Clinton kicked off the 11-day trip - her longest overseas journey to date as the top U.S. diplomat - by flying Monday night to Kenya where she will address an African trade and development forum, meet top Kenyan officials and see the beleaguered president of lawless Somalia's interim government.

Kenya, the homeland of President Obama's late father, is struggling to overcome political and tribal divisions laid bare in early 2008 after disputed elections between the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga.

Obama, on a visit to Kenya in 2006, had urged Kenyans not to let those differences mar their democratic development, and U.S. officials say Clinton will repeat that message with Kibaki and Odinga, who became prime minister in a power-sharing deal that ended the crisis.

Officials say she will also offer U.S. support to Somali President Sheik Sharif Ahmed, whose embattled government is trying to face down Islamist extremists accused of links with al-Qaeda who threaten to destabilize the Horn of Africa region.

"We think that the problems in southern Somalia have started to bleed regionally and internationally," the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Johnnie Carson, said last week. He noted that violence in Somalia, which has not had a functioning central authority since 1991, has led to an exodus of refugees that has strained the capacity of its neighbors, notably Kenya.

Clinton then travels to South Africa, where she will urge President Jacob Zuma's government to do more to press neighboring Zimbabwe, in the throes of economic crisis, to fully implement a political pact between President Robert Mugabe and former opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

In Pretoria, Johannesburg and Capetown, Clinton will also underscore the importance of efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and pledge continuing U.S. backing for health care initiatives in Africa, some of which have been led by her husband's private foundation.

Clinton will then visit oil-rich Angola, one of southern Africa's largest energy producers and a major supplier of crude and natural gas to the U.S. market. Angola has in recent years been courted by China, and Clinton's trip there is intended to strengthen its ties with the U.S.

From Angola, Clinton heads to the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been wracked by violence since genocidal forces from Rwanda fled into its eastern mountains 15 years ago. At its height, the conflict involved half a dozen of the country's neighbors.

While a 2003 peace deal reduced the fighting, the army and rebel groups continue to attack villages and mutilate and kill civilians, often using rape as a weapon of war. Clinton will visit Goma in eastern Congo and press Congolese authorities and a U.N. peacekeeping force there to step up efforts to end the epidemic of gender-based violence.

After Congo, the secretary will move on to Nigeria, another major U.S. energy supplier that has been struggling with rampant corruption. Last week's violence between police and an Islamist sect killed more than 700 people.

Clinton plans to address both issues in Abuja, where she will also discuss the importance of good governance and praise Nigeria's role as a leader and major troop contributor to regional and U.N. peacekeeping missions.

In Liberia, which is recovering from 20 years of civil strife, Clinton will show U.S. support for President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the only female African president, and offer backing for development and security reform.

Clinton's last stop will be Cape Verde, a group of nine small islands off Senegal with a population of less than half a million that is often hailed as a success story for African democracy despite its lack of natural resources.

The Associated Press, August 3, 2009

WASHINGTON - The United States and China ended two days of high-level talks with few concrete results, although both sides are hopeful that connections forged among senior officials will help them work together better to fix the world's toughest problems.

In remarks after the end of meetings Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said candid discussions on a range of subjects would be crucial to building a foundation that would let the countries settle future spats and cooperate on major global crises.

"Laying the groundwork may not yield a lot of concrete achievements immediately, but every step is a good investment," Clinton told reporters at a closing U.S. news conference.

The U.S.-China relationship is marked by periods of cooperation, followed by periods of deep discord when tensions flare over a host of differences, among them trade spats, occasional clashes by the countries' military forces in the Pacific and human rights. Relations hit a low point, for example, after the Bush administration's approval last year of a major arms sale package to China's rival Taiwan, which led to China breaking off military talks with the United States.

That rift appeared to be healing Tuesday, as China said it would be sending a senior general to the United States for talks this year and would welcome U.S. generals in China.

Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya said officials from both countries spent much of the gathering discussing ways to enhance U.S.-China ties. Improved military contact, he said, could increase trust and reduce suspicions.

Wang, however, issued a stern warning that the United States should "appropriately deal" with the question of Taiwan and not repeat its "wrong decision" on the 2008 arms sale to the self-governing island that China claims as its own territory.

The United States is considering a request by Taiwan to buy 66 F-16 jet fighters. Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific region, said after the talks Tuesday that the request would be handled as all others are.

On another potentially sensitive point, ethnic riots in China's oil-rich Xinjiang region, Wang said China appreciated what he called the "moderate attitude" of the U.S. response.

Rioting erupted in the regional capital of Urumqi on July 5 after police stopped a protest by Uighur residents. Uighur demonstrators smashed windows, burned cars and beat Han Chinese, the nation's dominant ethnic group. Two days later, the Han took to the streets and attacked Uighurs.

Shortly after the clashes began, Clinton said the United States was "calling on all sides to exercise restraint."

Wang urged Washington to "restrain" Uighur leaders in the United States from conducting terrorism in China, an apparent reference to Rebiya Kadeer, an exiled Uighur activist who lives in the Washington area and whom China blames for the riots. As the leaders spoke, a crowd of Uighurs stood outside the building and angrily denounced China and its leaders for its violent crackdown in Xinjiang.

Clinton said China's much-criticized human rights record was "absolutely integral" to the talks. But she was vague when asked specifically what issues were raised during the discussions other than violence in Xinjiang Province.

She said China shares U.S. worries over North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs and wants to work with Washington to deal with climate change. Wang said both sides believe that negotiations are the only way to deal with North Korea's recent missile and nuclear tests.

Clinton noted that State Councilor Dai Bingguo, who oversees foreign policy for China, had deep experience with Chinese policy toward North Korea and that she had spent "quite a bit of time" with him talking about the North. "I found that very useful, indeed," she said.

It was not clear, however, whether China, long North Korea's strongest ally, had agreed to step up pressure on the North to return to six-nation disarmament talks. The North's recent missile and nuclear tests prompted the United Nations to impose strict sanctions.

On the economics side, both nations sought to play down disagreements on trade, exchange rates and climate change and instead offered a picture of harmony with China pledging to work toward a key U.S. goal that it foster greater domestic-led growth to reduce its reliance on exporting to the United States.

For its part, the Obama administration pledged to tackle the budget deficit, which this year is projected to hit a record $1.84 trillion. That flood of red ink has left the Chinese, the world's largest holder of U.S. Treasury securities, distinctly nervous about the safety of their investments.

On climate control and energy, China did not signal any change in its refusal to agree to a specific cap on greenhouse emissions, but the two sides signed a document that Clinton said would create a platform for cooperation on climate change in the future heading into major climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December.

