WASHINGTON - As tens of thousands of Iranian protesters take to the streets in defiance of the government in Tehran, officials in Washington are debating whether President Obama's response to Iran's disputed election has been too muted.

Mr. Obama is coming under increased pressure from Republicans and other conservatives who say he should take a more visible stance in support of the protesters.

Even while supporting the president's approach, senior members of the administration, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, would like to strike a stronger tone in support of the protesters, administration officials said.

Other White House officials have counseled a more cautious approach, saying harsh criticism of the government or endorsement of the protests could have the paradoxical effect of discrediting the protesters and making them seem as if they were led by Americans. So far, Mr. Obama has largely followed that script, criticizing violence against the protesters, but saying that he does not want to be seen as meddling in Iranian domestic politics.

Even so, the Iranian government on Wednesday accused American officials of "interventionist" statements.

But several administration officials acknowledged that Mr. Obama might run the risk of coming across on the wrong side of history at a potentially transformative moment in Iran.

The administration's concern over how to calibrate the response to the protests in Iran reflects the competing goals Mr. Obama is trying to balance: keeping faith with democracy advocates in Iran while not staking out a position that is so tough that it kills any chance of engagement with the Iranian government on America's national security interests, including the Iranian nuclear program and Iran's support for militant Islamist organizations like Hamas and Hexbollah.

Some criticism of the Obama administration's cautious posture may be politically opportunistic, coming from rivals who are eager to draw distinctions between Republicans and Democrats, to portray the administration as generally weak when it comes to international confrontation.

But Mr. Obama also drew criticism from politically neutral observers when he said in an interview on Tuesday with The New York Times and CNBC that from an American national security perspective, there was not much difference between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hussein Moussavi, his closest competitor in the election.

"Either way," Mr. Obama said, the United States is "going to be dealing with an Iranian regime that has historically been hostile to the United States, that has caused some problems in the neighborhood and is pursuing nuclear weapons."

The remark struck critics as off key and dismissive toward Mr. Moussavi, when he has become a symbol of freedom and democracy in Iran. "Obama's posture has been very equivocal, without a clear message," said Representative Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican who is the House minority whip. "Now is the time for us to show our support with the Iranian people. I would like to see a strong statement from him that has moral clarity."

Several administration officials, while acknowledging some unease about Mr. Obama's measured policy, pushed back against the criticism. "He's the president of the United States," one senior official said. "We don't get to say that it's about 100,000 people on the streets and nothing else. It absolutely is about that, but when there are a range of issues we have to deal with, including the nuclear one, you don't have the luxury of just focusing on one thing."

Another senior administration official said he worried that if the United States were perceived as trying to influence the outcome of the election, it would be difficult, perhaps even impossible, for the White House to negotiate later with the Iranian government about its nuclear program.

"If they think what we're about is regime change rather than changing the behavior of the regime, they're likely to hunker down," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter.

But some foreign policy experts questioned whether after recent events, the United States should or even could sit down to a negotiating table with a badly discredited Mr. Ahmadinejad.

To be sure, the United States is in a more delicate position than other countries because of its enormous symbolism in Iran, where "Death to the United States" is still chanted at Friday Prayer.

So Mrs. Clinton, on a visit to Niagara Falls, Ontario, last weekend, offered a noncommittal comment on the election, saying, "We obviously hope that the outcome reflects the genuine will and desire of the Iranian people."

Then the Canadian foreign affairs minister, Lawrence Cannon, stepped to the same microphones to express Canada's "deep concern" about voting irregularities, and demanded a "fair and transparent counting of ballots."

Many Iran experts lauded Mr. Obama's measured stance just after the election. But some of that support evaporated on Tuesday when he said there was not much difference between Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Moussavi.

"For Barack Obama, this was a serious misstep," said Steven Clemons, director of the American strategy program at the New America Foundation. "It's right for the administration to be cautious, but it's extremely bad for him to narrow the peephole into an area in which we're looking at what's happening just through the lens of the nuclear program."

Mr. Obama's comments deflated Mr. Moussavi, who is rapidly becoming a political icon in Iran, even supporters of Mr. Obama's Iran policy say.

"Up until now, the president had very thoughtfully calibrated his remarks on Iran, but this was an uncharacteristic and egregious error," said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "People are risking their lives and being slaughtered in the streets because they want fundamental change in the way Iran is governed. Our message to them shouldn't be that it doesn't make much difference to the United States."

