/10/07
      60.   Reply to Dr. Brnd in San Diego (Post No. 51) 02:58  |  Johnny Weintraub 28/10/07
      61.   57# Eisenhower. A voicm of reason coming from Gaza. 04:32  |  Akram Zekaria 28/10/07
      62.   hell hath no fury.... 04:43  |  jake 28/10/07
      63.   Rice, Bush, Carter 04:52  |  Ralph 28/10/07
      64.   worried 08:26  |  Aline 28/10/07
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