LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, en route to the Middle East, called for the total outlawing of Palestinian militant group Hamas on Thursday and urged patience with Iraq's messy reconstruction.
Ahead of weekend talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Rice urged both Arab and EU nations to help the peace process by breaking off with Hamas' political wing.
"We are pressing the Arab states to cut off support for Hamas, whatever Hamas wants to say it's being used for... The EU had listed the armed wing, but social organizations of Hamas have also got to be listed," she said at a London conference.
"The notion that on the one hand Hamas is peaceful and on the other hand is trying to blow up the peace process is just illogical and, we're saying, will not work."
Other radical groups like Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad and "all of the other rejectionists" should also be targeted, she said.
The United States has long listed Hamas as a whole as a "foreign terrorist organization," and Bush has singled out the group as the biggest obstacle to a U.S. and European-backed "road map" peace initiative for Israel and the Palestinians.
But the EU's list of banned groups only names Hamas' military wing -- responsible for many suicide attacks on Israel since the 2000 launch of an uprising against occupation of Palestinian territories. Aware of rising international concern at chaos and insecurity in postwar Iraq under U.S. and British occupation, Rice argued the traumatization of its people under Saddam Hussein had been underestimated and was hindering the reconstruction drive.
She urged patience and expressed optimism the country would eventually get back on its feet. "The institutions will re-emerge, order will re-emerge," she said. Comparing Saddam's rule to those of Stalin and Hitler, Rice said: "It's not surprising then that with the first breaths of freedom there has not been a kind of ability to organize institutions that channel the hostility and the traumatization.
"It will come. The Iraqi people are smart, the Iraqi people are educated. They will find the way to move forward in a positive way," she added. "Giving them time before rushing to elections and the like...is extremely important."
Rice also drove home Washington's warnings to North Korea and Iran over their nuclear programs.
"The North Koreans will have to be stopped and the world will have to stop them," she said. "Blackmail will not work. You will simply isolate yourselves further."
On Iran, which Washington suspects may be secretly developing nuclear weapons, she was equally blunt: "The world should not tolerate any attempt by Iran to get nuclear weapons."
Countries cooperating with Iran in its nuclear program should "take a hard look at doing that with a country that has not yet satisfied the world that it is not seeking a nuclear weapon," she warned.