By Helene Cooper and Mark Landler, The New York Times, June 17, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton fractured her right elbow during a fall Wednesday, her chief of staff said.

Clinton was on her way to the White House when she fell and injured her elbow, chief of staff Cheryl Mills said in a statement released late Wednesday.

Clinton was treated at The George Washington University Hospital, just a few blocks from State Department headquarters, before going home. She will undergo surgery to repair her elbow in the coming week, Mills said.

"Secretary Clinton appreciates the professionalism and kindness she received from the medical team who treated her this evening and looks forward to resuming her full schedule soon," Mills said.

Clinton had been scheduled to join actress Angelina Jolie on Thursday morning at a Washington event marking World Refugee Day. That event has been removed from Clinton's public schedule.

The Associated Press, June 17, 2009

Twenty-year-old Oxana Rantchev left her home in Russia in 2001 for what she believed was a job as a translator in Cyprus. A few days later, she was found dead after attempting to escape the traffickers who tried to force her into prostitution.

Oxana's story is the story of modern slavery. Around the world, millions of people are living in bondage. They labor in fields and factories under threat of violence if they try to escape. They work in homes for families that keep them virtually imprisoned. They are forced to work as prostitutes or to beg in the streets. Women, men and children of all ages are often held far from home with no money, no connections and no way to ask for help. They discover too late that they've entered a trap of forced labor, sexual exploitation and brutal violence. The United Nations estimates that at least 12 million people worldwide are victims of trafficking. Because they often live and work out of sight, that number is almost certainly too low. More than half of all victims of forced labor are women and girls, compelled into servitude as domestics or sweatshop workers or, like Oxana, forced into prostitution. They face not only the loss of their freedom but also sexual assaults and physical abuses.

To some, human trafficking may seem like a problem limited to other parts of the world. In fact, it occurs in every country, including the United States, and we have a responsibility to fight it just as others do. The destructive effects of trafficking have an impact on all of us. Trafficking weakens legitimate economies, breaks up families, fuels violence, threatens public health and safety, and shreds the social fabric that is necessary for progress. It undermines our long-term efforts to promote peace and prosperity worldwide. And it is an affront to our values and our commitment to human rights.

The Obama administration views the fight against human trafficking, at home and abroad, as an important priority on our foreign policy agenda. The United States funds 140 anti-trafficking programs in nearly 70 countries, as well as 42 domestic task forces that bring state and local authorities together with nongovernmental organizations to combat trafficking. But there is so much more to do.

The problem is particularly urgent now, as local economies around the world reel from the global financial crisis. People are increasingly desperate for the chance to support their families, making them more susceptible to the tricks of ruthless criminals. Economic pressure means more incentive for unscrupulous bosses to squeeze everything they can from vulnerable workers and fewer resources for the organizations and governments trying to stop them.

The State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report, released this week, documents the scope of this challenge in every country. The report underscores the need to address the root causes of human trafficking -- including poverty, lax law enforcement and the exploitation of women -- and their devastating effects on its victims and their families.

Since 2000, more than half of all countries have enacted laws prohibiting all forms of human trafficking. New partnerships between law enforcement and nongovernmental organizations, including women's shelters and immigrants' rights groups, have led to thousands of prosecutions, as well as assistance for many victims.

The 2009 report highlights progress that several countries have made to intensify the fight against human trafficking. In Cyprus, where Oxana Rantchev was trafficked and killed, the government has taken new steps to protect victims. Another example is Costa Rica, long a hub for commercial sex trafficking. This year, it passed an anti-trafficking law; trained nearly 1,000 police, immigration agents and health workers to respond to trafficking; launched a national awareness campaign; and improved efforts to identify and care for victims. This progress is encouraging. Much of it is the result of the hard work of local activists such as Mariliana Morales Berrios, who founded the Rahab Foundation in Costa Rica in 1997 and has helped thousands of trafficking survivors rebuild their lives. Advocates such as Mariliana help spur change from the bottom up that encourages governments to make needed reforms from the top down.

We must build on this work. When I began advocating against trafficking in the 1990s, I saw firsthand what happens to its victims. In Thailand, I held 12-year-olds who had been trafficked and were dying of AIDS. In Eastern Europe, I shared the tears of women who wondered whether they'd ever see their relatives again. The challenge of trafficking demands a comprehensive approach that both brings down criminals and cares for victims. To our strategy of prosecution, protection and prevention, it's time to add a fourth P: partnerships.

