UNITED NATIONS - After a 10-year gap, the United States on Thursday rejoined a biennial conference designed to win more support - including from the U.S. Senate - for the treaty banning all nuclear bomb tests.

The session brought together foreign ministers and other envoys from more than 100 nations that have ratified or at least signed the 1996 treaty. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's participation represented the first U.S. official involvement since 1999.

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or CTBT, has lingered in a diplomatic limbo since a Republican-dominated Senate rejected it that year, but U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to now "aggressively" pursue ratification.

Opening Thursday's meeting, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon paid tribute to the American leadership.

"The participation of the United States led by Secretary of State Clinton for the first time demonstrates the commitment of the United States to work toward its ratification of the treaty," he said.

The two-day conference was being held in parallel with a summit of the 15 U.N. Security Council members on the subject of nuclear nonproliferation, presided over by Obama, who has pledged to work toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

"There is no better way to begin this historic day than to pledge to end nuclear testing," Ban told the assembled ministers. "The CTBT is a fundamental building block for a world free of nuclear weapons."

The conference adopted a declaration saying the treaty's entry into force is "more urgent today than ever before."

"We call upon all states which have not yet done so, to sign and ratify the treaty without delay, in particular, those states" - which includes the U.S. - "whose ratification is needed for entry into force," it said.

Thursday was the 13th anniversary of the ceremonial signing of the treaty by Mrs. Clinton's husband, then-President Bill Clinton, and other global leaders.

It was turned down in the Senate three years later when opponents objected that the U.S. might need to test its weapons to ensure the reliability of its nuclear stockpile, and contended that a planned International Monitoring System might fail to detect secret tests by nuclear cheaters.

Tibor Toth, who heads the U.N.-affiliated Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, said that this time Senate skeptics will have to confront the "reality" of a working, $1 billion verification network.

"I could call it a Verification Manhattan Project," Toth told The Associated Press, referring to the all-out U.S. program that built the first bombs in the 1940s.

Experts of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences are studying the effectiveness of the verification system, along with the reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile without testing, and will report their findings this winter.

Toth said he hoped this "nonpartisan" review will reassure enough Republicans to win the needed two-thirds ratification vote in the Senate, which now has a Democratic majority. Consideration is not expected until next year.

The pact requires ratification - that is, full government approval - by 44 nuclear-capable states before it can take effect. All but nine of those have ratified, along with the governing bodies of 115 other nations.

Besides the U.S., the holdouts among the 44 are China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan. Meanwhile, the U.S. and four other original nuclear powers - Russia, Britain, France and China - have observed testing moratoriums.

Indonesia has said it will ratify if the U.S. does, and analysts believe the Chinese would also follow suit. Most believe North Korea and Iran might be the final holdouts, and would be more deeply isolated internationally as a result.

By CHARLES J. HANLEY , The Associated Press, September 24, 2009

UNITED NATIONS - With thousands of demonstrators protesting outside that he had stolen Iran's election, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stoutly defended his legitimacy here on Wednesday, declaring in a speech that the Iranian "people entrusted me once more with a large majority" in a ballot he described as "glorious and fully democratic."

In a 35-minute address, Mr. Ahmadinejad leveled familiar attacks against the United States and delivered an oblique rant against Jews, saying it was unacceptable for a "small minority" to dominate the politics and economy of much of the world through "private networks." But he did not raise the Holocaust, the subject of another anti-Semitic theme he has used in speeches.

Shortly before Mr. Ahmadinejad began speaking, the United States and other world powers met and announced that they would give Iran a chance to begin negotiating seriously over its nuclear program at a meeting on Oct. 1, or face consequences - harsher sanctions.

"They are at a turning point; they have a choice to make," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said after the meeting, which included foreign ministers from Russia, Britain, France, Germany and China. "We will now await the results of the Oct. 1 meeting and take stock at that time."

While the statement issued by the countries did not appear to break new ground, senior American officials said it was significant because China and Russia had signed on to a strategy that explicitly warned Iran that there would be serious consequences if it was not prepared to negotiate.

Both countries have historically been reluctant to impose sanctions on Iran, with which they have extensive commercial ties. Obama administration officials also pointed to comments made by Russia's president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, to President Obama in which he said Russia would consider sanctions.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, in an interview with Newsweek and The Washington Post, said Iran would consider permitting its nuclear experts to meet with scientists from the United States and other major powers to try to resolve concerns about its nuclear program. It was not clear what Mr. Ahmadinejad's offer would entail or whether it could help resolve the standoff.

While American officials emphasized the progress they had made on Iran, Mrs. Clinton announced a shift in American policy toward another recalcitrant government, the military junta in Myanmar.

Speaking to a group of countries with ties to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, Mrs. Clinton announced that the United States would begin engaging directly with Burmese officials after concluding that its longstanding policy of sanctions had not worked.

"We believe that sanctions remain important as part of our policy," Mrs. Clinton said. "But by themselves, they have not produced the results that had been hoped for on behalf of the people of Burma."

"Engagement versus sanctions is a false choice, in our opinion," she added, "so going forward, we will be employing both those tools."

She declined to discuss the level at which American engagement with Burmese officials would take place, though senior officials said the secretary herself was unlikely to meet with anyone.

Myanmar, however, is sending a minister to the United States next week, and a senior official said that by announcing this policy shift, Mrs. Clinton opened the door to some kind of meeting with that minister.

At the end of the meeting of foreign ministers on Wednesday, Foreign Secretary David Miliband of Britain read a statement indicating that the countries were united in their determination to present Iran with a clear choice.

There was similar solidarity outside the United Nations, where thousands of people from the Iranian diaspora massed to show their support for the democracy protesters in Iran, many carrying placards with a picture of Mr. Ahmadinejad and the message, "Not Iran's President."

Others carried pictures of young people who had been killed in Iran in demonstrations after the June election, some of whom had been tortured. Many wore green, which has become a symbol of the movement.

Hadi Ghaemi, the director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, who helped organize the protest, said Iranian expatriates wanted to send a strong message to Mr. Ahmadinejad that the world was "aware of the crimes that took place" since his re-election.

Nima Momeni, 25, an information technology consultant who traveled from Los Angeles for the rally, said he "could not bear the idea that Mr. Ahmadinejad could just come and address the General Assembly after the crimes that took place in Iran."





By Mark Landler and NAZILA FATHI, The New York Times, September 23, 2009

'Crippling sanctions' on the oil sector wouldn't work. But the US Treasury Department can deal Tehran a significant financial blow using existing laws.

