Rice struggles for victories beyond Libya

By Sue Pleming - Analysis

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - The Bush administration touts its new relationship with Libya as a foreign policy success but elsewhere from North Korea to Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice faces bad news.

Rice jetted into Libya on Friday for a meeting with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the first visit of a U.S. Secretary of State to Tripoli since 1953 and what the top U.S. diplomat puts in the positive column of her legacy.

With four months left before President George W. Bush leaves office in January, 2009, Rice has many open files on her desk, with prospects of success narrowing before Republican Sen. John McCain or Democratic Sen. Barack Obama is in the White House.

She is trying to wrap up a Palestinian statehood deal by the end of the year, North Korean nuclear talks have hit new roadblocks as has a civilian nuclear agreement with India and Iran still refuses to give up its atomic program.

Rice tells reporters repeatedly she will sprint to the finish and there is still time to achieve many of her foreign policy goals and get a legacy for the president that goes beyond the unpopular Iraq war.

While others were on vacation in July and August, Rice was on the road nearly every week, meeting the North Koreans in Singapore, jetting to Georgia over the crisis with Russia, stopping in on Baghdad and visiting Israel and the Palestinian Territories to push along an elusive peace agreement.

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE?

But several analysts say Rice's efforts are too little, too late and all eyes are on the next White House.

"She is right to convey an optimistic scenario but one of the problems is credibility. At this point in time people stop paying attention and look to the next team coming in," said Edward Walker, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt.

He pointed to U.S. President Bill Clinton, who pushed until the last few days of his term to get a deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians. His efforts ended in failure.

Rice is still optimistic of a deal before the end of the year, a goal set at a peace conference launching the new peace process in the U.S. naval town Annapolis, last November.

But events on the ground are not positive -- embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may have only a few weeks left in office and the Palestinian Territories are divided between Hamas-run Gaza and the West Bank, which is ruled by pro-Western President Mahmoud Abbas.

Libya gave up its weapons of mass destruction program in 2003, resulting in U.S. sanctions being lifted and Tripoli coming off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

NO PERMANENT ENEMIES

Rice said her visit showed that the United States does not have permanent enemies.