China's chief climate change official, Xie Zhenhua, told reporters earlier that rich countries should take the lead in reducing emissions and should help poorer countries by providing money and technology to deal with the problem.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said clean energy and climate change will be a critical part of the U.S.-Chinese relationship.

"The stakes could not be higher," Chu said. What the United States and China do in coming decades "will help shape the fate of the world."

He said he was heartened by the progress the countries are making on the matter. "Both our countries, however, must do more," he said.

By FOSTER KLUG, The Associated Press, July 29, 2009

At the recent meeting of the Association of South East Asian Nations Regional Forum, many participant countries expressed concerns over North Korea's recent firing of missiles, development of its nuclear weapons programs, and proliferation.

The international community's response has been unequivocal and nearly unanimous, said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, leading to a new consensus around a common set of principles.

"The United States and its allies and partners," said Secretary Clinton, "cannot accept a North Korea that tries to maintain nuclear weapons to launch ballistic missiles or to proliferate nuclear materials. And we are committed to the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner."

United Nations resolution 1874 provides a powerful tool to deal with North Korea's unacceptable activities, and prevent proliferation activities by individuals and entities connected to the regime's nuclear, ballistic missile, and other weapons of mass destruction-related programs.

"If North Korea intends to engage in international commerce," said Secretary Clinton, "its vessels must conform to the terms of 1874 or find no port. Our goal in enforcing these sanctions and others imposed earlier," she said, "is not to create suffering or to destabilize North Korea. Our quarrel in not with the North Korean people. In fact, it was the North Korean leadership that rejected humanitarian aid from the United States and forced us to suspend our food aid program."

The United States is open to talks with North Korea, "but we are not interested in half measures," said Secretary Clinton. "We do not intend to reward the North for simply returning to the table. We will not give them anything new for actions they have already agreed to take," said Secretary Clinton.

Talks must lead to irreversible and verifiable steps by North Korea to denuclearize. This in turn would make possible full normalization of relations, a permanent peace regime, and significant energy and economic assistance. "The path is open," said Secretary Clinton, "and it is up to North Korea to take it."





Voice of America, July 28, 2009

Clinton is to begin her trip on Aug. 5 in Kenya, the State Department said Monday. She will lead a forum on development as part of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, legislation passed during the Bush administration that was intended to spur trade between the U.S. and African nations.

She also plans to meet in Nairobi with Sheikh Sharif Amed, the president of Somalia's transitional government, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said. An epidemic of piracy off the Somali coast has created serious dangers to international commercial shipping in the Indian Ocean, and Islamic extremists are seen as a major security threat to East Africa and Somalia's feeble interim government.

After Kenya, Clinton will travel to South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde.

"In each nation, she will emphasize Africa as a place of opportunity, built on an ethic of responsibility," Kelly said. "She will underline America's commitment to partner with governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and private citizens to build societies where each individual can realize their potential."

Coming after Obama's visit to Ghana, Clinton's trip will mark the earliest in any administration that the president and secretary of state have both traveled to Africa.

"Africa no longer sits on the margins of U.S. diplomacy and international trade," Kelly said. "The continent is a source of creativity, dynamic development, and the secretary will call for even stronger links with global markets and knowledge networks."

The Associated Press, July 27, 2009

The secretary of State seeks to calm Moscow after Vice President Biden's recent comments that the country is badly damaged economically and its leadership is clinging to the past.

Reporting from Washington - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday that the Obama administration viewed Russia as a "great power," despite Vice President Joe Biden's observations that the former rival nation was saddled with deepening economic problems and backward-looking leadership.

Clinton, seeking to take the edge off Biden's recent remarks, acknowledged that the longtime adversaries had problems with each other's policies. "They have questions about our policies and we have questions about some of theirs," she said in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press."

But she insisted that the two countries were attempting to work out their differences and that the United States respected Moscow.

"We view Russia as a great power," she said, adding that the two countries were already beginning to see the "resetting" of relations that President Obama has sought.

The vice president roiled relations with Moscow by describing Russia as a country with a badly damaged economy, a fragile banking structure and a leadership that is "clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable.' "

Biden's remarks, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, came at the end of a four-day visit to Georgia and Ukraine in which he reassured the two countries of U.S. support in the face of Russian pressure. Moscow, vexed that Biden should be criticizing Russia so soon after Obama's visit there, demanded a clarification of his comments.

Though Russia's powers have diminished greatly since the days of the Soviet Union, Moscow's cooperation is vital for U.S. efforts to deal with Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan and Arab-Israeli strife.

Obama's trip to Moscow was intended to reduce the tensions.

But Biden suggested that Russia had a weak hand and might have no choice but to accede to American wishes because of its deepening problems, including a "withering" economy.

On another issue, Clinton said she preferred to remain ambiguous about whether the United States would offer Iran's neighbors nuclear protection from Iran if Tehran developed nuclear-weapons capability.

Clinton stirred wide comment in the Middle East last week by saying that the United States might erect a "defense umbrella" over the region to protect allies if Tehran succeeded in what Washington believed were efforts to acquire nuclear weapons know-how.

It wasn't clear whether that meant the United States would respond with a nuclear strike on Iran if Tehran used a nuclear weapon on a neighbor. Asked for a clarification, Clinton said, "We are not talking in specifics because that would come later, if at all."

Her comments on the "defense umbrella" were intended to convince Iran that it would face a graver security situation with a bomb than without one.

Clinton also sought to signal that she felt comfortable as part of what some have called a "team of rivals" in the Obama Cabinet.

She said she had in her office a picture of William Seward, the New York senator and Lincoln political rival who joined Lincoln's Cabinet as secretary of State to help Lincoln during the war.

Clinton has been struggling to make her voice heard in foreign policy at a time when a long list of administration luminaries, including Biden, special envoys George J. Mitchell and Richard C. Holbrooke, and Obama's own aides, are vying for attention.

She described herself as "the chief advisor," the "chief executor" and the "chief diplomat" but said that ultimately Obama made the foreign policy decisions.

Clinton tried to damp expectations that she would ever again be interested in seeking the presidency. But she stopped short of categorically ruling out a future run.

She said, "I have absolutely no belief in my mind that this is going to happen.' "

By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, July 27, 2009

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has opened talks with high-level Chinese officials, hailing an opportunity for better relations and saying the two countries share common interests and mutual threats.

Kicking off a new dialogue with Beijing, Clinton said tha the two "are laying brick by brick the foundation of a stronger relationship."

She said it was time to move from "a multipolar world to a multipartner world."

The talks will include discussions of the global economic slide, climate change and commercial relationships. Clinton said the two "will not always see eye to eye." Both sides are emphasizing the importance of the meetings.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two days of high-level talks between the United States and China are expected to expose sharp differences on trade and soaring U.S. budget deficits, but the discussion could be more amicable in the area of foreign policy.