Washington - In an effort to squeeze Iran into submission over its nuclear policy, there is talk, as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has put it, of adopting "crippling sanctions" on Iran.

Although the Obama administration has not spelled out the nature of these crippling sanctions, politicians in Washington have floated two bad options: halting Iran's import of gasoline, and embargoing its oil exports.

The US should drop these potential sanctions and instead enforce a bold new campaign to devastate Iran's financial sector - using existing US laws.

To set up an effective gasoline embargo, the US would have to go to the UN Security Council for approval - a lengthy process and by no means certain. Perhaps even more important, a gasoline embargo would help, not hurt, the regime in Tehran.

Here's why: The government of Iran imports a sizable part of its domestic gasoline needs. It sells those imports along with domestically refined gasoline at a heavily subsidized price. This subsidy encourages waste, but it also dramatically reduces government revenues.

The regime hasn't been able to eliminate this subsidy and increase the price of gasoline for fear of a domestic backlash. If the US imposed a successful gasoline embargo, Iran would then be able to decrease domestic consumption, eliminate smuggling, and increase government revenues. Jackpot.

The added bonus for Iran there is that with an imposed embargo, Iranians would blame higher prices and reduced availability on the United States. This is the last thing the US should be doing at a time when it wants to force a change in Iran's policies. Most pointedly, a gasoline sanction would lend further support to end the smuggling activities of regime insiders.

An embargo of Iran's oil exports would be even more problematic. If effective, such a step would adversely affect all importers of crude oil because of dramatically higher prices. China, a big oil importer, would certainly oppose such a move. Russia, for its own strategic interest, has also expressed its opposition to more sanctions. And now Germany has indicated it is also unlikely to support sanctions.

The US should forget proposals that would face highly uncertain adoption by the UN and focus instead on the sanctions that have worked on Iran over a 30-year period - financial sanctions. The US Treasury has successfully cut off Iranian banks from the global banking system and isolated the National Iranian Oil Company. These efforts have had a significant effect on the Iranian economy in the past year, including increasing Iran's cost of imports by about 20 percent.

The US could also act immediately by adopting policies that would cripple Iran's financial sector today.

Iran's foreign exchange reserves are being rapidly depleted, given lower oil prices and capital flight due to political uncertainties and a sick Iranian economy. Regime insiders say that about $350 billion has been pulled out of Iran during the past seven years, and cost of capital flight just to Dubai is estimated to be more than $250 million per day. The last official figure, in June 2008, placed Iran's foreign currency reserves at a little over $80 billion. My estimate is that they now stand in the $40-$50 billion range.

The regime is worried. And as recently as early August a loyalist of President Ahmadinejad loyalist was put in charge of foreign exchange transactions at the central bank to facilitate the outflow of funds as regime insiders, who have been losing confidence in the government's ability to bridge the current political divide, rush to get their money out of the country.

The US Treasury could motivate Iranians (in Iran as well as those living in the US and in Europe) to liquidate their assets and to withdraw their money from Iran simply by announcing enforcement of the following existing, yet generally neglected, US laws:

1. All US citizens and permanent residents (holders of Green Cards) are required to pay taxes on all foreign sources of income (including in Iran).

The US can begin by taking steps to enforce the law for those who have invested in Europe, where we have agreements. If the Treasury announced that they were taking serious steps to begin to enforce this generally neglected law, we'd not only close a tax loophole, but we'd cause Iran to panic at the thought of losing key investors. Tens of thousands of people in the US who have illegally invested in Iran due to high three-year interest rates there coupled with an essentially fixed exchange rate. Also, real estate in Tehran has been especially tempting to invest in and has gone through the roof in the past 10 years.

2. Investing in Iran is prohibited.

To begin, the US Treasury could afford individuals an amnesty from prosecution and no loss of permanent resident status, say, for six months if these holdings were declared, taxes paid, and the funds repatriated.

Why would enforcement of these laws cause so much damage?

There are between 2 and 3 million Americans and permanent residents with Iranian heritage in the US. Many have transferred money to Iran. Yes, a majority of Iranian Americans and permanent residents from Iran dislike the regime there. Sadly, for many of them, their pocketbook is more important than human rights. Some have made bank deposits, others have bought real estate, and others have invested in businesses. If the Treasury made such an announcement, Iranians would worry what might happen to real estate prices if Iranians living abroad sold their real estate. In fact, there is a solid chance that even Iranians would get so scared, they would panic and cause a run on the banks.

This would lead to a collapse of the real estate market and a palpable squeeze on Iran's foreign exchange reserves as everyone rushed to change their rials for dollars and euros.

The regime would have no choice but to prohibit capital outflows and institute foreign-exchange controls; the black market exchange rate would become multiples of the official rate; import costs for unsubsidized nonessentials would soar; and inflation would skyrocket.

These rapid financial developments would turn ordinary citizens, wealthy regime loyalists, and prominent bazaar merchants against the regime. The ensuing inflation, already over 25 percent, would fuel dissatisfaction among average citizens who are already struggling for survival.

The Revolutionary Guards, who need financial and economic stability to increase their rapidly growing financial empire, would be dealt a significant financial blow.

Yes, ordinary Iranians might suffer for a few months, but then they would be free of this illegitimate and oppressive regime. This is not the time to engage in a dialogue with a brutal dictatorship.

The US must take a moral position and support the brave people of Iran with initiatives that the US Treasury can adopt in 24 hours without having to wait for approval or support of other countries or the UN.

By Hossein Askari, The Christian Science Monitor, September 22, 2009

WASHINGTON - Escalate or scale back.

The blunt conclusion laid out by the top American commander in Afghanistan - "The status quo will lead to failure" - poses a stark and urgent choice for President Barack Obama: Intensify the foundering conflict with more troops or narrow the mission to targeting terrorists instead of protecting Afghans.

In his report to Obama, Gen. Stanley McChrystal makes clear his view that ultimate success in Afghanistan requires overcoming two main threats: the insurgency and a "crisis of confidence" among Afghans in their own government. Both must be addressed, and together they require more resources, he says.

"Insufficiently addressing either principal threat will result in failure," the general concludes.

The McChrystal assessment puts to the test Obama's assertion just six months ago that he would put the war effort on a path to success by providing what the previous White House didn't.

