Obama's booster-in-chief retains presidential ambitions

THERE was a quiet gesture of intimacy when Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama teamed up for an awards ceremony for women at the State Department last week. In an unscripted moment away from the cameras, Clinton reached out and gave the first lady's hand a squeeze.

Like Clinton before her, Michelle Obama has had to go out to bat for her husband after his popularity hit a rough patch. "I believe in this nation and I believe in my husband," she said in her first television interview as first lady as a poll showed Barack Obama's approval ratings had slipped below George W Bush's at the same stage of his presidency.

The two first ladies have become best "frenemies" after their stand-off on the campaign trail, where Michelle Obama accused Clinton of presuming she was the "inevitable" candidate.

"I know a little bit about the role that Michelle Obama is filling now," Clinton said to laughter at the meeting, before going on to praise "her grace and her wisdom".

Not only do the presidential spouses have much in common, but Clinton herself has been behaving uncannily like a first lady again in her new role as secretary of state. As she tours the world and welcomes foreign dignitaries to Washington, Clinton has been acting as booster-in-chief to Obama, much as she did for her husband Bill Clinton during the ups-and-downs of his presidency.

She has repeatedly quoted Obama's phrases approvingly, such as "reaching out a hand" to Iran if the mullahs "unclench their fist", and emphasised that it is a "privilege" to serve in his administration.

Almost every official visit is a trip down memory lane, meeting a "dear old friend" such as Tony Blair or the Israeli president Shimon Peres, whom she encountered many times as first lady.

"She is reflexively playing second fiddle but also trying to justify her importance," said Sally Bedell Smith, author of For Love of Politics, an account of the Clintons' White House years.

The Washington Post admonished Clinton last week for refusing to take human rights seriously. Asked in Egypt whether a recent critical State Department report of the country would affect relations with the Egyptian president, she said she hoped to see him often in Cairo and Washington.

"I really consider President and Mrs Mubarak to be friends of the family," Clinton replied.

In Japan, she greeted Hirofumi Nakasone, the foreign minister, with an affectionate reference to a photograph showing them meeting 18 years ago.

In China, she recalled staying at the "very same guest house that my husband and I stayed in" in the 1990s.

Meanwhile, Clinton has delegated the world's trouble spots to special envoys - mostly old hands from her husband's administration such as George Mitchell in the Middle East, Richard Holbrooke in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Dennis Ross, who has been given responsibility for the euphemistically named "Gulf and Southwest Asia", otherwise known as Iran.

A foreign policy analyst at a leading think tank in Washington said: "She's happy to get the hard work done by the special envoys while she gets to do the foreign trips and be Mrs America."

Another foreign policy expert claimed: "There have never been so many special envoys. At this rate, she will be left with the handshakes and funerals. It is storing up a lot of bureaucratic trouble."

Bedell Smith thinks, on the contrary, that Clinton is shrewd to reprise her old role: "She can blame the special envoys for what goes wrong and take the credit for what goes right, while she does the meetings and greetings."

Obama appointed Melanne Verveer, a former chief of staff to Hillary Clinton in the White House, as ambassador for Global Women's Issues last week, reflecting the importance at the State Department of a cause Clinton championed as first lady.

The former first lady has not forsworn all presidential ambition. Ann Lewis, a confidante and long-time adviser, has set up an organisation called No Limits - "inspired by Hillary" - which will keep her supporters and infrastructure in play, should there be an opportunity to run for the White House again.

"Hardcore Hillary supporters are fully expecting her to run again in 2016," an official with "deep Clinton ties" told The New York Times.

The economic crisis is taking a toll on Obama's popularity. Only 56% of Americans approve of his performance, according to a poll by Rasmussen last week, compared with 43% who disapprove. A third "strongly" disapprove.

"This is a substantial degree of polarisation so early in the administration. Mr Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his independent support," Scott Rasmussen and Douglas Schoen, a former pollster for Bill Clinton, noted in The Wall Street Journal.

Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the strongest advocates for her husband. On a visit to Fort Bragg, an army base in North Carolina, she said, "It hurts, it hurts", to see military families on food stamps.

"I think right now people understand that we're going to have to all work together and make a set of sacrifices. And they have faith - as I do - that their commander-in-chief will see us through these times."

By Sarah Baxter, The Sunday Times, March 15, 2009

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Clinton will visit Mexico this month to show support for embattled President Felipe Calderon in his war with the drug cartels.