The Obama administration is going out of its way to praise Beijing for the help it has already provided on pressuring North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will lead the U.S. delegation, praised China on Sunday for being "positive and productive" in dealing with North Korea.

"We've been extremely gratified by their forward-leaning commitment to sanctions and the private messages that they have conveyed to the North Koreans," Clinton said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Clinton's remarks came ahead of discussions Monday and Tuesday in Washington that continue a dialogue started by the Bush administration in 2006 to bridge differences between the two economic superpowers.

Both sides are emphasizing the importance of the meetings. The Chinese are bringing 150 diplomats - one of the largest delegations it has ever assembled for discussions in Washington - and the administration will start the discussions with remarks Monday by President Barack Obama.

With the global economy mired in recession, the United States and China have enormous stakes in resolving tensions in such areas as America's huge trade deficit with China and the Chinese government's unease over America's soaring budget deficits.

Other issues such as climate control will also be on the agenda. Both countries are the largest producers of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

Three years ago, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson used the initial U.S.-China talks to press Beijing to let its currency, the yuan, rise in value against the dollar to make it cheaper for Chinese to buy U.S. goods. U.S. manufacturers blame an undervalued yuan for record U.S. trade deficits with China - and, in part, for a decline in U.S. jobs.

The U.S. efforts have yielded mixed results. The yuan, after rising in value about 22 percent since 2005, has scarcely budged in the past year. Beijing had begun to fear that a stronger yuan could threaten its exports. Chinese exports already were under pressure from the global recession.

But the Obama administration intends to remain focused on the trade gap, telling Beijing that it can't rely on U.S. consumers to pull the global economy out of recession this time. In part, that's because U.S. household savings rates are rising, shrinking consumer spending in this country.

For the United States, suffering from a 9.5 percent unemployment rate, the ultimate goal is to help put more Americans to work.

While the U.S. trade deficit with China has narrowed slightly this year, it is still the largest imbalance with any country. Critics in Congress say unless China does much more in the currency area, they will seek to pass legislation to impose economic sanctions on China, a move that could spark a trade war between the two nations.

Geithner and Clinton will be joined by their Chinese counterparts, Vice Premier Wang Qishan and State Councilor Dai Bingguo.

For their part, Chinese officials are making clear they want further explanations of what the administration plans to do about the soaring U.S. budget deficits. China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury debt - $801.5 billion - wants to know that those holdings are safe and won't be jeopardized in case of future inflation.

"The Chinese delegation, especially Vice Premier Wang, will make the request that the U.S. side should adopt responsible policies to ensure the basic stability of the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar and protect the safety of Chinese assets in the United States," Zhu Guangyao, an assistant Chinese finance minister, told reporters in Beijing last week.

The Chinese are likely to hear a repeat of the assurances Geithner gave them when he visited China last month. He said then that the administration is committed to cutting the U.S. budget deficit - expected to hit $1.84 trillion this year - in half once the emergency spending to ease the recession and the financial crisis are no longer needed.

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, The Associated Press, July 27, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Iran's leaders on Sunday that if they were seeking nuclear weapons, "your pursuit is futile," and ruled out explicitly the possibility that the Obama administration would allow Iran to produce its own nuclear fuel, even under intense international inspection.

Mrs. Clinton made her statement, on NBC's "Meet the Press," days after she raised the possibility of an American-created "defense umbrella" over the Middle East to counter Iran's efforts to build its power in the region by trying to develop weapons capacity. Soon after Mrs. Clinton spoke of the shield on Wednesday, senior members of the Obama administration tried to walk back her comments, saying that she was speaking "personally" and that such an umbrella had always been implied by America's strong interests in the region, including oil interests.

But on Sunday she did not back away from her statement. "I think it's clear we're trying to affect the internal calculus of the Iranian regime," she said, adding, "What we want to do is to send a message to whoever is making these decisions that if you're pursuing nuclear weapons for the purpose of intimidating, of projecting your power, we're not going to let that happen."

It is unclear what a "defense umbrella" in the region would look like, however, and Mrs. Clinton offered no details when asked whether the United States was willing to extend the same defense over Middle East allies that it has already extended across Europe, Japan and South Korea.

"We are not talking in specifics," she insisted. "You hope for the best; you plan for the worst."

While the Obama administration has often said that it would not allow Iran to possess a nuclear weapon, some officials have hedged slightly when asked whether they could envision a situation in which Tehran, as part of a broader deal, might be permitted to produce its own nuclear fuel, called a fuel cycle in the nuclear industry. Reformers and hard-liners in Iran have said the country should produce its own fuel and have argued that it has that right as a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

But President George W. Bush had argued that Iran forfeited that right by conducting secret nuclear activities for 18 years. In contrast, Mohamed ElBaradei, the departing head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a nonproliferation watchdog, has argued that the best way to avoid a confrontation is to allow Iran a token of nuclear fuel capacity, under toughened inspection rules to assure that fuel is not diverted for weapons. On Sunday, Mrs. Clinton seemed to side with the Bush administration.

"You have a right to pursue the peaceful use of civil, nuclear power," she said, as if addressing Iran directly. "You do not have a right to obtain a nuclear weapon. You do not have the right to have the full enrichment and reprocessing cycle under your control. But there's a lot that we can do with Iran if Iran accepts what is the international consensus."

Her phrase "under your control" seemed to leave open the possibility of having others enrich uranium on Iran's behalf, perhaps on Iranian soil.

Mrs. Clinton also found herself in the uncomfortable position of explaining the recent comments of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who on returning from a visit to Georgia offered a surprisingly downbeat assessment of Russia's future and its intentions.

"They have a shrinking population base," Mr. Biden told The Wall Street Journal. "They have a withering economy. They have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years. They're in a situation where the world is changing before them and they're clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable."

Asked whether Mr. Biden's message was that "the U.S. now has the upper hand when it's dealing with Russia," she replied, "No, and I don't think that's at all what the vice president meant."

"We want a strong, peaceful and prosperous Russia," she said.

By David E. Sanger, The New York Times, July 26, 2009

The president is calling the shots, but it remains to be seen if his team of rivals can keep working together.

When Barack Obama arrived at the White House about six months ago, some of his freshly-minted aides weren't sure how much time or energy the new president wanted to devote to foreign policy. Back then, the nation's economic crisis seemed all-consuming. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan demanded immediate attention, but so did the president's ambitious plans for healthcare and energy policy. That's one reason the new administration named a flock of special envoys to the Middle East, Afghanistan and other hot spots: to give the president extra time before he had to plunge in.

