All Intensive Purposes

Jim Hoagland says that Condi Rice's diplomacy has been a great success because she accomplished exactly what she set out to do:

Failure, however, is a relative term in diplomacy, which values the art of not making a deal while professing to seek one. Bush and Rice had no intention of pressing Israel to accept a quick cease-fire before it crippled Hezbollah. In the narrow terms of non-dealmaking, Rice succeeded on her trip.

The remainder of the column describes how the White House and Foggy Bottom should set their expectations low going forward. Indeed, as they say.