In a policy speech at the US Council on Foreign Relations, Ms Rice also regretted the US policy of preferring stability over democracy in the Middle East and conceded that this policy neither brought stability nor democracy.

“When there is an authoritarian regime that does not permit the development of healthy politics, politics will develop. But it will develop in radical mosques and in madressahs. And that is what we have seen in much of the Middle East,” she said.

The US includes both Pakistan and Afghanistan in the greater Middle East region and counts them among the countries where democracy failed to take root.

A transcript of her speech, released by the State Department on Saturday, also quoted Ms Rice as saying that the US was now using most of its tool -- from foreign assistance and military training to public diplomacy -- to try and help build well-governed democratic states where states were failing.

Talking about her eight years with the Bush government – first as national security adviser and then as secretary of state – Ms Rice said the United States has learned the importance of being and advocating for democracy.

Ms Rice said that while the United States was actively promoting freedom and democracy in other parts of the world, it failed to do so in the Middle East.

“But, frankly, the Middle East was considered to be something of an exception,” she said. “We talked about stability, not about democracy.” She took credit for reversing the policy, although she acknowledged that this change of policy is often blamed for creating more instability in the Middle East.