No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

35 THE MIDDLE EAST PLUNGES INTO WAR

WITHIN A COUPLE of weeks, though, events in the Middle East and Asia exploded, diverting my attention from Iraq for the better part of two months. I’d just returned from a trip to Vienna for a U.S.-EU summit and to Budapest for the fiftieth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution. The latter event was emotional for me as a student of communism in Eastern Europe—especially so when the Hungarians unearthed my long-forgotten academic article called “The Soviet Decision to Invade Hungary.” The trip ended on the twenty-fourth, and I was to leave again for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

On June 25, a calm Sunday morning, I sat sipping coffee in my Watergate kitchen, hoping to have a few hours to myself and perhaps play golf before departing the next day. The phone rang. It was Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister. Eight Palestinian militants in Gaza, including members of Hamas, had entered Israel through a secret tunnel and killed two Israeli soldiers, wounded three others, and kidnapped a nineteen-year-old corporal named Gilad Shalit. I could hear the rage in Tzipi’s voice. “The Israeli people will demand that we do something,” she cried out.

“Tzipi, stay calm and don’t just react,” I said. “Hamas will pay a price internationally for what they’ve done.” But I knew that it wouldn’t be long before Israel avenged the attack and we’d again be deep into a crisis in Gaza.

After hanging up, I called the President. “They [the Israelis] are loaded for bear,” I said. “Do you want to call Olmert?”

“No, what is he going to tell me except what you’ve already heard?” he asked quite reasonably.

“Do you want me to call him?” I asked.

“Yes,” said the President, “and give him my condolences.”

Sometimes it was better for me to make the first call, allowing the President a “second bite at the apple,” if we needed one—and when the situation on the ground was clearer.

The conversation with the Israeli prime minister was much like the one with Tzipi. I made some points about the need to be cognizant of the vulnerability of civilians in Gaza. Olmert acknowledged that responsibility but said that the attack would not go unanswered. It was better that he had the conversation with me. You don’t want to put the President of the United States in the position of asking for restraint when you know the request will fall on deaf ears.

I left the next morning for Pakistan and Afghanistan, trying to concentrate on the problems there while awaiting the news—certain to come—of an Israeli attack in Gaza. My agenda in South Asia was a familiar one: to continue to push for cooperation between these unlikely and prickly partners in the war on terror. But in Pakistan the news took a different and consequential turn. My dinner with the foreign minister had gone later than expected, and it was already midnight when we met the press. I expected to take a few questions critical of India and of Karzai, call for cooperation, and end the encounter.

The last question was from a journalist who noted that the United States had not called for “free and fair elections.” Frankly, I wasn’t sure if he was right, and I didn’t want to blindside my host. But what else could I say? “The United States stands for free and fair elections and will help the Pakistani government to achieve them.” At that moment I had no idea how elaborate my involvement would become. Within a year I would arrange a deal between Benazir Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf, insisting that the general take off his uniform to facilitate a return to civilian rule. And I would help clear the way for Bhutto’s tragic reentry into Pakistan.

My attention to matters in South Asia didn’t last, however, because the Middle East was erupting. By the time I arrived in Moscow to meet with my G8 counterparts and lay the groundwork for the upcoming summit, the expected Israeli response was unfolding in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were sent into southern Gaza, where they conducted air strikes against bridges and energy infrastructure. Israeli forces also seized members of Hamas in the West Bank. The clashes in Gaza had a predictable rhythm. Hamas would provoke, Israel would respond militarily, and the international community would wring its hands. This time was no different. With the help of Peter MacKay, the Canadian foreign minister, I fought back the idea of a G8 statement urging the Israelis to cease their military action. “Who are we kidding?” I said to my colleagues. “We can call for a ceasefire until we’re blue in the face. It isn’t going to happen until Israel has completed its operation.”

The problem was that the Israelis always seemed to overreach. Initially, there was some sympathy for a response but sooner or later the inevitable Al Jazeera pictures of civilian misery would turn the tide of public opinion. Israel, determined to damage Hamas and to send a message of deterrence, was never sufficiently aware of when it was running out of time before it, and not the terrorists, was considered the aggressor. It was the job of the United States—and the secretary of state in particular—to walk the fine line that affirmed Israel’s right to self-defense and protected U.S. interests with a broad set of allies and friends. Every secretary of state since 1948 has had to do that. I sometimes wonder how many more of us will come and go before that challenge goes away.

THE FIGURATIVE EXPLOSION in the Middle East would soon give way to headlines about a literal one in Asia. On the Fourth of July, North Korea test-fired seven missiles, including a Taepodong-2 ICBM. The North Korean issue had festered since the breakdown of talks almost a year before. Seeking to blame the United States, the North had offered to return to the Six-Party Talks on condition that the U.S. unfreeze Pyongyang’s assets in a Chinese-owned bank in Macau. The money in Banco Delta Asia totaled only $25 million, but it was symbolically important to Kim Jong-il. When the President met with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the White House in April, Hu asked him directly to unfreeze the assets so that the talks could resume. At the time, the President reminded Hu that the problem was not one of sanctions but of North Korea’s threats and bad behavior. The missile test put the Chinese in a corner.

I called my Chinese counterpart, Li Zhaoxing, and told him that the time had come for Beijing to step forward. North Korea had had plenty of warning not to conduct the test but had gone ahead anyway. In fact, the prospect of the test had led us to mobilize for the first time our nascent missile defense system. Using components in Alaska and at sea, the Pentagon had cobbled together the ability to shoot down a North Korean missile should it threaten the United States or U.S. assets. I’d favored the idea but told the President that it might cost us internationally or even on Capitol Hill. (The issue of missile defenses was still sensitive, and seeing interceptors put into position might trigger a negative response.) It did neither. Our allies, Congress, and even the Russians seemed to see the wisdom of a “defensive” challenge to North Korea’s aggression.

