A couple of highlights from the weekend. If you missed it, the first is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's address to the Economic Club of New York last week, which we reprinted on Saturday, where the Secretary lays out US foreign policy in historical terms as "uniquely American Realism":

American Realism is an approach to the world that arises not only from the realities of global politics but from the nature of America's character: From the fact that we are all united as a people not by a narrow nationalism of blood and soil, but by universal ideals of human freedom and human rights. We believe that our principles are the greatest source of our power. And we are led into the world as much by our moral ideas as by our material interests. It is for these reasons, and for many others, that America has always been, and will always be, not a status quo power, but a revolutionary power - a nation with New World eyes, that looks at change not as a threat to be feared, but as an opportunity to be seized.

American Realism recognizes that human beings are flawed and fallible by nature - and that makes democratic ideals more precious, and democratic institutions more important. American Realism affirms that decisions about war and peace, poverty and prosperity, depend as much on the domestic institutions of states as on the distribution of power between them. And it is a guiding conviction of American Realism that we achieve our greatest and most enduring goals when we unite power and purpose together - for, as Teddy Roosevelt said, "power undirected by high purpose spells calamity, and high purpose by itself is utterly useless if the power to put it into effect is lacking."

That is not to say that there will never be tensions, that we'll easily bring day-to-day interests into perfect harmony with our ideals. But that is a challenge for policy, not a license to ignore our principles or our interests. It is a goal to recognize in the long run that the two are inextricably linked. In short, American Realism deals with the world as it is, but strives to make the world better than it is. More free. More just. More peaceful. More prosperous. And ultimately safer. Not perfect. Just better.

Read the rest. It's an eloquent expression of US foreign policy from our nation's top diplomat.

Climbing down out of the rarefied theoretical air, however, another piece worth reading from the weekend is this one by Michael Goodwin appearing in yesterday's NY Daily News. Goodwin sat down to talk about Iraq with Rice recently and came away impressed with the Secretary of State but depressed by her answers:

I had hoped for more, but this is one of those cases that proves the wisdom of the adage that a pessimist is a premature realist. Iraq's development is happening far too slowly for American patience. Indeed, Rice's advocacy was surprisingly low-key, leaving me with the feeling that even she is uncertain about our prospects.

It's impossible to say whether this is a fair interpretation of Rice's feelings or not, but if Goodwin thought the Secretary would come in and pronounce certainty in the success of the mission in Iraq, he's a victim of his own expectations.

When I sat down with the Secretary of State nearly two months ago she was equally restrained on the subject of Iraq, going out of her way to point out how difficult the mission is and how slow the progress might be. Perhaps she has grown more pessimistic over time, but my sense is that she -- like the rest of the administration -- has dropped some of the grander rhetoric of the past and replaced it with careful, cautious optimism.

The final must-read piece over the weekend is from James Kitfield in the National Journal. Kitfield takes a close-up look at the development of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), which includes the Iraqi Army, the Iraqi National Police, and the local police. Kitfield interviewed all the relevant players in Iraq, including General Dempsey (whom I also interviewed on June 1), the man who has been responsible for the training and equipping of the ISF for the last two years.

Kitfield's piece is by no means softball on the Bush administration's behalf, but it does give a better understanding of the massively complex details involved in standing up the ISF.

Contrast Kitfield's article, for example, with this report that appeared in the NY Times last Monday under the headline, "Push In Baghdad Short of Goal, Commanders Say."

Three months after the start of the Baghdad security plan that has added thousands of American and Iraqi troops to the capital, they control fewer than one-third of the city's neighborhoods, far short of the initial goal for the operation, according to some commanders and an internal military assessment.

The title and the lede are shorthand for declaring the surge a failure, which is exactly how the article was interpreted by many in the chattering class. The Times produced the story using the leak of a one-page summary of daily security assessments by brigade commanders and combined it with a blind quote from a "senior American military officer" saying the US had planned to have most Baghdad neighborhoods under control by July.

But in interviews last week, members of both the administration and the Multinational Force in Iraq (MNFI) dispute the Times' characterization of the assessment and also the idea that there is (or was) a July target date for securing most of Baghdad.

MNFI spokesperson Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said the summary leaked to the Times was a "tracking tool used by division" and represented a "snapshot" of the security situation at a given point in time rather than a formal military assessment. Col. Garver added that there wasn't a "mark on the wall" in July regarding security and that security assessments remain "100% conditions based."

A senior administration official also said he was unaware of any July date, adding that the report by the Times lacked context by implying there was an assumption that the entire city of six million people could be pacified in four months.

Both added that while the media and the public may be under the impression that the surge is already into its fourth month, in the minds of the military, including General Petraeus, it's now only beginning in full as the final troops are being put in place this week.