The appointment of so many heavy hitters instantly plunged Washington into one of its favorite pastimes: figuring out who's up and who's down. The cast of characters was irresistible. Not only was there Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of State, former Gen. James L. Jones as national security advisor and Robert M. Gates as secretary of Defense, but former Sen. George J. Mitchell as envoy to the Middle East, the omnivorous Richard C. Holbrooke as envoy to Afghanistan and strategist Dennis Ross as envoy-in-waiting to Iran. The gossip was so ubiquitous that even Obama joined in, joking that when Clinton slipped and broke her elbow, Holbrooke was seen nearby with a can of WD-40 lubricant.

So who's running the new administration's foreign policy? The answer turns out to be simple, clear and -- in retrospect -- obvious: Obama.

The new president didn't avoid foreign policy; instead, he piled more items on the agenda. He immersed himself in reviews of policy on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. He took advantage of his own novelty to announce a "reset" of U.S. relations with Russia, Europe and the Islamic world. And he launched a campaign for global nuclear disarmament, one of his long-running passions but not, strictly speaking, an immediate necessity.

But he encountered obstacles as well. Iran's hard-line regime spurned Obama's outstretched hand. Russia's Vladimir Putin appeared unmoved by his visit. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuffed Obama's demand for a freeze on Jewish settlements. And Arab governments balked at his requests for positive gestures toward Israel.

And that's where all those special envoys come in. Obama's going to need his unusual collection of big talents (and big egos) to work well together. Defying both the gossips and the odds, they have. So far, at least, no significant policy disputes have publicly surfaced, a level of harmony Obama's predecessors, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, did not maintain even at this early point in their presidencies.

There has been vigorous internal debate: On Afghanistan, for example, military commanders sought a commitment for more combat troops while Vice President Joe Biden warned of the perils of trying to do too much. But nothing has qualified as a major split.

The division of labor seems to have worked out this way: Mitchell works quietly on Arab-Israeli negotiations. Holbrooke works noisily on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Biden handles Iraq. Ross started out in charge of Iran but (with no prospect for negotiations there at the moment) was promoted to a bigger job designing policy on everything from Israel to Pakistan.

What has that left for Hillary Clinton? She's looked a little marginalized, even though she's responsible for the big powers: Europe, Russia, India and China (which she shares with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner). Without a crisis on her plate, there has been no spotlight on her work.

So when Clinton gave what might otherwise have been a routine speech earlier this month, her aides billed it as a major address, a coming-out for a foreign policy heavyweight. With Holbrooke, Mitchell and Ross all present in a ritual display of fealty, the secretary of State staked her claim as chief articulator of Obama's global vision. She declared her enthusiasm for Obama's doctrine of relentless "engagement" with adversaries such as Iran (an idea she denounced when she was running against him), said her job was to build "an architecture of global cooperation," and headed for India.

Inside the White House, the president also turns for advice to two little-known aides who have one advantage over the stars in the Cabinet: They've known him longer. One is Mark Lippert, Obama's chief foreign policy advisor in his four years in the Senate, who served in Iraq as a Navy reservist; the other is Denis McDonough, a former Senate aide who ran the campaign's foreign policy side. Lippert and McDonough have deliberately kept a low profile (no television appearances, for example), but you're likely to hear more from them in the years ahead.

The man who's trying to keep all these stars from colliding is Jones, who retired from the Marine Corps two years ago after serving as commander of U.S. forces in Europe. Jones was an unusual choice as national security advisor; he barely knew the president-elect when Obama asked him to take the job. He's not Obama's alter ego the way Henry Kissinger was to Richard M. Nixon or Brent Scowcroft to George H.W. Bush. Instead, at 65, Jones is the designated elder, charged with setting up a structure in which Obama's foreign policy team of rivals can function smoothly and making sure that it does.

Before he took the job, Jones told me recently, he was warned: "If you think the national security advisor is the only one he's going to be listening to, you're in for a disappointment."

Obama has ensured that all his advisors speak up at National Security Council meetings -- a way, among other things, for him to take the measure of his staff. As a result, Jones said, "everybody will leave the room knowing that they've had a chance to give it their best shot ... and that breeds an enormous amount of collegiality and buy-in."

On the other hand, he notes, with all that emphasis on bottom-up participation, it can take a long time to get a decision made.

Six months into his presidency, it's clear that Obama intends to remain deeply engaged in foreign policy, even as domestic issues command his attention. Can his overqualified team continue to work as seamlessly as it has until now? Not likely; tough, potentially divisive decisions lie ahead on issues such as Israel and Iran. But it won't be dull.

This week, Jones and Ross will be in Jerusalem to talk with Netanyahu about the administration's plans to seek new sanctions against Iran. Gates will be there too, renewing U.S. military cooperation with Israel. And Mitchell will be there to keep up pressure for a deal with the Palestinians. Clinton will be back in Washington, explaining it all on "Meet the Press." It takes a village, it seems, to make a foreign policy.






By Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times, July 26, 2009

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton set off tremors in the Middle East this week when she said a nuclear Iran could be contained by a U.S. "defense umbrella" - an offhand remark that appears to have emerged from obscure Washington policy debates and her own presidential campaign rhetoric.

Clinton's comments raised eyebrows because they seemed to go beyond the Obama administration's current thinking on Iran, which has been strictly focused on preventing the country from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Since making the remark on a television chat show in Thailand, Clinton has backpedaled, saying she was only restating existing policy and not referring to any sort of formal guarantees of protection under an American "nuclear umbrella."

And when Israeli officials raised alarms that she seemed to suggest the U.S. was resigned to a nuclear-armed Iran, Clinton and senior State Department officials hastily insisted such a prospect was still unacceptable and that no policy had changed.

But her comments sounded uncannily like the harder-edged "nuclear umbrella" approach toward Iran that Clinton and several other top advisers to President Barack Obama had pushed before they joined his administration.

Bringing both Arab allies and Israel under a protective U.S. "nuclear umbrella" is an idea that has been batted around Washington since fears of Iran's ambitions first percolated in the late 1990s.

Clinton herself raised the notion of such a policy during her unsuccessful presidential campaign last year.

"We should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel," she said in an April 2008 debate with Obama. "Of course, I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States. But I would do the same with other countries in the region."

During that debate, Obama affirmed support for Israel's security but did not suggest protecting Arab states.

Some policy experts say Clinton's umbrella reference was simple carelessness. Others wonder if it is indicative of an administration that has yet to show discipline in foreign policy thought and action.

"This is something that a secretary of state, in an academic or off-the-record setting, might muse about," said Aaron David Miller, a former Mideast peace negotiator now with the Woodrow Wilson Center International Center for Scholars.