Li and the Chinese were isolated internationally and they knew it. In Paris at a previously called meeting of the P5+1 to discuss Iran’s nuclear activities, the Chinese had first refused to send a representative, claiming scheduling conflicts, but had ultimately dispatched Li’s third in command. I am convinced that it had little to do with Iran. Li didn’t want to talk about North Korea, so he avoided the meeting. Sitting in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on an unbearably hot day with no air-conditioning, I found myself angry at Beijing for this policy of avoidance. I made a mental note to tell Li that China was a great power but never acted like one. Then a little voice inside my head whispered, Maybe that’s for the best.

Despite China’s reticence the Japanese and United States sponsored a Chapter VII UN resolution imposing strong sanctions on the North. On this issue the Chinese had never voted for Chapter VII, which called for all necessary means to protect against a “threat to peace and security.” In the end, they weren’t ready to do so on this occasion either. But when John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, called me only one week after the missile test to say that he had UNSC agreement on imposing sanctions if we would delete the reference to Chapter VII, I readily agreed. John had cleverly used much of the language of the more consequential resolution in this new draft. Now China was on record agreeing to sanction its client. Pyongyang’s missile test had been too much for even Beijing. More importantly, these steps laid the foundation for much tougher action against Pyongyang when in a few months Kim Jong-il again, to quote President Bush, “threw his food on the floor in a very noisy way” by exploding a nuclear device.

AS THE NEGOTIATIONS on North Korea were unfolding, I was on my way to meet the President for his bilateral sessions with his European counterparts. On the heels of the trouble in Gaza, more consequential and dangerous events were taking place in the Middle East. Hezbollah had launched an attack across the Blue Line (the internationally recognized border between Israel and Lebanon), killing Israeli soldiers and kidnapping others. After conversations with Tzipi Livni and Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, I issued a statement condemning the attack. The region was exploding again.

I caught up with President Bush in Germany, trying to keep tabs on what was transpiring in the Middle East without detracting from the visit meant to showcase our friendship with Berlin. Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to stage a German barbecue dinner for the President, complete with a whole roasted pig. The scene was a little odd, as if the cultural event had been flipped on its head—the Texans sitting there in their cowboy boots with Chancellor Merkel similarly attired. But it was a very nice outing, and I spent a good deal of time with Merkel’s husband, a professor with whom I shared stories about the crazy goings-on in universities.

But by the time we reached the Konstantinovsky Palace just outside St. Petersburg, the situation in Lebanon was deteriorating quickly. I had been looking forward to a brief, somewhat routine stop there to attend a bilateral between the President and President Putin before the G8 summit of heads of state. Foreign ministers didn’t usually attend the meeting with their bosses, and I was glad to head for Washington for an extended home stay—two whole weeks before heading to Southeast Asia.

My room was in a separate building on the palace grounds from where the President was staying. After several calls with the Israelis, I called Steve Hadley to see if the President was available. “He says you should come on over,” Steve said. I dressed hurriedly while my security detail figured out how to get the car to me quickly. The Russians had decided that there would be no cars on the premises, so my agents were also without transportation. A nearby golf cart seemed the quickest way to get to the President.

Having so recently been angered by the Gaza provocation, Israel was in no mood to be counseled to exercise restraint. There was little doubt that Olmert—needing to show that he was as strong as his predecessor, Sharon—would come down hard on Hezbollah. Within a day, Hezbollah compounded the problem by launching a near-continuous assault of rockets into northern Israel. The pictures across Israeli television of citizens scrambling into bomb shelters further enraged public opinion.

In response to the Hezbollah infiltration, Israel blockaded the Lebanese coast and began a bombing campaign against Lebanon’s main airport, hitting fuel tanks that caused dramatic and fiery explosions. When I later asked Olmert’s aides why they’d gone after fuel tanks, he was honest. “Because we needed the Israeli people to see that we were doing something spectacular,” he said.

The G8 always seemed to be dominated by an unforeseen crisis. The year before, it had been the attack on the London public transit system that had killed fifty-two people. A tragedy of that kind at least permitted the G8 to be immediately united in its response—no one favored terrorist attacks. But reacting to the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East is a much more complicated matter. And the response would follow the familiar pattern seen a month before in Gaza: sympathy for Israel; alarm at the civilian toll resulting from the response; and a turn against the Jewish state, which would within a matter of weeks be seen as the aggressor. The difference this time was the magnitude of the confrontation. This wasn’t a raid into the Gaza Strip and a nasty skirmish with Hamas; it risked an all-out war between Israel and the state of Lebanon, which was held captive by Hezbollah.

The President, Steve, and I talked about taking advantage of the G8 to craft a joint statement from the summit participants that would set the terms for the coming international debate about Lebanon. It helped that the French had no sympathy for Hezbollah and Jacques Chirac was a fierce defender of Lebanese sovereignty; it had been the United States and France that had spearheaded the effort to get Syrian troops out of the country. Even the Russians were furious at Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and were prepared to back strong language. They largely supported the view that a ceasefire had to ensure that Hezbollah could never again cross the Blue Line and attack Israel.

Knowing their sentiments, Steve and I drafted a statement for the leaders of the G8. “Where are we going to get somebody to type it?” he asked.