Clinton's March 25-26 trip will include a stop in Monterrey, about 100 miles south of the Rio Grande, where gun battles have raged near the U.S. Consulate.

State Department travel alerts have warned U.S. citizens of "violent attacks" in the border area by drug "cartels employing automatic weapons and grenades."

But "as to a decision on security, we take the secretary where she wants to go," said State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid.

A key focus of Clinton's talks with Calderon and Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa will be the plea from southwestern U.S. governors for National Guard troops on the border to block the flow of drugs north, and guns and money south.

By Richard Sisk, New York DAILY NEWS, March 13th 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is to visit in two weeks. The flows of drugs north and of arms south are likely to be key topics.

Reporting from Washington -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will visit Mexico in two weeks as part of an Obama administration effort to bolster its neighbor in its bloody war with organized crime cartels and quell mounting U.S. anxiety over cross-border violence.

The announcement Friday of Clinton's planned visit came just days after President Obama signed a spending bill that provides $300 million in additional aid for Mexican President Felipe Calderon's crackdown on drug gangs.

Clinton's visit will be the first by a top Obama policymaker to Mexico, where more than 6,000 people died in drug-related violence last year. The nation is also suffering from significant economic problems that have dented trade with the U.S.

"The stakes are high because this is the first high-level official visit, and it will set the tone for U.S.-Mexico policy and cooperation for the next four years," said Shannon K. O'Neil, director of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations' independent task force on U.S. policy toward Latin America. "They are focusing on it in a way that Washington hasn't since the first year of the Bush administration."

The announcement came as two U.S. senators asked the administration and Congress to ratify an international treaty that would obligate U.S. authorities to take more aggressive steps to curb the shipment of weapons to Mexico.

Clinton will be in Mexico on March 25 and 26 and will visit Mexico City and Monterrey.

State Department officials said her agenda would include trade issues, the global financial crisis and climate change. But the talks are expected to focus primarily on how the two countries can work together through the so-called Merida Initiative to combat the flow of drugs from Mexico and the flow of guns and laundered money from the United States.

The escalation of drug- related violence and corruption has prompted deep concern among U.S. officials, who fear it will spill across the border.

The Obama administration said this week that it would consider deploying National Guard troops to the border, but only as a last resort.

Administration officials have also said they might tinker with the Merida Initiative, a three-year program established by the Bush administration to provide aid to Mexico and Central American countries for counternarcotics intelligence sharing, training and equipment.

"It's not looking at negatives. It's looking for the positives and where we can go from here," State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said of the review. "It's not a U.S. decision alone on how we proceed. This is a partnership with Mexico."

The $300 million allocated by Congress to Mexico under the Merida Initiative this year was $150 million less than had been requested.

A recent Mexico travel warning by the U.S. was timed to coincide with spring break, when American college students flock to Mexican resorts. But Duguid sought to downplay the risks, saying the administration believes the violence is isolated.




By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2009

About half of China's $2-trillion foreign exchange reserves are invested in U.S. government-backed bonds. 'We hope the United States honors its word and ensures the safety of Chinese assets,' Wen says

Reporting from Shanghai and Beijing -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao voiced concerns today about the security of China's massive investments in U.S. government debt, even as he expressed confidence in the economic leadership of President Obama.

"To be honest, we are a little bit worried," Wen said, speaking at the closing press conference of China's annual legislative session.

"I suppose you could kind of view it as a shot across the bow," said Mark Williams, Asia economist at Capital Economics Ltd. in London.

In a visit to China last month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to assure Beijing that U.S. assets remained a reliable investment. Beijing has not given indications of any major shift in its current investments or future buying plans, although analysts expect Chinese policymakers to gradually diversify its holdings. About two-thirds of China's foreign reserves, accumulated from the nation's booming trade surplus, are estimated to be held in U.S.-denominated assets. To a large degree, though, China's hands are tied, because any big withdrawals or sharp changes in purchasing could seriously disrupt global markets and hurt China's own interests.

Still, Chinese policymakers and scholars increasingly have raised concerns about putting too much of the funds in one basket, and a rickety one at that. Some have urged more investment in tangible assets such as natural resources and technology, and less of U.S. government bonds. Their view is that these securities are susceptible to a large drop in value because of the risks of a falling dollar or rising inflation as Washington prints more money to support its spending.

"I think it can't be more natural for Premier Wen to feel worried," said Zhao Xijun, professor of finance at Beijing's Renmin University of China. "All the Chinese citizens will also share such concerns about our country's assets under the current situation of this financial crisis."