"For six years, Afghanistan has been denied the resources that it demands because of the war in Iraq," Obama said March 27. "Now, we must make a commitment that can accomplish our goals." He approved the dispatch of 21,000 more U.S. troops and promised a comprehensive improvement in the U.S. effort to stabilize the country, train its security forces and advance justice and economic opportunity.

Obama also said then that he would reevaluate after the Afghan presidential election, which was held Aug. 20. The charges of widespread fraud and ballot-rigging that emerged after the election have only added to doubts in Washington about whether the Afghan government can be counted on as a reliable partner.

The president thus far has not endorsed the McChrystal approach, saying in television interviews over the weekend that he needs to be convinced that sending more troops would make Americans safer from al-Qaida. Tellingly, Obama reiterated in those interviews that his core goal is to destroy al-Qaida, which is not present in significant numbers in Afghanistan. He did not focus on saving Afghanistan.

"I'm not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan or saving face," Obama told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

On Monday, two senior administration officials said that among the options under consideration at the White House is stepping up missile strikes by U.S. aerial drones on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border. Taliban and associated Afghan rebel groups who operate with relative impunity on the Pakistani side of the border already are being targeted by U.S. Predator drone strikes, with limited success.

McChrystal's report, first made public Monday by The Washington Post, was not intended to present Obama with a list of military options. The general left no doubt where he stands. He believes a full-scale, comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign is what is required, and that time is of the essence.

But White House officials say the president is considering more than the McChrystal assessment as he weighs courses of action. He's relying on the views of key Cabinet aides, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said last week that he has yet to make up his mind on the wisdom of committing more troops.

Gates has said, however, that he does not believe that a scaled-back approach that focuses mainly on killing al-Qaida leaders - rather than the McChrystal view that counterterrorism operations should be part of a broader campaign to build up Afghan support for their government - is the right answer.

"The notion that you can conduct a purely counterterrorist kind of campaign and do it from a distance simply does not accord with reality," Gates told reporters earlier this month. "The reality is that even if you want to focus on counterterrorism, you cannot do that successfully without local law enforcement, without internal security, without intelligence" - without a major presence in Kabul.

McChrystal's immediate superior, Gen. David Petraeus, sees it similarly.

"He (McChrystal) is the first to recognize not just the extraordinary capabilities but also the limitations of counterterrorism forces in Afghanistan," Petraeus wrote in an opinion article published Friday in The Times of London.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton underlined the importance of seeking views beyond McChrystal's report.

"It's critically important, but it's a part of the overall process and there are many other considerations that we have to take into account," Clinton said in an interview airing Monday on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

Clinton also said that no decision would be made until the outcome of the Afghan election is known, "because we have to know who our counterparts are, and we have to make it clear that in return for X, we expect Y."

Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who advised McChrystal in Kabul this summer, said in a telephone interview Monday that Obama has invited doubt about his commitment to succeeding in Afghanistan by putting off a decision on devoting more resources.

"The truth is that we don't have that much time," Cordesman said. "Waiting to see what happens with existing resources and existing troop levels, when the commanding general has already said that's an unacceptable risk, basically invites defeat." He added: "The president has yet to show he can lead in this war."

By ROBERT BURNS, The Associated Press, September 21, 2009

NEW YORK - The Obama administration and its top Asian allies agreed Monday that direct U.S.-North Korean talks may be the best way to bring North Korea back to the nuclear negotiating table, American officials said.

But they also suggested that more groundwork needed to be laid by China, North Korea's main friend and benefactor, before President Barack Obama would decide to send his special North Korea envoy, Stephen Bosworth, to Pyongyang for such discussions.

The officials spoke after talks here between Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and senior Australian, Japanese and South Korean diplomats on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly session. They also spoke as Obama prepared to see Chinese President Hu Jintao on Tuesday amid a trade dispute that could complicate the diplomacy.

"The focus (was) on what can be done to get North Korea back to the six-party process," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said after Clinton's meetings.

"There was general agreement and support for the idea that not only the United States, but other countries, might engage in bilateral dialogue which would bring North Korea back to the six-party process," he told reporters.

The six-party process is the effort by the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and South Korea to persuade the North to abandon atomic weapons and denuclearize the Korean peninsula. North Korea walked away from the talks to protest criticism of a rocket launch earlier this year.

Since then, the U.S. and its partners have worked to get North Korea back to the table. But they have also tightened sanctions against the Stalinist nation even as the North seems to have made conciliatory gestures, such as the release of two detained American journalists following a visit to the country by former President Bill Clinton.

China, which wields the most outside influence of any country with North Korea, is widely believed to hold the key for the resumption in the stalled disarmament talks. A senior Chinese official, State Counselor Dai Binguo, visited Pyongyang last week. Another, Premier Wen Jiabao, expects to visit in early October.

"During these meetings, we expect China to take a fairly clear line about their desire to see North Korea resume interactions as part of a six-party framework," said Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs who sat in on Clinton's talks.

After Dai's visit, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il said his country is ready to engage in "bilateral and multilateral talks," according to China's official Xinhua News Agency. It did not elaborate but hinted that North Korea might be ready to return to the negotiations.

Campbell said the Chinese often use "very careful" language to describe their relations with the North. But, he added that "we have been very gratified by much of what we have heard from the Chinese in terms of their desire to work closely, not just with us, but with other partners in ensuring that North Korea returns to a responsible diplomatic set of interactions."

Japan and South Korea have expressed deep concerns about the possibility that the United States might engage with the North outside the framework of the group negotiations. They fear the North will use such talks to marginalize them over their greatest security threat.

But Campbell said South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan and his delegation had told Clinton they would not oppose direct U.S.-North Korean talks as long as they were properly prepared and aimed solely at a "ready and speedy resumption" of the denuclearization talks.

Meanwhile, in a speech in New York South Korean President Lee Myung-bak proposed a "grand bargain" with the North to restart the nuclear talks and end its atomic arms program. The proposal would give the North economic and political incentives, including a security guarantee.

Campbell said Kim Jong Il's recent illness and a lack of clarity over who will succeed him made it crucial for the South Korea, the U.S., Japan, China and Russia to keep in close and discreet contracts about the situation in the North.

"It's an uncertain time," he said. "We appear to be witnessing some issues associated with future transition, uncertain health of Kim Jong-il. So, quiet dialogue and discussion about developments there is essential."

By MATTHEW LEE, The Associated Press, September 21, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday offered a vigorous defense of the new U.S. plans for missile defense.

In an op-ed in the London-based Financial Times, Clinton also sought to assure allies in NATO that the decision by President Barack Obama to pull back plans for a long-range missile defense system did not mean the U.S. was moving away from protecting Eastern Europe.