“I type eighty words a minute,” I replied, explaining that my mother had insisted on typing lessons “just in case” I needed secretarial skills. What irony! I certainly needed secretarial skills in this case—of both the clerical and diplomatic variety.

We composed a statement that had several elements. First, the statement firmly laid the blame for the violence at the feet of the extremists who were responsible: Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Israeli operations were in direct response to brazen cross-border raids by the Iranian-sponsored groups. Hamas and Hezbollah had picked the fight, and it was important for the international community to affirm that.

Second, it expressed our deep and growing concern about the human toll of the violence. The conflict was killing civilians, damaging infrastructure, and disrupting thousands of lives and livelihoods. We were sure Israel would get most of the blame for the perilous humanitarian situation; often overlooked, however, was how Hamas and Hezbollah worsened the crisis by deliberately enmeshing themselves among civilians.

Third, the statement urged Israel to operate with utmost restraint, while reaffirming its right to defend itself. We couldn’t blame the Israelis for wanting to respond to the attacks on their territory, but how they responded mattered. The Israeli operations had strategic and humanitarian consequences, and we urged the Israelis to take the greatest care to avoid killing or injuring innocent civilians, as well as to avoid undermining the democratically elected government of Lebanon.

Finally, it called for the cessation of violence by all sides—but, importantly, not on any terms. The fighting needed to end on terms that were positive and sustainable, and the framework for achieving this outcome had been outlined by previous Security Council resolutions. In Lebanon, this meant the disarmament of Hezbollah and the redeployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces to the south of the country, where they had been prevented from operating for decades. Only by reasserting its writ across its territory could the Lebanese government credibly enter dialogue with Israel and resolve the long-running—but not insurmountable—obstacles to lasting peace.

That evening we met with the French and British national security advisors over dinner to agree to a text that we’d jointly present to the Russians the following day. There was back-and-forth about some of the exact terms, particularly concerning arms embargoes that clearly targeted Syria. The Russians were always careful to say nothing that might constrain their lucrative arms trade with Damascus.

By lunch the next day, the statement was ready to be presented at the leaders-only meeting that afternoon. I told Steve that I’d likely go ahead and leave. He suggested that I stay. Referencing the President, he said, “He’ll want you around for this.” I returned to my room to make calls to European allies and check in with the Israelis.

After about an hour, I received a call on the secure phone (though the Russians could undoubtedly “hear” us talking) from Jared Weinstein, the President’s personal aide. “The boss wants you to come over,” he said. The President had called Steve as well, and the two of us jumped in another golf cart and went to the building where the leaders were meeting.

When we arrived, the President, apparently having forgotten that he had summoned Steve, called me to the table with the other leaders and said, “Condi is going to work out the rest of this language.” I looked around and noticed that Blair and Putin were not at the table. They’d gone into a small room to discuss the terms. I joined them, motioning for Steve to come with me.

When we walked into the room, Blair said, “Come on in, Condi.” In a relatively short time we had an agreement on precisely what the United Nations would be asked to do; that had been the sticking point, with the Russians wanting a larger UN role in “investigating” the circumstances of the attack and the Brits knowing that it would be unacceptable to Israel. The work finished, we went back into the other room and adopted the statement.

I looked over at Steve. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I can’t be his national security advisor if he doesn’t trust me to do these things for him,” he said. “I have to resign.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that the President’s decision to call me in had put Steve in an embarrassing position. He was right about the implications for how he would be viewed. I’d been in his place, knowing what it was like to occasionally have the President take me for granted in front of his peers. “I’ll talk to him,” I said.

“No, don’t do that,” he insisted. “I have to handle this myself.”

We went back to where the President was staying, and I asked to see him. “Mr. President,” I said, “you just cut the legs out from under Hadley. He doesn’t think you trust or value him.”

The President looked surprised. “I just needed you to negotiate that language—I didn’t want to do it,” he said.

“I know,” I said, “but that’s not how Steve took it. And it might not be how others took it either.” I left. The President called Steve over and apologized. It was a bad moment with a very good ending. The two men would become incredibly close after that—it was different from the relationship the President and I had but equally close. And it would matter a lot when Steve took up the cause of redirecting our faltering effort in Iraq.

The G8 statement was a good start but it was not a substitute for active diplomacy. Whenever there’s a conflagration, particularly in the Middle East, people expect the U.S. secretary of state to go and try to resolve it. The President, Steve, and I talked about whether I should go and when. Blair had said it best when he told the President, “Condi will have to go but she can’t go too soon. When the American secretary of state goes, something has to happen.” We all knew that nothing was going to happen for a while, so I returned to the United States to monitor events from Washington.

I’ve been asked many times to describe my hardest challenges while in government service. There were many, but a disproportionate number seemed to cluster in 2006: Iraq in flames, Hamas in the Palestinian government, North Korea flexing its muscles in Asia, Iran marching toward a nuclear weapon, Afghanistan deteriorating. Some days it was hard to see a way out. I would read the biographies of the founding fathers, and it reminded me that impossible things had been achieved before. The United States of America should never have come into being, I thought, after a war against the greatest military power of the time and with Hamilton and Jefferson at each other’s throats. But it did. And who would have believed that the Soviet Union could collapse peacefully? You can do this!

But even in a terrible year there is always something that stands out. And in 2006 it was the war in Lebanon, which was truly debilitating. As the conflict dragged on, I felt personally responsible for trying to stop it—and very much on the spot. Yet I knew that we had to have the right ceasefire terms so that Hezbollah was not handed a victory for its aggression.