"But saying it on the road and on-the-record is something else," he said. "It reflects to a certain degree a problem. It reflects a certain confusion in the administration's approach and the absence still of a coherent and cohesive strategy."

During her trip last week, Clinton mentioned a "defense umbrella" during an interview on Thai television Wednesday.

"We want Iran to calculate," she said, "what I think is a fair assessment: that if the United States extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to develop the military capacity of those (allies) in the Gulf, it is unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer because they won't be able to intimidate and dominate as they apparently believe they can once they have a nuclear weapon," she said.

A day later, she insisted to another interviewer that the "defense umbrella" was "nothing specific."

"It is a sort of general term that is used to describe our commitment to making sure that Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon," she said.

The White House declined to comment on what options may now be under consideration for dealing with Iran. But it refused to rule out any measure.

"As the president has said many times, we are using all elements of American power, including diplomacy, to ensure Iran does not develop nuclear weapons," said spokesman Tommy Vietor.

Despite Clinton's insistence that her phrasing was general, the concept of an American "nuclear umbrella" protecting Mideast nations from Iran has wafted through Washington think tanks for several years.

The concept is based on the Cold War era of deterrence and aims to stop a nuclear-armed country from threatening an unarmed neighbor.

Dennis Ross, who worked for Clinton at the State Department and now heads Mideast policy at the National Security Council, and Robert Einhorn, now a special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control at State - both lent their names to consideration of the concept.

Both advisers were formerly affiliated with the Washington Institute on Near East Policy, which in March of this year published a report that recommended studying the idea closely. The study noted that Ross and Einhorn, who had already resigned to work with Obama, had endorsed drafts of the report.

The report noted there were some pitfalls with the idea. For one, Iran may not feel deterred by such a move, it said. For another, Israel would object on several grounds, including the possibility that it would limit its own deterrent capability.

Ross, testifying before Congress in April 2008, also warned that "our security assurances may not be particularly relevant to the threats that most worry Middle Eastern regimes."

The concept of a "nuclear umbrella" to deter Iran first crystalized around 2004, according to experts. Patrick Clawson, Ross' former colleague at the Washington institute, wrote about it in 2004, saying that "extending an explicit nuclear umbrella to those threatened by Iran" should be considered.

But there is a sharp line, Miller said, between weighing policy notions in private and putting them out in public before they have been carefully explored and vetted.

"You don't discuss something like this in the open, particularly when you haven't decided on policy," Miller said, "because everything you say is going to be put under a microscope and dissected for clues about how we're going to act."

By MATTHEW LEE , The Associated Press, July 25, 2009

RAMALLAH, West Bank - The United States has transferred $200 million to the Palestinian government to help ease a growing budget deficit, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has been struggling in recent months to keep his government afloat, borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars from commercial banks just to cover the public payroll.

The reasons for the shortfall include Israel's restrictions on the Palestinian economy, the border blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and the failure of some donor countries to make good on their aid pledges, Fayyad said Friday, in a video conference with Clinton.

With Friday's aid transfer, donor countries have given the Palestinian government $606 million in budget support this year, covering only about one-third of the estimated deficit of $1.45 billion for 2009, Fayyad said.

"We have received aid, but not enough to deal with our needs, and we faced sharp economic difficulties throughout the last months," Fayyad told reporters.

Since 2007, donor countries have pledged more than $10 billion to the Palestinians, to help shore up the Western-backed government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who lost Gaza in a violent Hamas takeover two years ago. However, the aid has had little impact, largely because Israeli restrictions on Palestinian trade and movement have prevented a recovery of the Palestinian economy.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration pledged $900 million in aid to the Palestinians, and the $200 million in budget support announced Friday are part of that sum. Clinton told Fayyad that the transfer of U.S. aid directly to his budget was an expression of confidence in his fiscal reforms.

"The ability of the United States to provide support directly to the Palestinian Authority is an indication of the bipartisan support for the effort to secure the peace in the Middle East, as well as for the fundamental reforms that the Palestinian Authority has undertaken," she said. "Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle worked closely with us to make this assistance possible."

Clinton was vague about prospects for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, saying only that she believes the Obama administration is making progress in creating the "right environment" for such negotiations in the near future.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is willing to resume negotiations, but not on the terms to which his predecessor had agreed. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in turn, says he will not get back to negotiations unless Israel first halts settlement construction. The U.S. has also been pushing Israel for a settlement freeze, in line with its obligations under a U.S.-backed peace plan.

However, Israel has balked at halting construction. Earlier this week, Netanyahu publicly dismissed a U.S. request that Israel halt a housing project for Jews in east Jerusalem, the part of the city claimed by the Palestinians as a capital.

Clinton on Friday described the discussions with Israeli officials as "very forthright," but also as "conversations between friends."

Senior administration officials are heading to the region in coming days, including Mideast envoy George Mitchell, National Security Adviser Jim Jones and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Mitchell has met repeatedly with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to discuss settlement construction.

By KARIN LAUB, The Associated Press, July 24, 2009

Strengthening the important strategic relationship between the United States and India is a major goal of U.S. policy, said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Speaking in Mumbai to Indian officials and civil society leaders, Secretary Clinton said the U.S. seeks to step up cooperation between the U.S. and India on issues ranging from economic growth and development, to climate change, to education and healthcare, to nonproliferation and counterterrorism.

At a meeting with India's business leaders, Secretary Clinton reaffirmed America's commitment to working with partners in India to spread prosperity across society in both countries. "The alleviation of poverty, which I know is a central goal of the Indian government and the Indian people is one that we will offer to help with in any way," she said. Secretary Clinton told Indian scientists that the U.S. wants to work closely with India to combat global hunger and find clean, sustainable energy for the future.

Visiting the memorial to the victims of last November's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Secretary Clinton said these senseless attacks, like those of 9/11 and the recent bombings in Jakarta, Indonesia "provide a painful reminder that the threat of such violent extremism is still very real." The threat, she said, "is global, it is ruthless, it is nihilistic, and it must be stopped."

Secretary Clinton said "the United States will work with the Indian government, and other nations and people who seek peace and security to confront and defeat these violent extremists. And we will do our utmost to create a world of opportunity where there is more space for progress, peace and prosperity, and less space for intolerance, violence and hate."

"President Obama and I believe we are entering a new and even more promising era of relations with India," said Secretary of State Clinton, "and we are looking forward to working to broaden and deepen our partnership."





Voice of America, July 24, 2009

BANGKOK - Hillary for president, again? She says it's unlikely, but in a Thai television interview Wednesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't completely close that door.