The criminal networks that enslave millions of people cross borders and span continents. Our response must do the same. The United States is committed to building partnerships with governments and organizations around the world, to finding new and more effective ways to take on the scourge of human trafficking. We want to support our partners in their efforts and find ways to improve our own.

Human trafficking flourishes in the shadows and demands attention, commitment and passion from all of us. We are determined to build on our past success and advance progress in the weeks, months and years ahead. Together, we must hold a light to every corner of the globe and help build a world in which no one is enslaved.

By Hillary Rodham Clinton, The Washington Post, June 17, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) - As North Korea threatens nuclear war, President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak will be eager to show the North the unity of their alliance and a determination not to back down.

North Korea's pledge to expand its nuclear programs gives their meeting Tuesday at the White House a sense of urgency. The presidents probably will express their refusal to accept the North as a nuclear weapons state and condemn recent missile and nuclear tests.

Before leaving Seoul, Lee said he supported Obama's appeal for a world without nuclear weapons. However, he told The Wall Street Journal, "we are faced with North Korea trying to become a nuclear power, and this really is a question we must deal with now."

The United States, during Lee's visit, is likely to pledge its continued commitment to use its military muscle to protect the South should the North attack. Such comments are welcome in Seoul and Tokyo, no matter how many times U.S. officials repeat them.

Lee's talks with Obama come on the second day of a three-day visit also scheduled to include meetings with U.S. trade envoy Ron Kirk, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton welcomed Lee to Washington on Monday, the same day tens of thousands rallied in Pyongyang to condemn sanctions imposed by the United Nations after the country's latest nuclear test.

Lee's office released a statement saying Clinton had called for close cooperation between South Korea, the U.S. and Japan in implementing the U.N. sanctions to "get North Korea to realize that its bad behavior will bring due consequences."

Lee told Clinton that "as long as the United States and its allies maintain a firm stance, North Korea's belief that it will be rewarded for its bad behavior if it waits long enough will dissipate," the statement said.

North Korea is reportedly readying a possible test of a missile that could reach Alaska. The North also may be preparing for a third nuclear test in defiance of the U.N. sanctions.

On Capitol Hill Tuesday, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn told lawmakers that North Korean missiles could threaten the continental United States if the reclusive rogue nation continues to develop its capability. Lynn agreed with an assessment by Sen. John McCain that the U.S. should be prepared for a "worst-case scenario" with North Korea.

The U.S. government officially confirmed Monday that North Korea carried out an underground atomic test in late May. The Americans said the blast was somewhat larger than the country's first test, conducted in 2006.

Victor Cha, a senior Asia adviser in President George W. Bush's administration, said another nuclear test could motivate U.N. member states to actually enforce the sanctions specified in the U.N. resolution against the North.

Lee has infuriated North Korea since he took office in early 2008. He ended a decade of liberal rule in which South Korea sought to embrace the North and refrained from criticism, a so-called "sunshine" policy that provided aid without demanding concessions. Pyongyang regularly calls Lee a traitor.

While the nuclear standoff will top discussions, another tense issue looms for Lee and Obama: an ambitious South Korean-U.S. free trade agreement to slash tariffs on goods and services.

The deal was painstakingly negotiated but currently is in limbo, stalled over U.S. lawmakers' worries it could hurt an already suffering American auto industry.

The agreement signed in 2007 has been promoted as a potential $10 billion boon to the U.S. economy. Failure, supporters say, would threaten U.S. standing in an important region.

Obama, however, has said the deal does not adequately deal with an imbalance that has heavily favored South Korean automakers. His administration is now reviewing the deal.

By FOSTER KLUG , The Associated Press, June 16, 2009

How is Hillary Clinton doing as secretary of State? Two recent quotes tell you all you need to know.

On May 27, frustrated by unusually thoroughgoing U.S. opposition to Israeli settlements on the West Bank, Benjamin Netanyahu complaines, "What the hell do they want from me?" They: Clinton and Barack Obama.

A couple of months earlier, Colin Powell, asked to comment on Clinton's attempt to redirect American foreign policy toward diplomacy and foreign aid, said: "We all know we ought to be moving in this direction, but it takes money." We: Clinton, Powell, and the foreign-policy establishment.