"We are not walking away from our allies but are deploying a system that enhances allied security, advances our cooperation with NATO and actually places ore resources with more countries," Clinton wrote.

The decision, a sharp turn from Bush administration policy, has sparked criticism from Republicans. Poland and the Czech Republic, which were to house the missile defense system, also were unnerved by Obama's decision to shelve plans for the long-range system, and Clinton sought to provide assurances to those two countries.

She said the U.S. "deeply appreciated" their willingness to house parts of the previously planned system. "We will continue to cooperate closely with both nations and both will have the opportunity to be closely involved with missile defense," she wrote.




By Ian Swanson, The Hill, September 21, 2009

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration's revamped plan for a European missile shield is part of a broad new strategy for squeezing Iran.

The plan has upset some loyal allies with its appeal to Russia. Yet if the new approach pans out, using more diverse defenses and greater diplomatic leverage, it could provide protection from Iran not only for Europe but also Israel and Arab states in the Persian Gulf who fear the Iranians' pursuit of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.

With U.S. troops already stationed on Iran's eastern and western flanks - in Iraq and Afghanistan - the addition of anti-missile weapons aboard U.S. Navy ships in the region would add to Iran's military isolation. And the hope is that it would ease Israel's sense of urgency for taking military action against Iran.

Critics say the emerging Obama approach does too little to enhance protection of the U.S. homeland from missile threats while putting too much stock in intelligence estimates of Iran's missile plans.

On the diplomatic front, President Barack Obama hopes Russia will find more reason to go along with U.S. efforts to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb, now that Washington has abandoned a Bush administration approach to missile defense in Europe that Moscow viewed as a threat to its own security.

In Moscow, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called the Obama move a "right and brave decision."

In a new outreach to Russia on Friday, the civilian chief of NATO called for the U.S., Russia and NATO to link their missile defense systems against potential new nuclear threats from Asia and the Middle East. Previous such appeals for collaboration have produced little concrete result, but with Obama's change of approach this one may stand a better chance.

Russia publicly opposes any Iranian effort to develop nuclear weapons, but it also is against imposing new sanctions on Tehran. In the U.S. view, the threat of further sanctions is a necessary diplomatic tool.

Iran's nuclear ambitions are expected to be a central focus at a gathering of world leaders at U.N. headquarters in New York next week. And U.S, Russian and other powers are to sit down with Iranian officials on Oct. 1 for a resumption of talks on the nuclear issue as well as other security topics.

Britain's ambassador to Washington, Nigel Sheinwald, told The Associated Press on Friday that he considered it encouraging that Russia quickly welcomed Obama's decision to change course in Europe.

"One way or the other, it cannot but contribute positively to the objectives of the reset of relations with Russia," Sheinwald said, adding that "we do want Russia to be an active and committed participant in these discussions on Iran."

Ray Takeyh, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations who served as a State Department adviser on Iran policy until last month, said Obama's blueprint for missile defense in Europe evokes an idea raised in July by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for a defense umbrella over the Persian Gulf.

"Logically, there is a connection there," Takeyh said in a telephone interview.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates made a similar link when he laid out details of the Obama plan for Europe.

"I don't want to get into it in too much detail," Gates told reporters Thursday, "but the reality is we are working both on a bilateral and a multilateral basis in the Gulf to establish the same kind of regional missile defense that would protect our facilities out there as well as our friends and allies."

The U.S. already is taking a similar approach in Asia, where sea-borne anti-missile weapons and mobile radars are arrayed to protect Japan and other allies from the threat of a North Korean missile strike.

Under the Obama plan for Europe, U.S. Navy ships equipped with anti-missile weapons would form a front line of defense in the eastern Mediterranean, combined with existing land-based anti-missile systems such as the Patriot ashore in Europe. A similar arrangement is foreseen for the Persian Gulf to protect not only U.S. ships that regularly patrol the Gulf but also Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Clinton said in a speech at the Brookings Institution on Friday that the retooled approach to missile defense in Europe is mainly a response to a perceived change in Iran's ballistic missile priorities. The U.S. believes Iran is accelerating its short- and medium-range missile development and going more slowly than previously anticipated in building the long-range missile that once was the central threat.

"We believe we will be in a far stronger position to deal with that threat and to do so with technology that works and with a higher degree of confidence that what we pledge to do we can actually deliver," Clinton said.

She dismissed claims by critics that the administration changed course in order to placate the Russians.

"This decision was not about Russia. It was about Iran and the threat that its ballistic missile program poses," Clinton said.

Combined with the prospect of Iran building a nuclear weapon, the Iranians' missile program is a particularly urgent problem for Israel. In Tehran on Friday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who denies Israel's right to exist, lashed out at the Jewish state and again questioned whether the Holocaust happened.

Although Israel is not officially part of the U.S. missile defense system in Europe, Gates reiterated on Thursday that Washington is intent on helping Israel improve its defenses against an Iranian threat.

"And clearly the more we do in this area, we hope that it will reassure (Israelis) that perhaps there's a little more time here" to get Iran to verifiably foreswear nuclear weapons before resorting to military action against Iran, Gates said.

"We are all concerned about Iran running out the clock on us on their nuclear program," Gates said. "But our view is there is still time for diplomacy and, I might say, sanctions to persuade the Iranians that their security will be diminished by going down the track of nuclear weapons, rather than enhanced."

By ROBERT BURNS, The Associated Press, September 18, 2009

Tension Between Leading or Blending In Marks Clinton's Tenure at State

With the exception of former senator Edmund S. Muskie's brief turn as secretary of state at the end of the Carter administration, Hillary Rodham Clinton is the first politician in the job in six decades -- the rest have hailed from the fields of foreign policy or the military.

By all accounts, she is the consummate team player and is often the best-briefed, most prepared person in the room. President Obama's aides say he values her advice and appreciates her dedication, dampening speculation that he and his erstwhile rival would not work well together.

But after eight months in office, Clinton, 61, sometimes seems torn between her inclination to lead and her need to function effectively within the administration, creating a certain tension between her aspirations and her status.

She has been prone to making pronouncements and blunt comments that have put her ahead of, or out of sync with, the rest of the administration. She maintains a robust public persona -- her lengthy overseas trips are filled with town hall meetings and softball television interviews -- but she is largely invisible on the big issues that dominate the foreign policy agenda, including the war in Afghanistan, the attempt to engage Iran and efforts to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

She and her aides say she is deeply involved in policymaking and has inserted herself at important moments. But the impression of many foreign policy experts is that she has her own agenda, such as her focus on women's rights.

