SUSAN RICE

• Foreign-policy aide to Democrat presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988
• Served on the National Security Council for the Clinton administration
• Former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
• Foreign-policy advisor to Democrat candidate John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign
• On December 1, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama nominated Rice to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

Born in November 1964 in Washington, DC, Susan Elizabeth Rice graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in history in 1986. She was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and subsequently attended New College, Oxford, where she earned a master’s degree in philosophy in 1988 and a Ph.D. in the same discipline two years later.

During the 1988 presidential campaign, Rice served as a foreign-policy aide to Democrat candidate Michael Dukakis.

In the early 1990s Rice was a management consultant for McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm.

From 1993-97, Rice served on the National Security Council for the Clinton administration. From 1993-95 she was also the administration’s Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping, and from 1995-97 she was both Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs. Rice’s political mentor during these years was Secretary of State Madeline Albright.

In 1996 Rice helped persuade President Clinton to rebuff Sudan’s offer to turn Osama bin Laden, who was then living there, over to U.S. authorities. Rice reasoned that because Sudan had a poor human-rights record, the U.S. should have no dealings with that nation's government -- not even to obtain custody of the al Qaeda leader or to receive intelligence information on terrorists from Sudanese authorities. Bin Laden subsequently moved his terrorist operations to Afghanistan, from where he would mastermind the 9/11 attacks.

In 2002 Rice became a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Foreign Policy and Global Economy & Development programs.

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Rice was a foreign-policy advisor to Democrat candidate John Kerry. According to Ed Lasky of The American Thinker:

"One of the major steps Kerry suggested for dealing with the Middle East was to appoint James Baker and Jimmy Carter as negotiators. When furor erupted at the prospect of two of the most ardent foes of Israel being suggested to basically ride 'roughshod' over Israel, Kerry backtracked and blamed his staff for the idea. His staff was Susan Rice."

In 2005 Rice co-authored an academic article which postulated that terrorism was “a threat borne of both oppression and deprivation.”

In 2008, Rice served as a senior foreign-policy advisor to Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Immediately after Obama and running mate Joe Biden won the White House in the November election, Rice was named to the Obama-Biden Transition Project’s advisory board.

On December 1, 2008, President-elect Obama nominated Rice to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, making her the first African American woman ever to hold that post. Moreover, Obama upgraded the position to cabinet level.

Reasoning (contrary to much strong evidence) from the premise that poverty breeds terrorism, Rice believes that U.S. taxpayers should fund nearly $100 billion per year of new-development-aid programs under the auspices of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Project -- a massive wealth-redistribution initiative designed to transfer money from the world's developed states to its poor states, many of them in Africa.

Rice also calls for the use of American military power to intervene -- as part of a large, well-funded UN peacekeeping force -- directly in African conflicts such as the one in the Darfur region of Sudan. Advocating the imposition of a no-fly zone and the bombing of Sudanese aircraft, airfields, and military and intelligence assets, Rice has said: “[I]f the United States fails to gain UN support [for these measures], we should act without it.”

Early in his administration, President Obama announced, against Rice's counsel, that the U.S. would not participate in a scheduled 2009 “World Conference Against Racism” in Durban, South Africa, because that Conference’s official documents contained too many critical references to Israel, too many restrictions on freedom of expression, and too much language calling for reparations to compensate contemporary nonwhites for the evils of Western slavery centuries ago.

Rice held that U.S. participation in UN efforts such as the Durban Conference performs the important function of showing the world that Americans are willing to denounce the remnants of slavery and colonialism from a global platform.

On June 11, 2010, it was reported that Rice played an important role in pushing the Obama administration to support a United Nations investigation of a deadly May 31 fight between Israeli commandos and a number of passengers aboard a Gaza-bound, pro-Palestinian ship. The ship was carrying humanitarian relief supplies to Gaza, but its crew refused to comply with Israeli requirements that all cargo be submitted for inspection, thereby igniting the trouble. According to Israel, approximately 40 of the 600-plus people aboard the vessel were Turkish jihadis who instigated the violence, and at least five were known to have ties to Islamic terrorism. For details of the incident, click here.

In February 2011, Rice stated: “For more than four decades, [Israeli settlement activity] has undermined security … corroded hopes for peace and security … it violates international commitments and threatens prospects for peace.” During testimony she gave two months later, Rice reiterated that sentiment, asserting that “Israeli settlement activity is illegitimate.”

Rice serves as a board member of numerous organizations, including the National Democratic Institute, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, the Atlantic Council, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, the Bureau of National Affairs, Partnership for Public Service, and the Beauvoir National Cathedral Elementary School. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Strategy Group.