Just over a year ago, Clinton was bottoming out in her doomed presidential race, telling reporters she was soldiering on against Obama because, after all, "we all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California." Now, she has turned herself into Obama's greatest asset, on Capitol Hill as much as around the world, in fashioning a national-security policy that has closed off all policy differences between the former Democratic rivals, co-opted many Republicans, and left the rest of the administration's opponents astoundingly marginalized.

On the inside, Clinton has steadily accumulated power while expending hardly any political capital. For one thing, she has stirred an effective mix of politicos and diplomats into the top tiers of the State Department. Hillary has Cheryl Mills, a lawyer best known for defending Bill Clinton during impeachment, running her staff. And she has divided the position of Deputy Secretary of State into two jobs: supersmart Jim Steinberg, who was deputy national security adviser under Bill Clinton but supported Obama in 2008, is her policy maven, while Jack Lew is her management chief. Lew helped Hillary secure a 10 percent increase in the State Department's budget from Obama while Tim Geithner was still figuring out how to turn the lights on in his office.

Further, Clinton hasn't made mistakes. There have been no Joe Biden-like gaffes, Tom Daschle-like embarrassments, or Judd Gregg-like turnarounds coming from Hillary. Or from her husband - these days, Bill Clinton would have us believe he spends his time shopping for trinkets, unable even to get Hillary on her cell phone.

Meanwhile, nobody else has developed an alternative foreign-policy power center within the administration. Obama likes Biden, but the vice-president is no match for Hillary in mano-a-mano bureaucratic combat. For example, Clinton favored sending 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, while Biden opposed the move. The result: "She crushed him," according to Republican Mark Kirf of Illinois. At the same time, National Security Adviser Jim Jones has been an utter cipher; when Time's Mark Halperin graded the Obama administration, he gave Hillary an A- ("significant, powerful, worldly, respected"), but had to give Jones an "incomplete." And Obama's presidential envoys, such as Richard Holbrooke in Afghanistan and Dennis Ross in Iran, are mostly old Clinton hands who aren't about to usurp any authority from Hillary.

In public, Clinton has spent the last six months fundamentally realigning American foreign policy away from reliance on military force, toward what she calls (in a wise abandonment of the lefty academic phrase "soft power") "smart power" - more diplomacy and international economic assistance. She has also been striving to ensure zero daylight between her and Obama on any issue, big or small, whatever positions she might have taken as a New York senator or presidential candidate. If Clinton minds toiling in Obama's shadow, or representing her former rival as America's best face to the world, she hasn't shown it. With Hillary, it's always hard to tell where duty stops and happiness begins, and her new job has brought out her cheerfulness and indefatigability at the same time; as she put it on her first trip to Asia, "Showing up is not all in life, but it counts for a lot." And whether it's laying down conditions for Cuba's readmittance to the Organization of American States or appearing on the Indonesian teen variety show Awesome, Clinton has been showing up, albeit fairly quietly, all around the planet.

On April 23, Hillary smacked down Representative Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican who had tried to scold Obama for "warmly greeting" Hugo Chavez. "We spent the last eight years trying to isolate Chavez, and what has been the result?" Hillary replied. "We want your feedback, but President Obama won the election. He beat me in a primary, in which he put forth a different approach, and he is now our president." Something similar happened last weekend, when she told George Stephanopoulos that Obama had passed the "3 a.m." test that she had posed in the primaries. Clinton has become a master of selling Obama simply by stating her support for him. And conversely, by expressing that support as an act of volition, she is demonstrating her power, if not her independence.

The overall effect of Hillary's efforts has been to bolster her reputation for being smart, effective, and a team player without associating her too strongly with the wrenching policy changes, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Obama has thrust himself far into the spotlight. And the results have been fairly amazing. Clinton's approval ratings have been consistently above 70 percent - higher than Obama's - with majority support even among Republicans. And media coverage has been orgiastic, probably peaking so far with Andrea Mitchell calling Clinton a "foreign-policy superstar" on the Today show. Even Obama probably never imagined how much mileage he and Clinton would be able to get out of their "kiss, make up, and go off to work around the globe" routine.