Each day brought new horrors as Hezbollah fired rockets at the Israeli population, and in response the IDF laid waste to Lebanon’s infrastructure. The government of Fouad Siniora was caught in the middle. His government was in no way responsible for Hezbollah’s raid. It had known nothing about it in advance. But it was paying the price. Never had a government looked so helpless—unable to stop either the splinter terrorists, who were theoretically a part of the government, or the IDF, which in retaliation was destroying the country.

My efforts in the early stages were reduced to practically begging the Israelis to back off—just a little, at least, in recognition of the precarious position of the Siniora government. I gained the Israelis’ agreement to spare the power grid, thereby avoiding misery for the Lebanese who lived beyond the Hezbollah-controlled South. For the time being, Israel also did not use its ground forces to a significant extent. Meanwhile, the international community was moving from despair at the humanitarian toll to the predictable stage of blaming Israel. Pressure for a ceasefire was growing.

The President called the National Security Council together on July 19. There was broad agreement that the Israeli offensive would continue no matter what we said. Furthermore, it was probably a good thing that Hezbollah sustain more damage to its infrastructure and forces so that the terrorist group wouldn’t be tempted to launch attacks again in the near future.

But there was also a great deal of sympathy for Siniora and the Lebanese people. We agreed to press the Israelis on all fronts to refrain from attacks that punished our allies in Beirut. It was admittedly a fine line but one that we had to walk for a while.

After the meeting, the President and I walked back to the Oval. “Are you ready to go?” he asked.

“I think so,” I said. The night before, I’d seen a CNN report—one of many in the news—asking precisely when the U.S. secretary of state was going to show up. There had even been one of those snap polls asking people if I could bring peace. I don’t remember the numbers, but most people thought I could. This is getting pretty personal, I thought.

“What will you do there?” the President asked as we continued down the hall.

“Well, I don’t know just yet,” I said. “David Welch has been working on terms for a ceasefire, and I’ll try to get both sides on board.” I would go first to the United Nations, where I’d called for consultations. My colleagues from around the world had readily agreed. Ministers didn’t like sitting on their hands, and at least we could look as though we were doing something in New York.

Two days later I left for Lebanon and Israel to cobble together the terms of a durable, sustainable ceasefire. By that time, the international community was overwhelmingly in favor of an immediate ceasefire. I kept asking my colleagues to focus not on the timing but on the terms—our strategy had to be to try to lay a more secure foundation for Israeli and Lebanese security to avoid a Hamas-like repetition of the conflict. It was frustrating trying to get people to do the right thing. It was hard to negotiate an agreement that would actually matter—and very easy to call for an end to the war.

I landed first in Lebanon to try and move the various factions toward agreement on terms for a ceasefire. Fouad just wanted to end the war as quickly as possible, but he said he couldn’t do it alone. Could I talk to Nabih Berri, the speaker of Parliament and leader of the Shia political party, Amal?

No friend of the United States, Berri was nonetheless key to an agreement that would send the Lebanese army into the South and prevent Hezbollah from reestablishing its presence there. The meeting was unpleasant and tense. “Do you expect me to make a deal with the Israelis, who are killing my people?” he started out.

“I’m very sorry for the losses of life,” I said, trying to keep my cool. At one moment he had me believing that he actually cared about his people, but the next I suspected that he was just playing the political advantage that he clearly had over me. I got nowhere with Berri, but at least he wasn’t inclined to oppose the movement of the Lebanese army into the south of the country. I realized at that moment this was the most important step we could take: reestablishing the national army throughout the country would be a victory for Lebanese sovereignty as it took up positions that Hezbollah and Syrian forces had once held. It wouldn’t change the political balance immediately, but it was one step toward strengthening the power of our allies in Beirut. Couple that with a more capable and empowered multinational force and it would be possible to conceive of a more sustainable security environment after a ceasefire.

When I returned to meet with Siniora, he again raised the unresolved issue of the Shebaa Farms, a region disputed between Israel, Lebanon, and Syria. He quickly agreed to some other elements of the ceasefire, including the army redeployment and the need for a peacekeeping force. But he wanted it to be the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) with a new mandate. That was, I knew, a nonstarter for the Israelis, who rightly had no confidence in UNIFIL’s ability to keep the peace in the South when the Israel Defense Forces withdrew.

I then went on to Jerusalem, meeting with Olmert, Livni, Barak, and others. It was clear that the Israelis were just beginning their operation. The end of the conflict was nowhere in sight. I finished my discussions in Jerusalem and Beirut having made little progress, particularly on the central element of an international peacekeeping force to replace the Israeli army once it withdrew. I told the parties that I would return after the international conference to be held in Rome. I had agreed to go to show support for the Lebanese and because I’d need Italian and French assistance on any new force presence.

In fact, it had been a colossal mistake to attend. The Europeans wanted to show activity—a bit like the meeting in New York—and that was the real purpose of the gathering. But knowing as I did that the United States might be isolated in refusing to call for an immediate ceasefire, I went anyway, trusting my skills and my colleagues’ assurances that we’d reach unanimity in what we said.

I arrived in Rome intending to meet with Javier Solana and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Javier was quickly becoming one of my most valued colleagues. A former NATO secretary-general, the Spaniard was a strong supporter of ties with the United States and keenly aware of how much the European Union needed to work with us to succeed diplomatically. His position as the European Union’s high commissioner for foreign affairs was structurally weak—he could do little without agreement from the EU member states. Still, he was an exceptionally good and capable diplomat. One of Javier’s strengths was his calm demeanor; he was not given to wild swings of emotion, whether in the face of crisis or in everyday work.

