RICE: Well, I don't see this as a war of attrition. And I think the Vietnam analogy is really faulty. You don't have, for instance, a big conventional army on the other side of the line as you did with the North Vietnamese army with lots of outside help from China and Russia, the Soviet Union and others.

And you certainly don't have a, quote, "resistance movement" that could be thought of as at least as popular. This is not a popular movement by any stretch of the imagination.

And that's why it will not take hold in Iraq. And it will eventually die.

O’REILLY: But it's been a successful movement in the sense that most Americans are now against the Iraq war. They don't feel it's going well.
RICE: I also see an American public that says, "We shouldn't leave until the job is done." They don't want to prematurely...

O'REILLY: No, they don't want to cut and run.

RICE: No. Because...

O'REILLY: They just think we're not doing well there.

RICE: But I think the reason it's hard for people to see that we're doing well is it's a lot easier to see the violence every day. And there was horrible violence today again.

O'REILLY: Is it press driven, then?

RICE: Well, it is easier to put a picture on television of a suicide bomb than to show the kind of process that's going on of where people are registering to vote and people are...

O'REILLY: But most of the press, and we talked about this earlier, in the first segment, most of the press is anti the Iraq action. You see, you have an administration that is up against a tremendous press juggernaut that doesn't like you.

RICE: Well, it's also hard...

O'REILLY: You know that.

RICE: Well, quite apart from what the press may or may not like, there is also the problem that the press reports on a daily basis — headlines every day — when in fact this is a somewhat longer term process in Iraq. And where the political process has been moving just inexorably along. That's harder to see, that's harder to report on. But you know, there are times when people see it. When 8.5 million Iraqis went out and voted...

O'REILLY: Yeah, that was big.

RICE: ...people knew that we were in Iraq for the right reasons.

O'REILLY: Yeah, but the truth of the matter is, that our correspondents here at FOX News can't go out for a cup of coffee in Baghdad.
RICE: No. But the people...

O'REILLY: That's tough — that's tough!

RICE: No, it's tough. But would they have wanted to go out for a cup of coffee in Baghdad when Saddam Hussein was in power? I don't think so.

O'REILLY: No, no. But...

RICE: So it takes time.

O'REILLY: But after three years you expect a little security in the country.

RICE: No, it takes — but there is security in 13 — 13 of the 16 provinces in that country are relatively stable. We just turned over, in Najaf in the south, control of that holy city to the Iraqi forces. You can go to most of that country, and it's fine. There is a part of the country, and unfortunately Baghdad, the capital...

O'REILLY: Yeah, Baghdad's the big one.

RICE: ...is a part of it, where there is a persistent terrorist insurgent presence that is going to have to be rooted out. But Iraqi forces are getting better, they're doing a lot of the fighting themselves.

O'REILLY: I hope so.

All right. Iran. Now, this is America's biggest enemy, next to North Korea, I think, in the world. Would I be wrong in saying that?

RICE: Well, Iran is certainly a state, today...

O'REILLY: They're our enemies.

RICE: Yeah, I would say this is a state that is 180 degrees from the interests of the United States. That's right.

O’REILLY: They're helping the terrorists. They're infiltrating them into Iraq. They're harboring al Qaida.

RICE: They do very little for their own people, in terms of human rights and democracy.

O'REILLY: They're developing nuclear activity where they could hand it off to al Qaida if they wanted, or they could sell it to rogue states. And they're basically saying to you, the secretary of State, to the president, to the world, we don't care. They don't believe you have the military capability to hurt them, because you're bogged down in Iraq.

And it looks to me like this is just going to happen, that we're going to have to deal with these people. Do you see it the same way?

RICE: Iran is a state that is moving in the wrong direction. I would say 180 degrees in the wrong direction. But on one border they have now an Afghanistan that is a democratic state, an ally of the United States in the war on terror, a military ally of the United States.

On the other hand, they have a not-yet-finished project in Iraq, but one that, when it is, will be a non-theocratic, Shi'a-majority state that is the center, now, of a non-theocratic Islamic-related democracy.

O'REILLY: Are you positive that's going to happen?

RICE: I believe it's going to happen — I do, Bill.

O'REILLY: Really?

RICE: Yes. I do.

O'REILLY: Give me — 90 percent, 80 percent?

RICE: You know, they're going to make it. They are going to make it.

O'REILLY: I hope so.

RICE: Because — if I look at...

O'REILLY: With all, you know, the sacrifices that we've made.

RICE: If I look at where they were and I look at where they are now, they are going to make it. And I'm also enough of a student of history to know that everything is — that's a big historical change of any kind — is messy and violent and difficult.

O'REILLY: Nothing's easy.

RICE: Nothing is easy.

O'REILLY: Are we going to have to confront the Iranians militarily? Because Europe isn't going to do it, you know. I don't understand — let me get through this question, and then we'll go back to the Iran question. Why doesn't NATO help us in Iraq?

RICE: Well, NATO is doing some work in Iraq.

O'REILLY: No, no, come on!

RICE: They've got...

O'REILLY: Why don't they put in troops to help on the border, to help the pipeline security? Why don't they do it?

RICE: Well actually, actually at this point, now, we don't need more foreign forces in Iraq.

O'REILLY: Really?

RICE: No. What we need is Iraqi forces to be trained up, because they...

O'REILLY: We don't need any more boots on the ground?

RICE: We need Iraqi forces to be trained up. And that's what's happening. This fight has got to become the Iraqi's fight.

O'REILLY: Let's get back to Iran. The odds are we're going to have to confront these people, either with sanctions from the United Nations, which I never think you're going to get through. That's a corrupt body. And more militarily. Aren't the odds...

RICE: Well, I still think there is a lot of room here to have the world pressure the Iranians into doing what the Iranians need to do.

O'REILLY: Really?

RICE: They've got to live up to their obligations under the non- proliferation treaty. And where we're working pretty well with the Europeans to try to make sure that if the Iranians do not do that, that they will eventually end up in the Security Council.

O'REILLY: Last question for you. Anything you can do to OPEC to have them start — stop pRICE gouging? It costs them $4 a barrel to get the oil up and marketed, and they're charging $65 a barrel. I mean, is there anything you can do as secretary of State? Can you charm them? Can you take them out to dinner?

RICE: We — we talked to OPEC. And they have every reason not to want to sink the world's economy.

O'REILLY: But they're doing it.

RICE: That's the best force on OPEC. But Bill, as you know, we have an energy problem because we don't have diversified energy sources.

O'REILLY: Right.

RICE: And that's what we've got to concentrate on.

O'REILLY: And no more SUVs.

All right, Madam Secretary. As always, a pleasure to talk to you.

RICE: Always a pleasure to be with you.

O'REILLY: Thank you for coming into the no-spin zone. We appreciate it.
RICE: Thanks. Love being with you.