Asked whether she still aspired to be the first female American president, she said, "That's not anything I'm at all thinking about," adding that she is "100 percent focused" on her role as President Barack Obama's secretary of state.

So has she given up hope of getting to the White House?

"I don't know, but I doubt very much that anything like that will ever be part of my life," replied the 61-year-old former first lady and former U.S. senator.

Pressed further, Clinton said, "Well, I'm saying no because I have a very committed attitude to the job I have. And so that's not at all on my radar screen."

She also dismissed talk in Washington that because her public profile has dipped in recent weeks she may be playing a lesser role in the Obama administration.

Such talk, she said, began when she fell and broke her right elbow on June 17 and was forced to cancel two major overseas trips. Suddenly people in Washington were asking, "Where is she? She's gone," Clinton said.

"Not to be taken seriously," she said of the speculation.

No one should be surprised that Obama has held the spotlight on foreign policy, Clinton told her interviewers. After all, he is the president.

"I tried to be the president and was not successful," she lamented.

One interviewer told Clinton that for a while during last year's race for the Democratic presidential nomination he thought she was going to win.

"So did I," she replied.

By ROBERT BURNS, The Associated Press, July 22, 2009

PHUKET, Thailand - Stiffening the American line against Iran, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Wednesday that the United States would consider extending a "defense umbrella" over the Middle East if the country continued to defy international demands that it halt work that could lead to nuclear weapons.

While such a defensive shield has long been assumed, administration officials in Washington acknowledged Wednesday that no senior official had ever publicly discussed it. Some of the officials said the timing of Mrs. Clinton's remarks reflected a growing sense that President Obama needed to signal to Tehran that its nuclear ambitions could be countered militarily, as well as diplomatically.

It also signified increasing concern in Washington that other Middle East states - notably Saudi Arabia and Egypt - might be tempted to pursue their own nuclear programs for fear Iran was growing closer to realizing its presumed nuclear ambitions.

Mrs. Clinton later clarified her comments on Iran, delivered in advance of a regional meeting here, saying her warning that the United States might create such an umbrella did not represent any backing away from the Obama administration's position that it must prevent Tehran from obtaining a bomb capability. But her words suggested that the administration was developing a strategy should all efforts at negotiation fail.

Her statement also came as Iran's internal divisions and crackdown on post-election protests have complicated Mr. Obama's pledge to "engage" Iran directly. Iranian officials have hinted that they will present new proposals on the nuclear program, and American officials have said their offers to negotiate stand.

Speaking during a televised town hall meeting in Bangkok, Mrs. Clinton said, "We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment, that if the U.S. extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to support the military capacity of those in the gulf, it's unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer, because they won't be able to intimidate and dominate, as they apparently believe they can, once they have a nuclear weapon."

Asked about Mrs. Clinton's comments, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the British ambassador to the United States, said, "I don't think it should be read as an acceptance of an Iranian nuclear weapon" but rather as a statement intended to "reassure our partners in the gulf."

A senior White House official said he believed that Mrs. Clinton was speaking for herself and that she was, as she insisted, restating existing policy.

Mrs. Clinton's invocation of a defense umbrella is reminiscent of the so-called nuclear umbrella that Washington extends to its Asian allies: implicitly, the promise of an American reprisal if they are attacked by nuclear weapons. But she did not use the term nuclear, and a senior State Department official cautioned that her remarks should not be interpreted to mean that.

After meeting the foreign ministers of China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, Mrs. Clinton also said that the United States would not offer new incentives to North Korea to return to negotiations. She said all of the other nations that had engaged in talks with North Korea in the past five years were united in demanding that North Korea undertake a "complete and irreversible denuclearization" before receiving any economic or political incentives from them.

She did not detail the steps that would be part of such a process, though she confirmed that they could include the disabling of the Yongbyon nuclear complex. Last year, North Korea began to dismantle that complex, where it runs a nuclear reactor and reprocess fuel rods to recover plutonium, but it vowed in June to restart production there.

The United States has had an uncharacteristically visible presence at this gathering of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean. It signed a friendship treaty with Asean's 10 members and called on one country, Myanmar to release the imprisoned pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Israel's minister of intelligence and atomic energy, Dan Meridor, told Israeli Army radio: "I was not thrilled to hear the American statement from yesterday that they will protect their allies with a nuclear umbrella, as if they have already come to terms with a nuclear Iran. I think that's a mistake."

Mrs. Clinton said she was trying to make even starker the choice Iran faced if it did not agree to abandon its program.

The administration has talked about bolstering the military capacity of Iran's neighbors in the Persian Gulf so they could better meet the threat of a heavily armed Iran. It has also defended the proposed missile defense system in Eastern Europe as a potential shield against Iran.

"It faces the prospect, if it pursues nuclear weapons, of sparking an arms race in the region," Mrs. Clinton said. "That should affect the calculation of what Iran intends to do, and what it believes is in its national security interest."

On North Korea, Mrs. Clinton tried to project a united front, saying that China, Russia, Japan and South Korea had pledged to carry out the United Nations sanctions adopted in June against the North after its recent nuclear and missile tests.

Mrs. Clinton also reiterated concerns that North Korea might be transferring nuclear technology to Myanmar, which American officials refer to by its former name, Burma. She is to deliver a statement on North Korea on Thursday. In an excerpt provided to reporters, the tone remained unyielding, but the United States pledged to give North Korea "significant economic and energy assistance" if it undertook a verifiable denuclearization.

At the ministers meeting, Mrs. Clinton demanded that Myanmar release Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, who could face years in prison on charges that she violated her house arrest. "It's so critical that she be released from this persecution that she has been under," she said later at a news conference. "If she were released, that would open up opportunities, at least for my country, to expand our relationship with Burma, including investments in Burma."

American officials met with diplomatic officials from Myanmar later to reiterate Mrs. Clinton's demand.

By Mark Landler and David E. Sanger, The New York Times, July 22, 2009

Secretary of state says U.S. will continue to insist that North Korea return to the bargaining table and verifiably dismantle its nuclear program.

PHUKET, Thailand -- Faced with a fresh refusal by North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday the communist regime has "no friends left" to shield it from punishing U.N. penalties.

"North Korea's continued pursuit of its nuclear ambitions is sure to elevate tensions on the Korean peninsula and could provoke an arms race in the region," Clinton told a news conference after conferring with officials from 26 other countries and organizations. She cited near unanimity on fully enforcing the latest U.N. sanctions against North Korea for its repeated nuclear and missile tests.

Clinton said the U.S. will continue to insist that North Korea return to the bargaining table and verifiably dismantle its nuclear program. At the same time, she held out the prospect of restoring U.S. diplomatic ties to North Korea and other incentives -- actions the Obama administration would be willing to consider only if the North Koreans take irreversible steps to denuclearize.