Just before he arrived, I got word that the IDF had mistakenly attacked a UN bunker, killing several personnel. Javier warned me that he’d spoken with Kofi, who was very upset and couldn’t see how the Israelis had made such a mistake. The contradictory stories coming out of Tel Aviv didn’t help. The Israelis said that the bunker was a Hezbollah command post. Unfortunately, it was filled with UN personnel. Furthermore, the IDF had just hours later suffered tough losses in a fight for a key town—they were in a foul mood and the fog of war made it hard to get the facts right. Had Hezbollah used the UN workers as human shields? Had the Israelis been careless in their targeting?

I asked Kofi to join us. He’d already made a statement that came close to accusing the Israelis of an intentional attack on UN personnel. I promised to call Olmert immediately and get the Israelis to order an investigation of what had happened. The Israelis apologized but the atmosphere was souring quickly against our friends, even as the calls for an immediate ceasefire were getting louder. That night I called Steve and told him, “Tomorrow will be rough, but I think I can keep the temperature down.”

The next morning I met with the Italian foreign minister Massimo D’Alema. Massimo, a former Communist, was nonetheless someone with whom I worked well. He made it clear at the breakfast meeting that he had no intention of isolating the United States. We agreed that the conference statement would reference the need for a ceasefire and the terms but with no reference to the timing. The word “immediate” was to be avoided at all costs.

The session proceeded as expected with each participant expressing solidarity with the Lebanese people and—depending on the speaker—some combination of anger at Hezbollah and anguish about Israel’s response. I delivered a U.S. position that focused on what we needed to achieve to prevent Hezbollah from profiting from its aggression and a strong push to strengthen Lebanon’s sovereignty over its own territory by deploying the national army in the South for the first time in thirty years. There would need to be a more capable international peacekeeping force than the hapless UNIFIL, which had been in the country for decades but, alas, with a mandate so weak that it had been a spectator whenever trouble arose.

Fouad Siniora took the opportunity of the conference, not surprisingly, to excoriate Israel and push for an immediate ceasefire. But he cleverly presented a seven-point program that dovetailed nicely with what we wanted to do. The centerpiece was strengthening the Lebanese national army and making it—not militias (read: Hezbollah)—the protector of the state. The plan, which also called for international aid to rebuild the shattered country, struck exactly the right balance between blaming Israel and weakening Hezbollah. It was a very impressive outing.

The meeting was about to close with unanimous support for the Italian-drafted statement when all of a sudden the French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, raised his hand. “The statement has to say immediate ceasefire,” he blurted out. “That is what the Lebanese people expect.” I was furious. The Russians, the Arabs, even the Lebanese had raised no objection to the statement, knowing that ultimately I was the one who was going to have to deliver the Israelis. Now Douste-Blazy, a medical doctor whom Chirac had appointed not for his expertise but for the management of his internal coalition, had thrown this stink bomb into the room. Does he know what he’s doing, or is he just clueless? I wondered.

Whatever his intentions, Douste-Blazy managed to blow up the conference. After several attempts to find common language—most notably by the Brits—I called a halt to the proceedings and said that I couldn’t accept the word “immediate.” The statement was passed without the time constraint. But it took about five seconds for word to leak out of the room that the United States had been isolated in support of Israel. I caught up with Karen Hughes on my way to the press conference. “Well,” she said, “it seems we’re the only ones who want the war to continue.”

Several hundred journalists were crowded into a room intended for, at most, one hundred people. As I stepped on stage with Kofi Annan, Massimo, and Fouad, I took a moment to wipe my forehead. It was unbearably hot and I didn’t want to be seen sweating through the press conference. I wish I had worn a lighter-weight suit, I thought. I then proceeded to explain that the United States would work as quickly as possible for a ceasefire, but the key was to get terms that would prevent a return to the previous status quo. I looked at Fouad, whom I admired so much. This dignified man was in so much pain and begging the world to stop the war. I had to stand next to him and say that the time had not yet come to do so. The next morning, the New York Times carried a front-page picture of the press conference. I was wiping my forehead, but it looked as though I was experiencing a case of the vapors. There was nothing to be done about the image; sometimes a picture isn’t worth a thousand words, I told the press on my plane as I headed off to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

I’d missed the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting the year before and didn’t have an option to skip it again. I felt ridiculous heading to Southeast Asia while trying to negotiate an end to war in the Middle East. But I decided to just accept the contradiction and make quick work of the stop nearly five thousand miles from where I should have been.

But the ARF presented me with another problem. A silly tradition had grown up whereby the foreign ministers from the non-ASEAN countries performed musical skits. Colin had done a version of the Village People’s “YMCA.” Madeleine and the Japanese foreign minister had performed a song from Evita. You get the picture.

I wanted no part of it, finding the whole thing undignified and not very funny—particularly in the age of YouTube. That was even more the case in the midst of a devastating war in the Middle East. But I couldn’t refuse to perform and decided to do something serious instead. “I can actually play the piano,” I told my chief of staff, Brian Gunderson, “so tell them I’ll play Brahms.” I thought it would be nice to play a piece with a well-known Malaysian musician, and so, in addition to soloing the Brahms “Intermezzo,” I teamed with the first violinist for the Malaysian National Symphony Orchestra and performed a movement of the Brahms Violin Sonata No. 3 in D Minor. I knew the pieces well and had run through them upon arrival. There was one awful moment when the violinist got lost about halfway through the piece, but we managed to end together. Both offerings were well received. “I didn’t know you could play like that,” Sergei Lavrov said. “It was really beautiful. You’re really good.”