China's response to the global economic crisis was a dominant theme during the meeting of the National Peoples' Congress, the legislative body controlled by the Communist Party. Despite a record fall in Chinese exports last month and a sharp deceleration of growth in the world's third-largest economy, Wen told foreign journalists today that he was hopeful that China would emerge from the global financial crisis "at an early date."

He said Beijing was prepared to add to the previously announced $586-billion economic stimulus plan if it doesn't get China's economy moving. Statistics released this week suggest that government spending on railroads and other projects may be starting to take effect as capital investments picked up.

"We have our plans ready to tackle even more difficult times," Wen said. "At any time we can introduce new stimulus polices."

China's role looms large in the global economy because it is one of a few major economies that is expected to grow this year. In recent years, the U.S. and secondarily China have propelled world economic growth. But with the U.S. in a deep downturn, people are looking increasingly to China to help pull the world out of recession.

Last week markets rose on word that Beijing might beef up its stimulus plan, only to fall back down after Beijing did not announce any new increase during the opening of the legislative session. Wen said that "rumors and misunderstandings set the world stock market on a roller-coaster ride."

Journalists pressed the premier on his projections that China this year will achieve economic growth of 8%, a figure that many economists say is overly optimistic. Under questioning, Wen said it was more of a "goal" than an expectation.

"I must admit it will be difficult to reach this goal . . . but this goal is an indication of the government's confidence," he said. "Setting the goal is like setting a compass so that you know which way the ship is heading."

Wen also set an 8% growth target during legislative sessions in previous years. But Beijing's challenge in the past was how to keep its galloping economy from overheating. In 2007, China's economy expanded by 13%. That has fallen to 6.8% in the fourth quarter of last year.




By Don Lee and Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told Sri Lanka's president on Monday of deep U.S. concern over deteriorating conditions and increasing loss of life in the government-designated "safe zone" of northern Sri Lanka where civilians are supposed to be shielded.

In a telephone call, Clinton told President Mahinda Rajapaksa his soldiers should not fire into the civilian areas, State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said.

He said the secretary condemned the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam for using civilians as shields against government attack and shooting civilians who try to leave.

On Wednesday, the U.N. refugee agency said it was "outraged by the unnecessary loss" of hundreds of civilian lives.




The Associated Press, March 13, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named a senior U.S. diplomat Thursday to help expedite President Obama's order to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within a year. Daniel Fried, now Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, will, among other things, work to persuade other countries to accept Guantanamo detainees.

The decision to tap Assistant Secretary Fried, one of the State Department's highest-profile diplomats, for the Guantanamo post underscores the priority the Obama administration puts on closing the controversial detention facility.

Fried, a former U.S. Ambassador to Poland, worked at the White House National Security Council during the Clinton administration.

As Assistant Secretary for Europe in the Bush administration, Fried was a key figure in executing U.S. policy on Kosovo, European missile defense, and last year's Russia-Georgia conflict.

Announcing the appointment at a news briefing, State Department Acting Spokesman Robert Wood said Fried's European experience will be valuable as the administration turns to European countries, among others, to accept Guantanamo detainees who cannot be returned to their home countries.

"I think if you look at Assistant Secretary Fried's background, he's got a great deal of experience in working with countries in Europe and other places around the globe," he said. "The secretary [of state] felt that in order to help facilitate this process, we need somebody who's got the skills and insight who can do this, and she and others felt that Dan [Fried] was the appropriate choice for this."

The Bush administration opened the Guantanamo camp in 2002 to house terrorism suspects, many of them detained in the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Most detainees have been held without formal charges and the camp has long been the target of criticism from human rights groups and other governments.

Hundreds of the camp's original detainees have been repatriated or otherwise re-settled, but it still houses about 250 inmates. Fried will work to find countries to accept the 60 or more detainees who will not face U.S. criminal charges, some of whom would risk persecution if returned to their nations of birth.

Fried will remain in his European affairs post until the person nominated to succeed him, former Clinton White House foreign policy aide Philip Gordon, is confirmed by the Senate.

The Guantanamo portfolio has been handled on an interim basis by the State Department's ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, Clinton Williamson, who will return to that task full-time when Fried becomes available.




By David Gollust, Voice of America, March 13, 2009

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has suggested Iran be invited to an international conference on Afghanistan planned for the end of March.