The portrait that emerges from interviews and from the observation of Clinton's early tenure is one of an intensely political figure who wants to remain above the fray of day-to-day diplomacy and to work well with her fellow Cabinet members, but who also wants to stand alone from time to time. She has had the self-awareness to know that she is not an expert in diplomacy: One senior aide was assigned to spend the first six months listening to Clinton's public comments in an effort to discern her foreign policy philosophy.

"I consider myself the president's chief foreign policy adviser, the country's chief diplomat and the State Department's chief executive," Clinton said in an interview this week, sitting on a sofa in the plush expanse of her State Department office. "That's how I see my role, and I'm working in all three of those areas."

Hillaryland

Clinton arrived at the department with a large and loyal staff collectively known as Hillaryland. At times, it fits uncomfortably within the State Department establishment, which views the influx as a jobs program for her campaign acolytes. Some close aides still privately harbor hopes she will run again for president.

State's director of policy planning, Anne-Marie Slaughter, who is not a longtime Clinton adviser, said her main job in the first six months was to help the new secretary root her thinking into a foreign policy paradigm.

"I could listen to her and travel with her and listen to her respond at press avails [news conferences] and get a real feel for the constants, what were the north stars," said Slaughter, a former dean of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. "A large part of what I did for the first six months was to work with her and work with other members of her senior team to identify those themes, and then help bring them together in a more coherent way."

Slaughter would write memos, Clinton would respond whether she was in the ballpark, and then Slaughter would refine and sharpen the memos, resubmitting them to Clinton. The result was Clinton's earnest and thoughtful speech in July, before the Council on Foreign Relations, saying the United States would exercise leadership through partnership with other countries and organizations.

But if Clinton's retinue has grated, her skills as a politician and her contacts in Congress and elsewhere have helped her attract accomplished talents and win substantial increases in funding for State in a time of soaring deficits.

She persuaded two Cabinet members from her husband's administration, Richard C. Holbrooke and Jack Lew, to accept sub-Cabinet positions and enticed another possible secretary of state, former Senate majority leader George J. Mitchell, to serve as special envoy for Middle East peace.

The bevy of high-powered envoys has led to commentary in and out of State that she has left the heavy lifting to others while she tours the world holding town halls in obscure places, a criticism she and her aides shrug off.

"She is collaborative by nature and totally secure," said Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He said she was instrumental in heading off the breakup of the Pakistani government this year by using contacts she had developed as first lady.

Both Mitchell and Holbrooke said she oversees their work closely and has been helpful in bluntly assessing the personalities of the people they deal with. "I know there has been a tendency to disparage this as source of experience, but it certainly is a source of knowledge," Mitchell said, referring to her years in the White House. "She knows all of the parties, she knows what happened on this issue [Israeli-Palestinian peace] for the last 15 years."

Clinton maintains her loyalties. When State Department officials objected to her meeting with Japanese families whose children had been abducted by North Korea, she brushed aside any concerns about diplomatic repercussions. "I made a promise to Senator [Daniel K.] Inouye, and I intend to keep it," she said, referring to the Hawaii Democrat, who heads the Appropriations Committee.

Clinton has also used charm, humor and an unfailing work ethic to forge close relationships with peers such as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and national security adviser James Jones.

Gates said that during his lengthy government career, there has been "more time when secretaries of state and defense weren't speaking to each other than [when] they were." By contrast, he said, he and Clinton speak by phone frequently and "seem to take up permanent residence in the White House Situation Room."

Clinton is "tough-minded," said Gates, a Republican and holdover from the Bush administration. "Her general approach on issues is that anytime we make a concession on something, that we get something for it. . . . . Which is very much in tune with my view."

Clinton said her years in the White House, where she watched conflicts among President Bill Clinton's advisers spill out into the open, have influenced how she operates. "You can disagree with the president, you can argue for different policies, but at the end of the day you have to be part of a team that is there to serve the country and the president who the country elected," she said. "It may sound very old-fashioned, but that is sort of how I view it."

'You Don't Really Know'

Clinton has earned the most headlines for saying things that were either ahead of their time or lacked diplomatic nuance. She likened North Korea to an unruly child and said it was "implausible if not impossible" to believe the country would return to disarmament talks. She accused Pakistan of "abdicating to the Taliban." She said human rights concerns in China could not interfere with efforts to reach a deal on climate change.

Her language is unadorned, often without the soothing phrases that obscure differences and smooth over disputes. After her comments on human rights, made on the eve of a flight to Beijing, worried officials and aides traveling with her engaged in a late-night discussion about whether her truth-telling was fresh and provocative, or whether she had given away the store to the Chinese.

In an interview with al-Jazeera in May, Clinton said about Israel: "We want to see a stop to settlement construction, additions, natural growth -- any kind of settlement activity." Some experts have questioned whether the position should have remained private, since it led to such a breach in relations with Israel.

Mitchell, who in public has refused to utter the phrase "natural growth," the Israeli term for the incremental expansion of settlements, defends her comment as "consistent with policy." He said: "One of the reasons she is so effective is because she is so direct. She is able to state in simple terms complicated issues."

Clinton, in the interview, said she was trying to get the negotiations going by setting a bright line in the sand. "It's been against the backdrop of that very strong statement that we've been moving," she said, vowing that "we will end up in a place that no Israeli government has ever gone before."

Jones suggested that she might have jumped the gun. "There are some adjustments in the first few months to your environment," he said. Indeed, when Obama met with Jewish leaders in July and was asked about a perceived imbalance toward Israel, he responded: "We have been trying not to do this through the press, and other than my comment to the prime minister and a couple by Hillary, we have been disciplined," according to the contemporaneous notes of one participant.

Some at State have questioned whether Clinton's proclivity for throwing verbal bombs has undercut her public authority. "When Condi spoke, you knew that was policy," said one senior State Department official, referring to Clinton's predecessor, Condoleezza Rice. "When this secretary speaks, you don't really know."

Ironically, the press operation at Clinton's State Department is so constrained that virtually every public statement issued by its spokesmen must be reviewed by James B. Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state. He said that is an effort to ensure the government speaks with a single, carefully vetted voice.

"I'd say she likes plain speaking," Slaughter said. "She is impatient with language that obscures rather than tells you what she means, and she is impatient with symbolism for symbolism's sake."