Did you think I was lying about being able to play? I thought. Stop being uncharitable and just say thank you. “Thanks, Sergei. I’m glad you enjoyed it,” I said. By the way, the Russian skit was hilarious, something about ASEAN taking over the world and peppered with references to the “rice” harvest from the United States. A couple of years later, the ARF ministers decided to kill the idea. Hence Hillary Clinton has been spared that particular frivolity.

WHEN I RETURNED to the Middle East, I landed in Jerusalem, where we had made little progress on terms for deployment of an international peacekeeping force. We were running out of time because the Israelis were nearing a decision on whether to widen the war with a major ground offensive deeper into Lebanon.

I went immediately to dinner at Prime Minister Olmert’s house and reviewed the state of the negotiations. My major concern was to prevent a widening of the war while we tried to achieve terms for a ceasefire. Additionally, I wanted to impress upon the Israelis the need to relieve the escalating humanitarian crisis by allowing relief workers time to work without fear of IDF air strikes. Olmert promised to talk to his defense minister, Amir Peretz, and get back to me.

I went to the hotel to try to get some rest before the next morning, when I was to meet with the chief of staff of the IDF and Defense Minister Peretz. After a brief meeting with our delegations in which I focused on the humanitarian issue, Peretz and I met one-on-one. I told him that time was running out and I couldn’t hold the ground against an immediate ceasefire for much longer. As I was warning against any escalation of the war, his BlackBerry went off. He took a look at it and then returned to the conversation. As we wrapped up, I told him that I was leaving immediately for Lebanon and would return to Jerusalem within a day or so. I’d decided that personally shuttling back and forth was necessary to find a resolution of the war.

Then, suddenly, David Welch interrupted the meeting and showed me his BlackBerry. He had received an e-mail from our ambassador in Lebanon informing us that an Israeli air strike had caused major civilian casualties. An apartment building in Qana had collapsed in the strike, killing more than twenty Lebanese civilians. I immediately realized that Peretz had known about the incident but hadn’t told me. I confronted him and he finally admitted that, yes, something had gone awry. He said they were investigating but were not yet sure of the details.

David, Sean, Brian, and Karen were waiting for me when I came out of the meeting. We rushed up to my suite and flipped on the television. The pictures were awful as bloodied bodies were pulled from the wreckage. The Arab world was now inflamed, with denunciations of Israel coming in from across the region.

I called Siniora. “I assume I shouldn’t come,” I said to him.

“It’s best if you don’t,” he answered. “This has got to stop. It has got to stop!” he shouted into the phone.

“Fouad, I’m so sorry,” I began. But he was just silent. I hung up and asked to see Olmert, who agreed to meet me within an hour. I was furious at Peretz. Now I would have to tell the press that I had sat through a meeting with the Israeli defense minister not knowing that the IDF had killed numerous Lebanese civilians in an attack. The press was more interested, though, in the fact that I’d canceled my return trip to Lebanon: “Does this mean that the United States has lost its ability to broker a deal?” I kept my comments short—words of condolence to the Lebanese and a promise to find an end to the war. I didn’t address the implication in the question that I’d lost the moral high ground by supporting the Israelis too long. But when I saw Olmert, I was more direct. “Get it over with,” I said. “After today, you have no ground to stand on. And I’m not going to let the United States go down with you.” We quickly negotiated a forty-eight-hour halt on air strikes for humanitarian purposes. As I was taking off for the United States, the fragility of the brief cessation was clear; the IDF had reduced its air activity, but fighting continued. Nonetheless, the half measure gave a little breathing space to relief workers to replenish the dwindling supplies of food and medicine.

Upon my return I went immediately to the White House to meet with the President. We reviewed the situation and the diminishing international support for our position. He too was very worried that the Siniora government might be in real danger of collapsing. “They’re caught between a rock and a hard place. People are questioning whether America can be counted on to help its Lebanese friends,” I said. The President agreed to call Olmert and impress upon the Israelis the urgency of finishing the operation quickly.

The problem was that the Israelis didn’t really have a firm grasp on their strategic objectives. They kept saying that they wanted to damage Hezbollah, but they understood that they wouldn’t succeed in destroying the terrorist organization. They wanted to punish Hezbollah, but they admitted that they were now doing more damage to Lebanon—and potential friends—than to the terrorists. They kept threatening to launch a major ground offensive, but they didn’t want to reoccupy Lebanese territory from which they’d withdrawn in 2000. Since they didn’t know what they were trying to achieve, they didn’t know when they’d achieve it. A full independent review of Israeli decision making (the Winograd Commission Report) would later conclude that the war had been badly managed from a political-military point of view. Israel had gone to war with uncertain objectives. And we were paying the price.

We decided to work with France and the United Nations Security Council to draft a resolution that would end the war. I couldn’t wait any longer for the Israelis to determine what they were trying to do. Steve would work directly with the Élysée Palace through the foreign policy advisor to President Chirac. I would work with the Lebanese, the Israelis, and the United Nations.

The elements of the agreement would be the following: the entry of the Lebanese army into the South so that it controlled the entire country; a beefed-up UN peacekeeping force under Chapter VII with real teeth to replace UNIFIL so that the IDF could withdraw; a bordermonitoring system to close off the arms flow across the Syrian land border and at sea so that the Israeli blockade could be lifted; and some wording that promised to revisit the Shebaa Farms question. A ceasefire would come into effect upon deployment of the security forces.

For the next week, we attempted to get agreement on these basic points. Not surprisingly, Siniora was simultaneously negotiating with me and with the various factions in his government. Olmert had splits in his coalition too. Hawkish elements in Jerusalem, particularly in the military, wanted to keep the war going. Some in the IDF were pushing to expand operations, despite the uneven success thus far. I knew, though, that Tzipi Livni and Olmert were looking for a way out of the predicament. I just needed to help them find it.