Secretary of State Clinton called it "a big tent meeting" for "everyone who has an interest in the stability of Afghanistan to come together and determine how we're going to work toward the security and stability there." Iran, said Secretary Clinton, "would be invited as a neighbor of Afghanistan."

Iranian authorities have said they are considering the invitation to attend the conference. Iranian government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham said that Afghanistan is a top priority for Iran. "Afghanistan's progress is our progress and Afghanistan's stability is ours," he said.

America's top military commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Army General David McKiernan, as recently as this month accused Iran of supporting the insurgency in Afghanistan. But he also said that Iran has "legitimate" cultural and economic ties to its neighbor. "I am hopeful Iran can be part of the solution, as opposed to being part of the problem," he said.

Secretary of State Clinton pointed out that the Iranians "were helpful early on in our efforts in Afghanistan. ... There were almost daily contacts, a little known fact, between our Ambassador to Afghanistan and Iran's ambassador to Afghanistan. ... We sometimes lose track of the complex relationships that exist. So we will invite them. Whether they come is up to them.




Voice of America, March 12, 2009

Seeking to improve relations with Turkey, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton accepted Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan's invitation to visit Ankara on March 7.

"We have been good allies in NATO, ... and we have been friends," said Secretary of State Clinton:

"We have stood shoulder-to-shoulder to face common challenges. We share a commitment to democracy, a secular constitution, respect for religious freedom, a belief in free markets."

During their meeting, Secretary Clinton and Minister Babacan pledged to cooperate on a number of common goals, including helping to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza; expanding the natural gas and oil delivery infrastructure from the Caspian basin and Iraq to European and world markets; and enhancing cooperation between the 2 countries in fighting terrorism, especially against their common enemies al-Qaeda, and the Kurdistan Workers' Party terrorist group, or PKK.

Secretary Clinton and Minister Babacan also discussed Turkey's long-time aspiration of membership in the European Union, a goal that the United States fully supports.

"The United States believes it will strengthen Turkey, Europe and our trans-Atlantic partnership," said Secretary Clinton.

As a final gesture of friendship, Secretary Clinton announced that, as a reflection of the value the U.S. places on its friendship with Turkey, President Barack Obama will visit Turkey next month. When President Obama comes to Turkey, said Secretary Clinton, "he will find not only a partner for the challenges and opportunities that we face together, but a friend for all times and all challenges that lie ahead."




Voice of America, March 12, 2009

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that he will open a conference this month on the way forward in Afghanistan with the message that any military surge must be accompanied by "a political surge."

The Netherlands government said it will host the one-day ministerialmeeting in The Hague on March 31 and invite Afghanistan's neighbors, including Iran, as well as the United States and other nations contributing to military operations and reconstruction efforts in the war-shattered country. Aid donors and international organizations are also being invited.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed the meeting earlier this month, as President Barack Obama's administration formulates its strategy in Afghanistan.

Ban told a news conference that "Afghanistan is at another crossroads" with presidential elections scheduled for Aug. 20 and the security situation continuing to deteriorate.

The war against Taliban rule in Afghanistan seemed won when a U.S.-led invasion ousted the Islamist regime in 2001. But the militant movement has regained control of large swathes of the country, U.S. and NATO forces have been unable to reverse the gains, and the outlook appears increasingly bleak.

Last month, Obama ordered 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan to bolster the record 38,000 American forces already there.

"This conference offers an opportunity to define a common way forward," Ban said. "Afghanistan is still going through a very fragile and volatile situation in terms of security and their domestic politics. Therefore we need to address all these issues from a comprehensive perspective."

The secretary-general said that when he met Obama at the White House on Tuesday he commended "his new and fresh look" at Afghanistan and said "strengthening military capacity will be absolutely necessary" to improve security.

"But any military surge, I emphasized to President Obama, must be accompanied by a political surge," he said.

"This political surge can be done by President (Hamid) Karzai and his government in engaging themselves with many other leaders both in the government and the opposition," he said. "And also by the international community's helping the Afghanistan government to strengthen and improve their relationship with neighboring countries."

By EDITH M. LEDERER, The Associated Press, March 13, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) - Advocates fear the Obama administration may be putting the human rights issue on the back burner to focus instead on coping with the global economic crisis and national security.

President Barack Obama sought the moral high ground on human rights with his early order to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and declaration that the United States would never again torture prisoners.