With her political hat on, Clinton said she feels an urgent need to help explain to Americans -- "somebody who is an unemployed autoworker or a family worried about losing their home or a small-business person struggling with health-care costs" -- why it is important to spend money on curbing maternal mortality or improving girls' education overseas.

"We have got to take a hard look and be very honest about what we do right and what we don't do so well," Clinton said. "I don't want to be sitting here talking to you in a year or two years or how ever long I am around . . . and say we saw these problems, we deplored them, we regretted them, we fulminated about them and we are still living with them."

Clinton said she loves being secretary of state, but conceded, "It is a really hard job . . . a 24-7 job," and "I feel the weight of it pretty significantly." Asked if she would be sitting in the same office for eight years, Clinton shuddered.

"Please! I will be so old," she said with a shake of her head.

By Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post, September 19, 2009

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin praised President Obama Friday for canceling a plan for an anti-ballistic missile system in Eastern Europe that Russia had deemed a threat, suggesting that the move would lead to improved relations between their countries.

WASHINGTON - When the United States sits down with Iran early next month for face-to-face talks, the Iranian nuclear program will be at the top of the American agenda, even though Iranian officials insist it is off the table, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday.

"Iran says it has a number of issues it wishes to discuss with us," Mrs. Clinton told reporters. "But what we are concerned about is discussing with them the questions surrounding their nuclear program and ambitions."

She said the meeting, to be held Oct. 1, would fulfill President Obama's pledge to engage with Iran. But she insisted that the United States would not be drawn into a lengthy and fruitless diplomatic dance with Iran, as some analysts have warned.

"We have no illusions about the Iranian government," Mrs. Clinton said. "The point is to meet and explain to the Iranians, face to face, the choices that Iran has, and to see whether Iran is prepared to engage."

In its proposal, Iran said it wanted to talk about a broad range of issues, including the Middle East peace process and universal nuclear disarmament. But it said nothing about its own nuclear program, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said his country will never relinquish its rights to enrich uranium for what he insists is a peaceful nuclear energy program.

In addition to the United States, the talks will involve Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. Possible locations for a meeting include Geneva, Vienna and Istanbul, according to a senior State Department official.

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, who has acted as a middleman between the West and Iran, told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday, "I think very likely it will be Turkey."

The timing of the meeting may deflect some pressure off Iran during the United Nations General Assembly session, which will bring Mr. Obama, Mr. Ahmadinejad and other world leaders to New York next week. American officials said they were ready to meet the Iranians as early as this week.

The United States has already offered Iran an arrangement known as "freeze for freeze," in which Iran would halt its production of nuclear fuels in return for the United Nations' halting new sanctions against it.

While that remains a viable option, a senior American official said, the primary purpose of the meeting next month will be to determine whether Iran is serious about negotiating at all over its nuclear program.




By Mark Landler, The New York Times, September 15, 2009

LUANDA, ANGOLA - Donald Steinberg arrived in Angola in 1995 as U.S. ambassador to find American oilmen doing more than drilling for coastal crude.

"They were, in fact, the American ambassadors to Angola in that period," Mr. Steinberg recalls. "The only real relationship was through the oil companies."

Angola, currently Africa's top oil producer, is now a priority in Washington. Hillary Rodham Clinton's overnight visit last month - the first for a U.S. secretary of state - sent the message that America is eager to help transform the former Cold War battleground into a stable energy giant with strong democratic institutions and transparent business practices.

Angola is poised to become a hub of liquefied natural gas and diamond exports. It is also a potential growth market for Coca-Cola of Atlanta, Bechtel Group in San Francisco and other American companies seeking to take advantage of the government's push to diversify the economy and improve conditions for the country's 17 million people, most of whom live on $2 a day.

"We are definitely interested" in Angola, says David Welch, the former U.S. diplomat who is president of Middle East, Africa, Europe and South Asian operations at Bechtel, the largest U.S. engineering company. "They have every single infrastructure need."

Angola topped Nigeria's crude output in July and August partly because unrest cut production in the Niger Delta in Nigeria. Angola joined the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in 2007 and, as this year's president, will host a Dec. 22 meeting in its capital, Luanda. Within three years, it will expand energy exports when it begins shipping natural gas with help from Chevron, based in San Ramon, California.

Angola gets about 84 percent of its fiscal revenue from petrodollars, making it vulnerable to price swings like the drop last year to $33.87 a barrel on Dec. 19 from $145.29 on July 3. So Angola is turning to foreign investors for help in developing nonenergy industries, including agriculture.

Only 5 percent of arable land is under cultivation since farmers fled to cities during the 27-year civil war, which began after Angola's 1975 independence from Portugal. If farmed to its potential, Angola could meet not only its own needs, but also those of sub-Saharan Africa, Mrs. Clinton said.

The war pitted the ruling Soviet-backed Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola against the U.S.-supported National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, led by Jonas Savimbi. Half a million people died, including Mr. Savimbi, who was killed by government troops.

Devastation from the conflict is evident across the country. Many buildings in Luanda are abandoned, and roads need repair. Embassy employees were relieved when the lights stayed on during Mrs. Clinton's stay there; outages are routine because there isn't any effective power grid.

Peace brought investment from China and the United States, which are the top recipients of Angola's oil shipments. China, the No. 1 importer, has granted Angola loans of more than $5 billion and is building stadiums, roads and an airport expansion. The United States makes more modest loans through the Export-Import Bank, which extended a $120 million credit line.

Ties with China are closer than those with the United States. In exchange for financing, Angola guarantees China a percentage of oil output, and a top Angolan military official visited Beijing on Sept. 1 to announce enhanced cooperation.

Long lag times for starting a business have deterred American investment. In 2007, it took 119 days to register an enterprise, according to the World Bank.

Government corruption is also "widespread," according to a Feb. 25 report by the U.S. State Department. It said that Sonangol, Angola's national oil company, didn't consistently report revenue to the Ministry of Finance and that "the business climate continued to favor those connected to the government" with "no laws or regulations regarding conflict of interest."

While Angola held a legislative vote last year, its presidential election, scheduled for this year, has been postponed, and Jose Eduardo dos Santos has ruled since 1979. At an Aug. 9 news conference alongside Mrs. Clinton, Foreign Minister Assunçao Afonso dos Anjos said Angola needed more time for balloting.

When asked about alleviating poverty, he said there was no "magic wand." Angola needs "well-structured, well-designed programs, meaning programs that will gradually create wealth."