The biggest challenge was to find a formula that both Siniora and Olmert could accept on the peacekeeping force. With our concurrence, Olmert wanted a force with a robust mandate under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which would authorize it to take military action. The Israelis felt it important that their withdrawal not be followed by Hezbollah’s swift rearmament, and authorizing the peacekeeping force under Chapter VII would have enabled it to prevent that and better assist the Lebanese army to reassert its authority. Chapter VII was a nonstarter for Siniora and the other Lebanese parties, who felt that a force with such a mandate would spark fighting and ultimately threaten civil war. The Lebanese demanded a Chapter VI mandate, which, unlike a Chapter VII resolution, would limit the force to using peaceful means. Ultimately we achieved a compromise that both parties could accept—an expanded UNIFIL force, operating under Chapter VI but with a mandate to “take all necessary action” to ensure southern Lebanon would not be used for hostile purposes.

During negotiations with the parties, our friends in Paris suddenly dropped from sight. I cannot to this day explain what happened, but their active efforts to find a solution just ceased. We suspected that Chirac’s civilian advisors were telling him Hezbollah would attack any French peacekeepers in Lebanon. Therefore France had wanted a ceasefire and a peacekeeping force only after all of the political issues were settled—including a mechanism to deal with Shebaa Farms. Not even Siniora was suggesting that there had to be a political agreement before a ceasefire—that wasn’t going to happen. We toyed with the idea of two resolutions, one to end the war and then one to deal with the politics. The French tried to reverse the order. After several days they just stopped working toward a deal. Kofi Annan took up the slack, becoming my negotiating partner in a way that I could never have imagined given his anger at the Israelis that day in Rome. Because he could also talk to the Syrians—warning Damascus not to stand in the way of an agreement—his work was essential.

The focus of the negotiations was now the UN with John Bolton working toward a resolution. Each night I would talk with John as his day ended in New York, and I’d go home to a flurry of phone calls with the parties in the region to move the ball forward. The next morning we’d start again, but, as Nick Burns said, it felt like Groundhog Day. I’d go to bed thinking we had an agreement only to wake up to find that something had unraveled overnight. David Welch kept helicoptering back and forth between Israel and Lebanon.

The President was in Crawford, and he asked me to join him there so that we could work together on Lebanon. I arrived on August 5 and briefed him on where things stood. The next morning, we had a regularly scheduled NSC meeting by videoconference. The President asked me to bring everyone up to date, which I did. I was stunned when the Vice President said in reply that we shouldn’t be seeking a resolution. “We need to let the Israelis finish the job,” he said. I scribbled a note to the President. “Where has he been for the last two weeks?” The President didn’t respond. The Vice President continued with a soliloquy that revealed his ex parte (from my point of view) conversations with the Israelis. I was furious. Had he been negotiating with some people within the Israeli government behind my back and suggesting that the United States might support an extension of the war? It was quite unlike the Vice President, whom I’d come to know as straightforward even when we didn’t agree. It occurred to me that this might have been another “staff-driven” view, but it was unacceptable.

When he finished, I explained patiently that I had—along with Steve Hadley—been working with the Israelis and the Lebanese on terms for a ceasefire. We were getting close and would likely go to the United Nations to vote on a resolution in a few days. There could be no turning back now. And our allies in Lebanon were in danger of collapse. If the NSC principals felt differently, I had to know.

The Vice President repeated his view that the war should continue. “Do that, and you are dead in the Middle East,” I said to the President—loud enough for others to hear. The President called a halt to the meeting and said he would get back to everyone. I followed him out of the videoconference room. “I’ve been out there negotiating a resolution, and now we don’t want one?”

By the next morning the President had produced—in his own hand—a document about the Middle East. The essence of the argument was that too much was at stake to allow the war to continue—including our posture in Iraq and his desire for a push toward Palestinian statehood. He noted insightfully that we couldn’t abandon the democratic forces and their foothold in Lebanon and sustain the Freedom Agenda. With that bit of internal discord resolved, I returned to Washington to push for a ceasefire.

The ups and downs continued, but by Wednesday evening, John Bolton thought he had an agreement on the language. Then there was another disruption: the Arab League decided to send its foreign ministers to Washington to demand a ceasefire. “It’s gone pretty sour here all of a sudden,” John reported from New York. “They want to wait for the Arabs to get here.” I needed that like a hole in the head because it would mean days of grandstanding while those who wanted to expand the operation gained ground in Tel Aviv.

After a long day on the phone with Kofi trying to nail down support of the parties for the resolution, Margaret Beckett, the British foreign minister, called. “I’m coming to New York,” she said. “Tony has decided that it’s time to go to the UN, particularly since the Arabs are going.”

“Margaret, I’m worried that we’ll just sit there and look stupid if the resolution isn’t ready,” I said.

“I can look stupid in London, or I can look stupid in New York,” she replied. “I guess I’d just as soon look stupid at the UN.” I agreed to meet her in New York on Friday to make a last push.

By the time I arrived in New York, we’d nailed down almost all elements of the resolution. David Welch was in Lebanon sitting with Siniora when I arrived in my suite at the Waldorf. Steve was working furiously with the Israelis, solving yet another overnight problem. An earlier version of a resolution draft that didn’t reflect Tel Aviv’s changes had somehow ended up on Olmert’s desk. Shalom Turgeman, Olmert’s diplomatic advisor, had called Steve, furious that the United States was putting on the table a solution that Israel couldn’t support. Steve made certain that they had the right version of the resolution. Only several years later did I learn that John Bolton had been sharing information with the Israelis through their UN ambassador without permission to do so. That practice had backfired, as the Israeli ambassador was one step behind the discussions between the White House and the prime minister’s office.

