Questions for Rice

ANNOUNCING HIS appointment yesterday of his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to replace Colin Powell as secretary of state, President Bush said she will be "America's face to the world." It is true that as a woman of color whose grandparents were poor cotton farmers in Alabama, Rice may show the world an example of unlimited individual opportunity.

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The face of America the world is longing to see, however, would be formed by policies very different from those of the past four years. It would resemble what Bush promised in 2000, when he invoked a will to consult closely with allies and conduct a humble foreign policy.

Despite her intelligence and grace under pressure, there is reason to doubt that Rice will be able to steer the country onto a different course. The doubt arises from her performance as national security adviser -- the White House gatekeeper whose mission is to make certain that contending advocates in the upper reaches of the administration make their case to the president.

Because Rice was Bush's mentor in international affairs before his 2000 election and enjoyed unrivaled access to him during his first term, she can hardly escape responsibility for -- or at least association with -- some of the grave mistakes he made. At her confirmation hearings, senators will be justified in asking why, in the summer of 2001, she was slow to respond to warnings from the CIA about Al Qaeda's intention to strike in the United States.

It would also be fitting to ask Rice what she counseled the president about the invasion and occupation of Iraq. A great deal of well-informed and prescient advice about needed troop levels, the preservation of law and order, and postwar nation-building in Iraq was ignored -- even scorned -- by the administration. She is likely to protest that her past advice to Bush needs to remain private. But she would have no good excuse for refusing to say what she thinks today of the errors made then and what she would do as secretary of state to repair the damage done by those blunders.

Hopes that Rice may present a different American face to the world and doubts that she will do so both derive from the same source: her closeness to Bush. While she was NSC adviser, she either failed to dissuade him from the doctrinal delusions foisted on him by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or she permitted intramural discord over matters such as North Korea's nuclear program to result in a dysfunctional deadlock.

If Rice can persuade Bush to forsake the influence of Cheney and Rumsfeld for an approach in the internationalist spirit of her predecessor Colin Powell, she may be a fine secretary of state. If not, the alienating American face shown to the world will be perceived, correctly, as the president's.