Wrapping up a weeklong trip to India and Thailand, Clinton offered a somewhat more optimistic message about another trouble spot on the U.S. foreign policy agenda: Myanmar, the military-run southeast Asian nation also known as Burma.

"There is a positive direction that we see with Burma," she said. She praised Myanmar's government for committing to enforce the U.N. sanctions against North Korea, calling it important in light of Myanmar's suspected secret military links to North Korea.

And she suggested Myanmar may have played a role this month in persuading a North Korean cargo ship suspected of carrying weaponry in violation of the sanctions to return home instead of continuing to its destination, which U.S. officials said was probably Myanmar.

Clinton also called on Myanmar to unconditionally release democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is accused of violating the terms of her house arrest.

On North Korea, Clinton stressed a point she has made repeatedly -- that a fully nuclear North Korea might compel other countries in Asia to follow suit. She mentioned no names, but Japan and South Korea are thought to be among those that might go nuclear under circumstances in which they felt threatened by the North and less than fully confident of protection under a U.S. nuclear umbrella.

Clinton also said, "I wanted to make very clear that the United States does not seek any kind of offensive action against North Korea." She said a North Korean delegate at Thursday's meeting complained of being subjected to U.S. nuclear threats, but she said this showed a disconnect with reality, given that U.S. nuclear weapons were removed from South Korea nearly 20 years ago.

She said the world -- including China, which has been North Korea's most loyal supporter -- has made it clear to Pyongyang that it has "no place to go."

"They have no friends left that will protect them from the international community's efforts to move toward denuclearization," she said.

Just moments before she spoke at this southern Thai seaside resort, a spokesman for the North Korean delegation at the Phuket conference said his government will not return to six-party talks with the U.S., Japan, South Korea, China and Russia, citing the "deep-rooted anti-North Korean policy" of the United States.

"The six-party talks are over," Ri Hung Sik said.

The Phuket forum, known as the Asian Regional Forum and drawing senior officials from 27 nations, is one of the rare instances of U.S. and North Korean diplomats appearing together, although U.S. officials said there was no substantive contact. Clinton told the news conference she was disappointed in what she heard from the North Korean delegate who addressed the conference.

"Unfortunately, the North Korean delegation offered only an insistent refusal to recognize that North Korea has been on the wrong course," she said. "In their presentation today they evinced no willingness to pursue the path of denuclearization, and that was troubling."

"The question is: Where do we go from here?" she asked.

Her reply, essentially, was that the U.S. and its negotiating partners will not back down from their insistence that North Korea not only resume negotiations but scrap its nuclear program in a verifiable way and return to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which it once was a signatory but recently abandoned. And she said the U.N. sanctions will be applied as strictly and fully as possible.

"The bottom line is this: If North Korea intends to engage in international commerce its vessels must conform to terms" of the U.N. sanctions, "or find no port," she said. "Our goal in enforcing these sanctions and others proposed earlier is not to create suffering or destabilize North Korea. Our quarrel is not with the North Korean people."

Clinton said the Obama administration would soon send Philip Goldberg, its coordinator for implementing the U.N. sanctions that were approved by the Security Council in June, back to Asia for a new round of consultations on a joint enforcement strategy.

And, in what she called an illustration of U.S. concern about the welfare of North Korea's people, Clinton said the administration intends to appoint a special envoy to focus on North Korean human rights.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry, bristling at an earlier Clinton comment likening the regime to "small children" demanding attention, released a statement Thursday saying: "We cannot but regard Mrs. Clinton as a funny lady as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community. Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping."

Turning to another major security problem, Clinton held a one-on-one meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and said afterward that the Pakistani military's progress in fighting Taliban insurgents has been "encouraging" but incomplete.

Clinton said she hoped to learn more about the situation when she visits Pakistan this fall.

Qureshi told reporters that the military operations have been successful, and said he asserted that public opinion in Pakistan has changed decisively against extremism.

The Associated Press, July 23, 2009

The US secretary of State's presence is meant to send a signal that Southeast Asia matters - and that the US is watching Chinese influence in the region.

Bangkok, Thailand - At times, global diplomacy is a lot like school: You get points just for showing up.

By attending an intergovernmental summit on the Thai island of Phuket this week, United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton can point to a stronger US commitment to Southeast Asia, a region that felt slighted by her predecessor's spotty attendance record and security-first mind-set. By contrast, Ms. Clinton has proposed a broader range of cooperation with a region of 570 million people.

While the US is still driven by security concerns, particularly over North Korea's nuclear program, Clinton's presence in Phuket sends a signal that Southeast Asia matters. It also comes at a delicate juncture for Burma (Myanmar), a longstanding irritant.

"On behalf of our country and the Obama administration, I want to send a very clear message that the United States is back, that we are fully engaged and committed to our relationships in Southeast Asia," Clinton told a press conference here on Tuesday.

Competing with China for influence

Behind the renewed US attention is the rising influence of China, which has assiduously courted the region since the late 1990s.

Increased trade and cooperation with China has raised questions over the staying power of the US, particularly in light of its financial woes. That suggests that Clinton may be playing catch-up in Southeast Asia after the summit fuss dies down.

"The US needs to do more than be engaged. It needs to give the region the sense that the dynamism is on the US side. Right now, it's on the Chinese side," says Michael Montesano, a visiting fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

The US remains the preeminent military power in Asia and the guarantor of open sea lanes that carry a significant share of trade in oil, food, and manufactured goods. Few expect that power to wane in the short term, despite the expansion of China's naval capacity.

On Wednesday, Clinton signed a Treaty of Amity and Cooperation with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which is hosting the summit. Its secretary-general, Surin Pitsuwan, said it was "a shift in strategy on the part of the new US administration toward ASEAN."

In reality, the treaty is largely symbolic, say analysts. China signed it in 2003, as have other major powers, but it's unlikely to bear much weight on potential flash points in the region, including sea boundaries between China and Vietnam and disputed islands such as the Spratleys.

As an example of cooperation, Clinton cited a 20-nation exercise in disaster relief held in the typhoon-prone Philippines in May. Thursday's forum of senior government officials also touched on common responses to the H1N1 virus that has sparked panic in Thailand.

Aung San Suu Kyi trial to resume

On Friday, the trial of Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is due to resume. Her plight, and doubts over the regime's promise to hold fair elections in 2010, has soured relations between ASEAN and its Western allies.

The trial has prompted the US to put on hold a mooted policy rethink toward Burma. Clinton said Wednesday that the release of Ms. Suu Kyi could lead to increased US investment.