As John was in the Security Council chamber preparing to present the resolution at three o’clock, I suddenly saw a television report that threw everything into a tailspin. Israeli tanks were crossing deeper into Lebanon; the IDF had begun a ground invasion moments before the UN vote.

I’d been on the phone with David Welch and Siniora, finishing last-minute details, when the news report caught my attention. “Get Tzipi on the phone!” I yelled to Liz Lineberry, who was standing nearby. When I heard Tzipi’s voice, I just couldn’t contain my anger. “What are you doing?” I demanded. I could immediately tell that she really wasn’t sure of the answer to that question. It occurred to me that the IDF might have jumped the gun, launching the escalation of the war that some in the defense establishment had favored. Maybe the Israelis were trying to send a message that time for diplomacy was running out. It was a pretty dramatic way to get our attention.

I called Steve and asked him to get hold of Olmert’s office, and then I phoned Olmert himself. He said something about having a stronger position from which to begin the ceasefire. It didn’t really make sense. I decided on the spot to keep pushing through to the resolution. “Tell John to tap-dance for a few minutes,” I said to Brian, who immediately told Bolton to stall in the chamber. Then, with the prime minister of Lebanon on one phone and the prime minister of Israel on the other, I nailed down the final wording. Just before entering the room, Kofi called me into his office. “How much time will the Israelis need before they begin to withdraw?” I called Olmert again, and we settled on the ceasefire taking effect within forty-eight hours.

After John presented the ceasefire resolution that we’d negotiated, I entered the chamber and cast the U.S. vote in favor of it. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 passed unanimously on August 11. Siniora had angry words for Israel, but the most recent Lebanese war was about to end—just about a month to the day after it had begun.

That night on the plane I allowed myself to sip a glass of white wine, something I hadn’t done in weeks due to the round-the-clock negotiations. I didn’t really feel a sense of satisfaction, but I did feel relief. The Israelis would withdraw, capable security forces would come in, and Fouad Siniora’s government had survived. Somehow we’d threaded the needle and protected the interests of both our friends. On Sunday morning I awoke to a Washington Post opinion piece. “The Middle East Is Condi’s Now,” it was titled. “In the wake of the devastating war in Lebanon, the secretary of state will have to make sense of the crumbling order in the Middle East.” That’s absolutely right, I thought. I have to, and somehow I will.

Several days later, I left for the Greenbrier, where I spent most of the day on the telephone, working to raise troop contributions for the new peacekeeping forces. It’s always hard to assemble those forces, particularly since the United States has long been reluctant to put substantial forces into a UN operation that it does not dominate. And in the case of Lebanon, the U.S. military would have been an inviting target, as it was when the marine barracks there were bombed in 1983. But thanks largely to the Italians, the “new” UNIFIL came into being. The French, still sulking, had refused to lead the mission until the Italians (led by, once again, my friend D’Alema) said that they would. Then Paris relented and agreed to command, with Italy, Spain, and Turkey providing the bulk of the forces.

Resolution 1701 was then and still remains controversial, particularly among conservative commentators and certain “friends” of Israel. Indeed, though it ended the war, it didn’t solve all of the security problems in Lebanon. We were never able to get a practical solution to the Syrian land-border issue. Siniora was simply afraid to put international forces on the border and directly challenge Syria. Until the day I left office, I continued to look for a solution, including deploying technical personnel from Germany who could quietly monitor the border. Nothing really worked. As a result, Hezbollah continued to receive arms—albeit at a reduced rate—in direct contravention of Resolution 1701.

The Winograd Commission said, however, that the resolution was an “achievement” for Israel. The Lebanese army did deploy to the South, and Hezbollah was weakened by the reality and perception of displacement from its area of influence by the national forces. The Lebanese people cheered when, for the first time in thirty years, the national army entered the South. And UNIFIL has been a capable force in keeping the peace.

So, though it wasn’t a perfect solution, UNSCR 1701 was an important victory for Siniora, who delivered his people from the horrors of a war that he didn’t start. Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, tried to claim victory. But the terrorist organization had achieved nothing but displaced people, a weakening of its own infrastructure, and the entry of the Lebanese army and an international force where its fighters had once roamed. Later Nasrallah would admit that he wouldn’t have started the war had he been able to predict the Israeli reaction and the conflict’s aftermath.

The Israelis would complain bitterly about the failure to secure the land border with Syria, and some hawkish elements would suggest that they should have continued the war. But we bailed Tel Aviv out of a poorly executed response to an admittedly unprovoked attack. Olmert and Livni have at least had the decency to acknowledge that the diplomatic solution was delivered just in time.

And unlike in the ceasefire of 1996, Damascus was a bystander, surprisingly kept in check by Kofi Annan’s warnings to stay out of the way and its weakened position given its troop withdrawal in 2005. When Secretary of State Warren Christopher had negotiated the resolution to the previous outbreak of hostilities in 1996, he’d been “protected” by Syrian forces that lined the streets of Beirut—their dominance on full display. Chris, as he was known, had made more trips to Damascus than he had to Beirut, and the final agreement had been between Syria and Israel. Now, in 2006, one would have been naive to assume that Syria had no influence. Yet, having the Lebanese negotiate on their own behalf was a big step forward in the long saga toward the reestablishment of Lebanese sovereignty. The United States of America had salvaged a lot from the flames of Israel’s war with Hezbollah.