Finally, nobody has enabled Hillary's rehabilitation like congressional Republicans and their talk-radio allies. Since Obama's election, the neocons have doubled down on full-throated Cheneyism, pushing torture and preventive if not endless war. And from William Kristol and Newt Gingrich calling for an attack on North Korea to John Bolton wanting Israel to bomb Iran to Daniel Pipes saying, "I would vote for Ahmadinejad," the leading lights of today's GOP are pushing George H. W. Bush–type Republicans, such as Powell, Brent Scowcroft, and a large chunk of the country straight out of the Republican Party. There's nothing but upside in that dynamic for Clinton: Already established in the public mind as less multi-culti and quite possibly tougher than Obama, she now also appears to be a sane, sober alternative to the crazies running the GOP.

And for the moment, the opposition doesn't realize how much it should care. "I realized today that I'd be a happier person if Hillary Clinton were president," a financial contributor to National Review Online wrote last week. "That scared me enough to make a donation." Keep sending those $100 checks, pal, and your fantasy could still come true.

By Peter Keating, New York Magazine, June 14, 2009

Barack Obama may have been texting, tweeting, and YouTubing circles around Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential campaign, but now that he's her boss, the secretary of state is catching up. Meet Hillary Clinton 2.0 - the tech-friendly, Web-savvy version of the former candidate and New York senator who's pushing what insiders call 21st-century statecraft: enhancing diplomacy through technology.

"She pushes us to think big and to take big chances and to try new approaches," says Alec Ross, an Obama techie Clinton tapped to be senior adviser for innovation at State. "She's sort of the godmother of all of this," he adds of Clinton, who's used her personal BlackBerry since 2006, though not inside the security-sensitive walls of State. The secretary of state especially likes using cellular phones to connect people around the globe. "Particularly in the developing world, people are increasingly getting their information through mobile phones," explains Ross. "So we at the State Department are thinking about how that can be a distribution channel for good information."

To try it out, State recently proposed that Americans use their cellphones to donate money to Pakistani refugees from the war-and-terrorism wracked Swat Valley. When Clinton heard about it, she took over, announcing the campaign at the White House. To make sure it worked, she tried it out on the ride over. On her cellphone she texted "SWAT" to 20222, and an automatic $5 donation was added to her bill. A nonprofit group handles the money for the United Nations refugee agency. "You can't do something that fast and from the podium of the White House without it being hers and without her strong support," says Ross.

What's next? State's eyeing Web video and social networking sites to extend statecraft. "It's about how can you reach large numbers of people who otherwise would be difficult to impossible to reach," says Ross.

By Nikki Schwab, U.S News & World Report, June 14, 2009

NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario (AP) - The U.S. on Saturday refused to accept hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim of a landslide re-election victory in Iran and said it was looking into allegations of election fraud.

"We are monitoring the situation as it unfolds in Iran, but we, like the rest of the world, are waiting and watching to see what the Iranian people decide," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at a news conference with Canada's foreign affairs minister, Lawrence Cannon.

Minutes after Clinton spoke, the White House released a two-sentence statement praising "the vigorous debate and enthusiasm that this election generated, particularly among young Iranians," but expressing concern about "reports of irregularities."

Neither Clinton nor the White House mentioned Ahmadinejad or his chief rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, by name, or acknowledged the incumbent's victory declaration.

Iranian authorities reported that Ahmadinejad was re-elected with 62.6 percent of the vote. He called on the public to respect the vote. But Mousavi, a former prime minister who has become the hero of a youth-driven movement seeking greater liberties and a gentler face for Iran abroad, rejected the results and accused authorities of rigging Friday's vote.

In brief remarks in Canada, Clinton cited "the enthusiasm and the very vigorous debate and dialogue" in the run-up to the vote. "We obviously hope that the outcome reflects the genuine will and desire of the Iranian people," she said.

Cannon said his country was "deeply concerned" by reports of irregularities in the election. "We're troubled by reports of intimidation of opposition candidates' offices by security forces," he said. "Canada is calling on Iranian authorities to conduct fair and transparent counting of all ballots."

The election outcome will not sharply alter Iran's main policies or sway major decisions, such as possible talks with Washington or nuclear policies. Those crucial issues rest with the ruling clerics headed by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But the election focused on what the office of the Iranian president can influence: boosting Iran's sinking economy, pressing for greater media and political freedoms, and being Iran's main envoy to the world.

Iran does not allow international election monitors. During the 2005 election, when Ahmadinejad won the presidency, there were some allegations of vote rigging from losers, but the claims were never investigated.

By CAROLYN THOMPSON, The Associated Press, June 13, 2009