Neocons tried to undermine China policy

For the last two days, I've been talking about efforts by the Vice President and his allies to subvert presidentially approved foreign policy decisions by trying to scupper diplomatic efforts. In the current, it is Russia and Iran, but also today, we have a rather major historical precedent.

The same top Bush administration neoconservatives who leap-frogged Washington’s foreign policy establishment to topple Saddam Hussein nearly pulled off a similar coup in U.S.-China relations—creating the potential of a nuclear war over Taiwan, a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell says....

The top U.S. diplomat in Taiwan at the time, Douglas Paal, backs up Wilkerson’s account, which is being hotly disputed by key former defense officials.

Coming back to the present problems, for some reason I feel the need to point out that the political infighting skills of Condoleeza Rice appear to be the main hope for staving off military conflict with Iran.

That's a pretty thin reed.