パワフル母さん

Newshourでは12月25日にAnne-Marie SlaughterやJohn Negroponte、David Ignatiusを交えてアメリカ外交の1年間を振り返っていました。17分と通常の2倍の長さですが、国際情勢に興味のある方はチェックして起きたいですね。24日には南スーダンに関してサマンサパワーさんも登場していました。



12月22日の60ミニッツでは大統領補佐官であるスーザンライスさんが出ていました。ライスさんはパワーさんよりも親しみやすい感じですね。



Susan Rice on contending with crisis
President Obama's national security advisor answers questions about the NSA leaks, Iran, Syria and the attack in Benghazi
2013 Dec 22
CORRESPONDENT Lesley Stahl



Newshourも60ミニッツもトランスクリプトがあるのが英語学習者には助かります。冒頭すぐの部分でShe’s the one who wakes up the president when there’s a 3 a.m. international crisis.と彼女を紹介しています。

As the president’s national security advisor, Susan Rice works in what some consider the second best office in the White House.
Lesley Stahl: This is the office, huh?
Susan Rice: This is Henry's office, as we call it.
Lesley Stahl: Henry's office, Henry Kissinger's office.
As Kissinger was, Rice is the quarterback of American foreign policy. She’s the one who wakes up the president when there’s a 3 a.m. international crisis.

when there’s a 3 a.m. international crisis である理由は2008年の大統領選を思い出していただくとピンとくると思います。ヒラリー陣営がオバマ大統領候補の経験不足を訴えるために仕掛けた広告が当時話題になりました。



いまの地位はconsolation prize（敢闘賞）とあるようにあのベンガジの対応がなければ国務長官になっていたのではという方です。ベンガジ事件は最近でも60ミニッツのローガン記者が謹慎になって話題になりましたが、アメリカにとっては大変センシティブなもののようですね。

But what about the humanitarian crisis in Syria? More than 100,000 killed; eight million driven from their homes. After the genocide in Rwanda, when Rice worked on President Clinton’s national security council, she vowed if there ever was another atrocity, she would support dramatic action. So why no dramatic action in Syria?

Susan Rice: It’s not that simple. The international community isn’t unified, there’s no agreement to intervene, there’s no basis in international law to intervene. And yet nobody who works on that problem is at all satisfied with how it’s unfolded.

Susan Rice became national security advisor as a consolation prize. She lost her chance to be Secretary of State when she – then the UN ambassador – was asked to pinch hit for Hillary Clinton and answer questions about the attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi where our ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and 3 others were killed.

[Susan Rice on "Face the Nation": What our assessment is as of the present, is in fact what, it began spontaneously in Benghazi…]

That particular assessment from talking points prepared by the CIA was wrong, and Rice was accused of being deliberately misleading. But a former senior intelligence official told us that the talking point that called the Benghazi attack spontaneous was precisely what classified intelligence reports said at the time.

ようやく時間ができたので、ワントピック深く掘り下げてみようと思っています。