She was afraid it would destabilize the region -- apparently in a way that a nuke in Tel Aviv wouldn't.
And after, the region is such a marvelous model of stability now.. "Condoleezza Rice opposed Israel’s attack on Syrian nuclear site," by Sarah Baxter in the Times (thanks to Pamela):
A MYSTERIOUS Israeli military strike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria last month was opposed by Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, because she feared it would destabilise the region, according to a report this weekend.
Rice persuaded the Israelis to delay their operation, but not to call it off, after US officials were presented with “jaw-dropping” evidence of Syrian nuclear activity, the report said.
The Sunday Times revealed two weeks ago that Israeli commandos had seized samples of nuclear material, said to be of North Korean origin, during a daring raid on a Syrian military facility to prove to the Americans that an air attack was essential.
According to ABC News, Rice led the opposition inside the Bush administration to the Israeli strike, persuading them to shelve initial plans to hit the Syrian facility in the week of July 14.
The nuclear samples seized by ground commandos remain unidentified, but defence and intelligence sources in Washington believe they may have been connected to uranium enrichment.
Ilan Berman, a Middle East expert at the American Foreign Policy Council, said: “The consensus is that Israel struck a nuclear facility and the probability is that it was linked to enriching uranium.”...
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