Those moves - which won nearly unanimous international praise - were made soon after Obama took office. He sought to repair the U.S. image abroad, correcting what he believed were mistaken Bush administration policies that had left the United States on the diplomatic outs with much of the world, even with some traditional allies.

But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dulled the luster, rights advocates say, when she said during a trip to Asia that the administration - while still deeply concerned about human rights in China - could not let that interfere with cooperation with Beijing on the worldwide economic crisis and the fight to ease global climate change.

"We fear she may be setting this tone as a signal to the rest of the world that human rights are not going to be one of the main issues for the administration," said T. Kumar, Amnesty International advocacy director for Asia. "Trade and security should not be promoted at the expense of human rights."

Clinton pushed back Thursday after a Washington meeting with China's foreign minister, noting she and Yang Jiechi had a significant engagement on human rights and the situation in Tibet.

"Human rights is part of our comprehensive dialogue" with China, she said. "It doesn't take a front seat, a back seat or a middle seat. It is part of the broad range of issues that we are discussing."

Beyond China, however, there is a considerable list of Obama positions that have raised doubts about how far the new president will shift from the policies of his predecessor.

- The administration has filed a legal brief that echoed Bush in maintaining that detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights and arguing that enemy combatants held at Bagram Airfield cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detention.

- Government lawyers continued to invoke the state secrets law in a federal court case that involves the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, in which U.S. operatives seized foreign suspects and handed them over to other countries for questioning. The law blocks the release of evidence the government deems secret and potentially harmful to U.S. security.

- The administration is feeling out Uzbekistan, which has one of the worst human rights records among the former Soviet republics, about using an air base to provide supplies and troops to Afghanistan. The move became necessary after neighboring Kyrgyzstan declared it was canceling the U.S. lease for a base in that Central Asian country.

- Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently greatly scaled back expectations in Afghanistan, declaring the United States was not going to be able to leave behind anything close to a western-style democracy. The U.S. rationale for its seven-year engagement in the country rested partly on having driven the Taliban from power. The Islamic fundamentalists ran a brutal regime that was particularly harsh in its treatment of women. The administration has recently said it was ready to reach out to Taliban members who are willing to work with the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

Those and other human rights issues trouble advocates, but they emphasize Clinton's very public remarks regarding China.

"Part of her challenge diplomatically is going to be able to work on many fronts," said Amnesty International's Curt Goering. "The United States cannot be credible on any issue unless it remains credible on human rights."

He said Amnesty does not deny the need for pragmatism, but insists the United States must at the same time "signal it is serious about human rights."

Kumar, likewise, acknowledged the pragmatism argument but said Clinton could have delivered her message in closed-door meetings with the Chinese. He said her public comments on human rights were bound to inspire serious questions about U.S. intentions under Obama.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was asked this week about comments by the Dalai Lama, the revered leader of Tibetan Buddhists who fled to exile as Tibet's 1959 uprising against Chinese rule collapsed. The Dalai Lama said Tibetans were living in "hell on earth" because of Chinese repression.

"The United States respects the territorial integrity of China and considers Tibet to be part of China," Gibbs said. "At the same time, we're concerned about the human rights situation in Tibet."

Gibbs noted that Washington believes the Chinese government increased cultural and religious repression in Tibetan areas last year, and urged Beijing to engage in further negotiations with the exiled leader.

"We believe that substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama's representatives that makes progress and brings about solutions to long standing issues is the best way to achieve true and lasting stability in Tibet," Gibbs said, in a muted response to the perennial and fundamental human rights sore point.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood also rebutted the criticism in response to a Washington Post editorial that said Clinton "continues to devalue and undermine the U.S. diplomatic tradition of human rights advocacy."

Wood said: "She realizes you have to sit down with, for example, her Chinese counterpart and make these points on human rights. But she also knows that's not necessarily going to get you what you want at the end of the day, so you've got to find new and creative ways to influence the human rights situation in China and that's what she's trying to do."

Obama and Clinton will likely face even stiffer criticism as they move forward with a policy designed to repair U.S. standing globally. They are trying to show world leaders that Washington is once again determined to engage the world through diplomacy rather than what critics saw as the Bush administration's tendency to rely on diktat.

The mission appears to be especially delicate when it comes to human rights, an issue that stands to block linkage with a number of countries unless the administration finds a way to finesse it by maintaining Washington's historic standards while not using them as a blunt instrument.

By STEVEN R. HURST, The Associated Press, March 13, 2009