Rice back to Middle East to campaign for democracy, against Iran

Rice first heads to Cairo where on Tuesday she will meet with Egyptian leaders as well as political opponents of President Hosni Mubarak.

The US administration has made Egypt one of its test cases for the promotion of democracy in the Middle East.

Rice said earlier this week that she was

"disappointed" that Mubarak has postponed municipal elections, scheduled to be held in April, for two years.

"The message that I will take to Egypt is that Egypt needs to stay on the democratic course," she told Arab journalists in an interview. "It needs to keep pushing ahead on the democratic course."

The time is "not right" for a free trade accord between the United States and Egypt, she warned.

But Egypt remains one of Washington's key Middle East allies, and the secretary of state also needs Egyptian help to put pressure on the new Hamas government expected to be formed in the Palestinian territories.

As Egypt is one of the rare Arab countries to have signed a peace treaty with Israel, Rice will seek Cairo's commitment to not finance the Palestinian Authority as long as Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist.

"The secretary will have the same conversation with the states in the region as she has had with numerous other countries around the world," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

She will be putting across the message of the diplomatic Quartet for the Middle East -- the United States, Russia, European Union and the United Nations, added McCormack.

"It calls upon Hamas to make certain choices: recognize Israel's right to exist, turning away from terror, and also abiding by previous commitments of the Palestinian Authority -- most notably to the road map and a commitment to a two-state solution arrived at via the negotiating table."

From Egypt, Rice will go to another ally seen as problematic by US policymakers, Saudi Arabia. The secretary of state will then travel to Abu Dhabi for talks with leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Along the way, Rice will again make appeals against giving money to Hamas, and also for regional leaders to be tougher with Iran.

This week she called Iran "a strategic challenge to the United States, to the world, and a destabilizing influence in the Middle East." Rice said all worried states must "challenge Iran's aggressive policies".

Rice will tell the Arab Gulf states "they have an interest in speaking out and confronting Iranian behavior -- because they do have a stake in how Iran is behaving in the region," McCormack said.

Tensions over Iran's nuclear programme -- which the United States and some of its allies fear is hiding a drive to acquire weapons -- is now a major concern for the GCC states -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

The Bushehr nuclear power station that Russia is building in Iran is close to Iran's border with the Gulf states. There is also worry about Shiite Muslim Iran's influence in Iraq and Lebanon.

Rice expressed concern this week about a network formed by Iran, Syria and the Hezbollah group in Lebanon. She called Iran the "central banker for terrorism".

Without openly calling for regime change in Iran or Syria, Rice has asked for 75 million dollars to bolster efforts to beam pro-democracy broadcasts into Iran and five million dollars to help "reformists" in Syria.

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