Burma's political stalemate has also sowed discord within ASEAN: Indonesia's foreign minister has complained that military-ruled Burma is a drag on the region's global standing as it exposes its "democratic deficit." He also said Burma should release Suu Kyi ahead of elections in 2010.

Such plain speak is anathema to autocrats in the 10-nation group. The friction underscores widening divisions within ASEAN and suggests another reason why US attention has lagged recently. Last year, the group adopted a charter that included a human-rights body. But its remit has been narrowly defined, to the dismay of rights activists who fear Burmese meddling.

"It is held hostage by its own terms of reference," says Benjamin Zawacki, a researcher in Bangkok for Amnesty International. "[It] has no power to protect, and any decisions rendered by it must be reached by consensus - by definition with the assent and agreement of Myanmar."

By Simon Montlake, The Christian Science Monitor, July 23, 2009

PHUKET, Thailand - The United States and North Korea fell into an acrimonious exchange on Thursday, with the North Korean government ridiculing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as a "schoolgirl" and a "pensioner," two days after she compared its leaders to unruly children.

At a meeting of Southeast Asian nations here, the war of words competed for attention with Mrs. Clinton's campaign to marshal worldwide pressure on the North Koreans to dismantle their nuclear weapons program.

On Thursday, the Foreign Ministry in North Korea issued a statement criticizing remarks Mrs. Clinton made this week to ABC News, in which she said the best response to North Korea's behavior would be to ignore it, as one would a child clamoring for attention.

"We cannot but regard Mrs. Clinton as a funny lady, as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community," the North Korean statement said. "Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping."

North Korea said it would defend its sovereignty against the United States, which it accuses of aiming nuclear weapons at it.

The ill will surfaced vividly during a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean at this Thai resort when the North Korean delegation turned up on a hotel podium to deliver a scheduled statement.

The officials were told that Mrs. Clinton was due to speak soon, though she was running late, as she has often this week. After huddling, they stalked away and held a news conference nearby, at which they reiterated that North Korea would never return to multiparty talks with South Korea, Japan, Russia, China and the United States, talks that are aimed at curbing its nuclear ambitions.

For her part, Mrs Clinton said she was encouraged by the international support for putting pressure on North Korea. Even Myanmar, she said, responded to requests by China and other countries to track a North Korean freighter this month that American officials suspected was carrying illicit cargo.

"The international community's response to North Korea's actions has been unequivocal and nearly unanimous, leading to a new consensus," Mrs. Clinton said at a news conference, during which she read a lengthy statement restating the American policy on North Korea.

She said there was a commitment to carry out the sanctions called for in a United Nations Security Council resolution adopted in June after North Korea's recent arms tests. Among its measures, the resolution bans weapons shipments to North Korea and seeks to squeeze the sources of financing for its nuclear and missile programs.

Mrs. Clinton singled out China, an influential neighbor, for asking officials in Myanmar, formerly Burma, to help in dealing with the North Korean freighter, which was steaming toward Myanmar. The vessel, the Kang Nam 1, eventually turned around on its own, and she called China's pressure a "proximate cause."

She said she would discuss further steps in pressing North Korea with senior Chinese officials during consultations with China next week in Washington. Mrs. Clinton is leading the strategic and economic dialogue jointly with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.

The United States has talked to China and other countries about a package of incentives, including economic and energy aid, which could be offered to North Korea in return for dismantling its nuclear program.

But even before Thursday's vitriolic statements from North Korea, American officials said they were more focused for now on inflicting pain on North Korea than on luring it back to the bargaining table.

"We are not interested in half measures," Mrs. Clinton said. "We have no desire to pursue protracted negotiations that will only lead us right back to where we have already been."

Mrs. Clinton said the North Koreans had been intransigent in their public statements during the conference. Other senior American officials said the tone of the North's statements was openly hostile.

Still, Mrs. Clinton may have contributed to the chilly atmosphere in her remarks just before the meeting. "Maybe it's the mother in me," she told ABC News, "the experience I've had with small children and teenagers and people who are demanding attention: don't give it to them."





By Mark Landler, The New York Times, July 23, 2009

The successes during her trip expand the president's vision for a multipolar world.

Recasting the world according to the vision of Barack Obama may not always be easy for his secretary of State and erstwhile political rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton. But her recent three-day visit to India shows the former first lady can dutifully deliver results that point to an Obama-style global order.

The president (and thus Ms. Clinton) sees India as one of a few major or emerging powers that are well shy of being US allies but nonetheless might work more closely with the US - as the sole global superpower. He wants to share the burden of uplifting humanity and keeping the peace as he prefers to focus on his heavy domestic agenda.

By and large, the Clinton visit revealed an India ready to deepen ties with the US - far more so than with, say, China or Russia, and in similar measure to fellow democracies like Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia.

What does such closeness look like?

Clinton won deals on selling US nuclear power-plant equipment to India as well as high-tech military equipment that can be tracked for its end use. She also made some progress in bringing India closer to abiding by international rules on nuclear weapons known as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

India won regular, high-level, multi-ministerial strategic talks with the US that will expand on the Bush administration's stronger military ties with this South Asian giant. And in a sign of Mr. Obama's global agenda to look beyond traditional American allies, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be the first foreign leader to receive an official red-carpet state visit to the Obama White House.

If Obama is true to his vision, he won't wait too long to travel to India after Mr. Singh's November visit. That gesture would help cement a partnership long overdue between the world's two largest democracies.

On the vital issues of climate change and a possible bilateral free-trade agreement, however, India and the Obama administration remain far apart. India does not want international attempts at curbing global warming to slow its economy. And it wants to protect its farmers from inexpensive US agricultural exports.

And while India enjoys new US attention, it remains vigilant against any American meddling in its touchy ties with Pakistan, especially over the issues of Kashmir and Afghanistan. India is rightly worried that Pakistan's recent attempts to crack down on terrorists will extend only to those militants not interested in attacking India. Memories are still raw over last year's massive killings in Mumbai (Bombay) by a group of Pakistani gunmen.

Still, India remains pivotal to Obama's attempt to stabilize Afghanistan, while India welcomes the US as a balancing force in its regional competition with China. These are the building blocks of an emerging and potentially enduring strategic relationship.

The US and India need to work particularly hard at raising American understanding of India - beyond such cultural encounters as the film "Slumdog Millionaire." The two countries have never had an intense experience of each other, such as the US wars - hot and cold - with Japan, China, Russia, and Germany.

Clinton, who visited India in 1995 as first lady in a high-profile trip, is well poised to expand the necessary people exchanges between the two countries. In that role, she is an asset for Obama as he enlists India and other powers to help him find more help in running the world.

The Christian Science Monitor, July 21, 2009