The American desire to invade Iraq superseded concerns for Israel's security, according to a new book on American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to be published next month.

Secretary Rice said in a May, 2001 interview, "There was absolutely no prospect of a Middle East peace process that was going to lead to anything," Elisabeth Bumiller wrote in The New York Times. A significant change in Rice's activism in the Middle East resulted from the American plans to invade Iraq.

Besides being under pressure from European and Arab nations to push Israeli-Palestinian Authority (PA) peace negotiations, American President George W. Bush and Rice "realized that before the Europeans and Arabs would support an American-led invasion [into Iraq], the administration would have to prove that it cared about more in the Middle East than the security of Israel," Bumiller wrote.