Secretary Clinton to Head Delegation to the U.N. for the Nonproliferation Treaty Review
Good times:
Secretary Clinton to lead U.S. Delegation to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will lead the U.S. delegation to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations in New York City, which begins Monday, May 3.
The Secretary’s role underscores the Obama Administration’s top-level commitment to revitalizing and strengthening the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).Other members of the delegation will include Ambassador Susan Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations; Ellen Tauscher, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security; Tom D’Agostino, NNSA Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and Administrator; and Ambassador Susan Burk, Special Representative of the President for Nuclear Nonproliferation.
The Review Conference meets every five years to assess the status of the world’s nuclear nonproliferation efforts and to reach a consensus on further steps to strengthen it. For 40 years, the Treaty has been the cornerstone of our efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, material and technology. As more states and non-state actors seek to acquire nuclear weapons, nuclear terrorism and proliferation have become the gravest threats of the 21st century.
Secretary Clinton will underscore the need to revitalize and strengthen the grand bargain in the NPT: nations with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament, nations without nuclear weapons will not seek them, and all nations have the right to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
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Stacy, this comment is unrelated to story above, and I know you covered the Newsweek article several days ago, but I didn’t get my copy until today. It might be worth a second posting for reactions. Here are mine:
1) She’s on the cover as “Obama’s Bad Cop,” with a photo with her chin jutting out, and an expression on her face that sayd, “Go ahead, make my day.” Better than all the stories about her being marginalized and irrelevant, but still, can’t they just give credit where credit is due?
2) To my surprise, the rest of the article is surprisingly positive and does give credit where credit is due for her key role in numerous foreign policydirectives involving Iran, Russia, and Israrel, and according to Newsweek, she more or less single-handedly salvaged something positive out of the Copenhagen climate summit: “It was political hardball, Hillary style, and it had helped to isolate Beijing. Now Obama was closing the deal Hillary set up.”
3) However, the few exceptions to the generally laudatory tone were truly outrageous:
“She has no real strategic vision,” says an NSC official [who lacked the cojones to go on record - sorry, I'm editorializing], “But she’ll get done what she has to do. She’s the good little Methodist girl. In the end she’ll have her list of nine or 10 things she has to do and check them off one by one.” Yeah, and skewering other people in the administration off the record will NOT be one of them, a**hole.
“Leslie Gelb, the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, says he doesn’t think Clinton is of the caliber of James Baker, the George H.W. Bush secretary of state who was perhaps the last real superstar on the job. ‘She’s very smart,’ he says. ‘She understands all the issues. You can have a good discussion with her on almost any [subject]. But she doesn’t pretend to be, nor is she, a strategist…”
Fortunately, Gates and Jones seem to like and respect her and come to her defense repeatedly in the article.
4) The article ends by saying, “She’s occasionally hinted to friends that she may not last out the first term. Pressed about that now, she looks down and replies, ‘We’ll see.’” What’s up with that? Is she bowing out of politics, or gearing up for another Presidential run? I’ve had the fantasy that if the Democrats tank in November and Obama’s approval ratings continue to decline, would he be pressured to step aside and let someone else (read: Hillary) run in 2012? I know, I know, it’s a pipedream, but I prefer it to the idea of Hillary leaving us altogether!
End of rant.
The story is available online now for everyone to read and it is a “very good” read. Thanks for bringing it to our attention:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/236938/page/1
The reference Stacy made last week was to a blog on Newsweek by another author. I had no idea Hillary would be the cover story of Newsweek this week. As you note the story is “overall” positive and points out Hillary’s pragmatic strength and charisma and underlines why you want Hillary on your side in a fight and when the going gets tough. We all saw and admired her steely doggedness and resolve very clearly in the primaries. I will make more comments about the story if Stacy choses to refer to the article in tomorrow’s blog post.
Carolyn- I took this comment and copied over to the post I just created about the Newsweek story, so the comment is now in two places. Just so ‘ya know.