Angola has taken steps toward financial transparency by publishing oil-industry revenue, according to the United States. The Treasury Department is sending an adviser to help Angola manage debt and take advantage of international currency markets to raise funds.

The Corporate Council on Africa, which promotes commercial relationships, is hosting a U.S.-Africa summit in Washington from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1 that will dedicate half a day to doing business in Angola, especially in the nonoil infrastructure, housing and communications sectors.

SABMiller, based in London, the world's second-largest brewer, is expanding operations in the country, opening a new Coca-Cola bottling plant last year and now completing another north of Luanda. Delta Air Lines of Atlanta, the world's largest carrier, applied with the U.S. government to begin direct commercial flights from the United States.

"It's not easy to invest in Angola," says Rosa Whitaker, former first assistant U.S. trade representative to Africa and now a consultant. "But for the investors willing to take the risk, Angola is a country that can produce high rewards."

By JANINE ZACHARIA, The New York Times, September 15, 2009

WASHINGTON - Getting health-care legislation through Congress might have been easier for President Obama and his party if Senator Edward M. Kennedy were still running the Senate health committee.

Similarly, the White House might be on surer footing in the health care debate had it not been forced to withdraw the nomination of former Senator Tom Daschle as secretary of health and human services, after the disclosure that he had failed to pay income taxes. But here is another what-if to consider as the health care negotiations lurch through what are presumably their final months: What if Hillary Rodham Clinton had stayed in the Senate and been awarded an elevated role in managing the health care bill?

Just raising this question provokes a strong reaction from some Democrats around Washington. Mrs. Clinton, now the secretary of state, remains a particularly polarizing figure on this issue: Fairly or not, she, along with former President Bill Clinton, is blamed by some Democrats for the collapse of health care legislation in 1994, after Mr. Clinton put his wife in charge of the effort to get his signature issue through Congress.

As the nation's chief diplomat, Mrs. Clinton is precluded from any substantial public role in managing the politics or the substance of health care legislation. It is not clear how much advice she might be offering Mr. Obama behind the scenes. On Monday, her husband discussed the topic, among others, with the president over lunch in New York.

It is not hard to understand why Democratic leaders were wary when, after the presidential election last year but before Mrs. Clinton was chosen as secretary of state, she sought a role on the front lines of the Senate, hoping to become a key player in managing the coming health care legislation.

Mr. Kennedy, for one, made clear that he did not intend to cede his influence, despite his illness. Were Mrs. Clinton identified with the bill, she might also have been a rallying point for conservatives looking to demonize the effort (though her absence does not appear to have hamstrung opponents this fall).

No matter how accomplished she had become after serving nearly eight years in the Senate, and no matter how much she had erased doubts about her collegiality among fellow Democrats and among Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Mrs. Clinton was by Senate standards still new to the game: She did not have the relationships, legislative maturity or deep understanding of Senate history that comes only with time.

Yet some Democrats said there were many things that Mrs. Clinton would have brought to the table. For one thing, she had, like Mr. Kennedy, credibility with the left wing of the party, which is - to put it mildly - highly suspicious of the direction of the legislation, especially the version emerging from the Senate Finance Committee under its chairman, Max Baucus of Montana.

Uneasiness on the left is one of the biggest headaches Mr. Obama has on the Hill these days. Mr. Kennedy, several Democrats said, probably could have persuaded the left either to give in or at least to compromise on what is known as the public option, the proposal for a government-run insurer that has become a major sticking point; Mrs. Clinton might have been able to do that as well.

"She would have been enormously helpful in dealing with the left," said Matt Bennett, vice president of Third Way, an organization of moderate Democrats. "There's nobody in the Senate who can fight for this thing with the left with that kind of credibility."

Mrs. Clinton would also have brought an unusually detailed level of expertise to the subject: Her interest in health care not stop after 1994. It was central to her campaign for the Senate in 2000 and to her early years in the Senate. Mrs. Clinton has had 14 years to think about what the Clinton White House did wrong the first time around, lessons that might have helped Democrats who are trying to get it right this time.

"Clearly she learned some lessons from the 1994 experience," said Martin Frost, a former Democratic congressman from Texas. "But the question would be, would other senators look to her for leadership?"

Finally, there is one other factor that could have proved most meaningful in motivating the former first lady: her legacy. Despite the history she made with her presidential campaign and the history she is making now as she tries to reorient American foreign policy, Mrs. Clinton will always be associated with her defeat on health care in 1994. Leading the charge on health care would have been a chance to rewrite the end of that story.





By Adam Nagourney, The New York Times, September 15, 2009

Clinton to lead session on humanity threat

UNITED NATIONS - Beyond climate change, nuclear proliferation and other hot topics of this month's annual U.N. gathering of world leaders, the international body will address another threat to humanity: the epidemic of rape in conflict-afflicted areas, especially the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who appeared genuinely moved after her August visit to rape victims in eastern Congo, is expected to chair a special U.N. Security Council session at the end of the month to review U.N. efforts to curb the epidemic.

"Meeting with survivors of rape, which is now used increasingly as a tool of war, was shattering," Mrs. Clinton told a New York audience Friday. "The atrocities described to me distill evil to its basest form. These are crimes against humanity. They don't just harm a single individual, or a single family, or village or group. They shred the fabric that weaves us together as human beings. This criminal outrage against women must be stopped."

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, who also visited Congo in May along with the other members of the U.N. Security Council, told reporters in Washington on Friday:

"The issue of sexual violence in conflict is a hugely important one and one that the United States takes extremely seriously and one that the U.N. Security Council takes extremely seriously."

The Washington Times last week published a three-day series about rape in Congo, examining the spread of sexual violence from military to civilian communities and the culture of impunity that has made gang rape so commonplace in that country.

The United Nations has sought to deal with the issue in part by stationing its largest peacekeeping force - more than 16,000 troops - in the eastern region of Congo that borders Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania across the majestic Great Lakes.

In a new approach, two U.N. reports issued last week could lay a basis for war crimes prosecutions against individual soldiers.

The Washington Times, September 14, 2009

VIENNA - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warns that human trafficking is flourishing in the shadows of the global economic downturn.

Clinton gave a video address to an international conference in Vienna examining the scourge of forced labor, sexual slavery and other forms of exploitation. She says urgent steps are needed to crack down on traffickers.

Clinton says she has seen the suffering firsthand: girls in Thailand who were trafficked as young children and are now dying of AIDS, and mothers in Eastern Europe whose daughters have vanished.

She warns that "new economic pressures are likely to aggravate the problem further."

Clinton's speech Monday kicked off a two-day conference of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The Associated Press, September 14, 2009

No other secretary of State has so focused on women's rights. It's a powerful shift.

When Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Africa last month, she visited war-racked eastern Congo to speak out against widespread rape by militias. She choked up after meeting with two rape victims and promised more US help - $17 million for medical treatment and security for victims.

Now she's taking the issue to the United Nations, where the US is leading an effort to shore up a resolution to end sexual violence against civilians during armed conflict. The Security Council passed Resolution 1820 last year, but follow through is sorely lacking.

Women's rights are becoming a signature issue for America's top diplomat. In her official travels, Mrs. Clinton talks with women, meets with female activists, and presses the twin challenges of women's rights and abuse with political leaders. She wants US development aid to focus more on women, and has appointed the first US ambassador for global women's issues.

The Bush administration, too, championed women's rights, especially in Muslim countries such as Afghanistan. But no secretary of State has sought to make women as high a priority as Clinton is attempting. It's a potentially powerful shift. If she can pull it off.

Obstacles abound, including the unruly thicket of US aid programs. But the greatest challenge is the deeply rooted culture in countries that oppress women and girls - often violently and even to the point of enslavement, sexual and otherwise. Honor killings, child brides, female infanticide - all of these accepted customs need to be realized as unacceptable.

As it seeks to promote women's rights, the US faces a paradox: The push could backfire if it comes off as a lecture or is perceived as another modern Western idea that will cause societal upheaval. But Clinton is wisely framing the issue in terms of countries' own interests.

Her pitch: Healthcare for women, especially maternal care, makes for healthier children and families. Schooling for girls contributes to economic progress. Microloans to women pay handsome dividends as women pay them off and invest further in businesses and their families' welfare. (The majority of the world's small-holder farmers are women.)

Some experts also see a link between the oppression of women and the problems of extremism and terrorism.

"It is a very-well-researched fact that women are key to economic progress and social stability," Clinton said in India this summer.

Global aid groups, the World Bank, the US military, and economists agree. "Gender inequality hurts economic growth," reports Goldman Sachs.

Attitudes in male-dominated countries can change once men see the monetary benefits of female empowerment. Writers Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn give a convincing example of this in their new book, "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide."

They tell of Saima Muhammad, a poverty-stricken wife and mother near Lahore, Pakistan, who suffered daily beatings from her jobless husband. For lack of food, she had to send her daughter to live with an aunt. When her second child, a girl, was born, Saima's husband was urged by his mother to take a second wife so he could father a son.

Then Saima got a loan of $65 through a Pakistani group that lends exclusively to women. She started an embroidery business that now employs 30 families in the neighborhood (including her husband). She paid off her husband's debt (more than $3,000), kept her girls in school, and upgraded her house, adding running water and TV.

The authors write that Saima's husband is now more impressed with girls. They are "just as good as boys," he says.

Of course, women's rights are human rights. They don't need to be justified for any other reason than that. But in many countries, the path to that realization may well begin with economic self-interest, and Clinton is right to recognize this.

The Christian Science Monitor, September 11, 2009

The leaders of France, Britain and Germany have called for a high-level international conference on Afghanistan, saying it is time to "take stock of progress . . . and to evaluate the challenges that lie ahead."

In a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the leaders said the conference, which they suggested take place outside Afghanistan under U.N. and Afghan sponsorship, would facilitate agreement on "new benchmarks and timelines" for gradually turning responsibility for the country over to Afghans.

The letter, dated Tuesday and released Wednesday by the office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, coincides with growing European concern about the direction and objectives of the international enterprise in Afghanistan. It clearly suggested that decisions should not be left solely to the United States, which fields about two-thirds of the nearly 100,000 foreign troops there.

Antiwar sentiment is strongest in Britain, where Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week delivered a major speech designed "to take head-on the arguments that suggest our strategy in Afghanistan is wrong and to answer those who question whether we should be in Afghanistan at all." In addition to Brown and Sarkozy, the letter was signed by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, where opposition has been fueled by an airstrike in northern Afghanistan last week that was initiated by German troops and that killed an unknown number of civilians.

In remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday at a military ceremony in Norfolk, Va., NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed concern "that the public discourse on the effort in Afghanistan has started to go in the wrong direction," the Associated Press reported from Brussels.

No date was set for the proposed meeting of foreign ministers, although the leaders' letter said it should take place "before the end of this year right after the inauguration of the new Afghan government."

The inauguration has been indefinitely postponed while the results of the Aug. 20 presidential election remain in dispute. Although Afghan electoral officials said Tuesday that President Hamid Karzai has amassed more than 54 percent of the vote, with nearly all ballots counted -- enough to avoid a runoff with his nearest challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah -- an international commission is investigating complaints of ballot-box stuffing and other extensive fraud, and a final tally could take months. Most of the fraud complaints have been directed at Karzai's campaign.

A delayed result poses a dilemma for the Obama administration and NATO governments with troops in Afghanistan. None of them is satisfied with Karzai's performance as chief executive over the past five years, and all are concerned about election irregularities, but none wants to offend him in anticipation of his likely reelection.

In an interview published Wednesday by the French newspaper Le Figaro, Karzai said that the British and U.S. news media, which have reported widely on the fraud allegations, have tried to "delegitimize the future Afghan government," and he suggested that their governments were manipulating them in order to install a "puppet" government.

"In Afghanistan, the puppets have never brought luck to their foreign masters," he said, mentioning past military occupations by Britain and what was then the Soviet Union. "I hope the Americans will not try the same thing because they would face the same fate."

Karzai noted that he had won Afghanistan's last presidential election, in 2004, with 54.5 percent of the vote and that he expected to do better this time. But he said he would respect the official outcome.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Wednesday that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton "would look forward to participating" in the proposed international conference. Although Clinton has remained largely silent on the Afghanistan issue, Kelly said that "it's moved to the top of her agenda, really, in the last few days."

He said that Clinton had spoken "several times" with Karl W. Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador in Kabul, and met Wednesday with the administration's special representative to the region, Richard C. Holbrooke. Kelly said Clinton would also meet with Democratic Sens. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), Jack Reed (R.I.) and Ted Kaufman (Del.), who returned this week from Afghanistan.

Clinton has also attended meetings at the White House, he said. President Obama's national security team has begun discussions on a new assessment of the situation in Afghanistan by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in the country.

By Karen DeYoung, The Washington Post, September 10, 2009