Secretary Clinton Hosts Trilateral Talks with Pakistan and Afghanistan

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with Afghanistan's Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, left, and Pakistan's Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

Photo credits: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Watching Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s poise in visiting with one head of state after another in recent weeks while keeping the ignorant dolts in the media at bay has been a rewarding experience in itself. You had to love the way she reminded the press during her Asian trip that stating the obvious isn’t news.

Clinton is on the go. Between her Asian trip and her upcoming visit to the Middle East, she has hosted “valuable” trilateral meetings with Afghan foreign minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta and his Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

The Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung reports:

The unprecedented trilateral talks were part of a U.S. effort to encourage cooperation between the neighboring governments over terrorist inroads in both countries. They came as the Obama administration is conducting a strategic review of the foundering Afghan war effort and of its policies toward Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Delegations from both countries included defense and intelligence ministers, as well as diplomatic chiefs.

"Our basic purpose was to exchange views on the strategic issues now being reviewed in our policy review by the Obama administration," Clinton said. "That goal has been amply fulfilled." No specific agreements were announced.

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A Great Slide Show of a Radiant SoS Clinton’s Trip to Asia

Today’s Washington Post features an outstanding slide show of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent trip titled Madam Secretary Travels to Asia.

Hillary Clinton, America’s Top Diplomat, Visits Tokyo

Photo credits: AP

On her history-making first trip abroad, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reassures Japan of its status as an American ally and pauses during her visit in Tokyo to firmly respond to North Korea’s threats to conduct a missile launch.

The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler reports:

"If North Korea abides by the obligations it has already entered into and verifiably and completely eliminates its nuclear program, then there will be a reciprocal response, certainly from the United States," Clinton said. "But the decision as to whether North Korea will cooperate in [negotiations], end provocative language and actions, is up to them -- and we are watching very closely."

Clinton, who arrived here on the first stop of her Asian tour Monday, also surprised the embattled government of Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso by extending an invitation for him to visit the White House on Feb. 24, making him the first foreign leader to receive such an invitation from President Obama.

At the top of her game as a diplomat and world citizen, Clinton also participated in several ceremonial events:

At an elaborate arrival ceremony Monday night, Clinton lauded the U.S.-Japanese partnership, calling it "a cornerstone of our efforts around the world." She addressed a group of dignitaries that included two female Japanese astronauts who participated in the U.S. space shuttle program and Japanese Special Olympics athletes who recently competed in Idaho.

On Tuesday morning, Clinton participated in another welcoming ceremony and a purification rite at a Shinto shrine to former Emperor Meiji. She was given tea and exchanged gifts with the main priests, telling them that she appreciated the message of "harmony and peace that this shrine represents."

Later, she told about 200 U.S. Embassy employees that the notion of peace and harmony was "not only a good concept for religious shrines, it's a good concept for America's role in the world. We need to be looking to create more balance, more harmony."

Breaking ground in her role as secretary of state, Kessler reports that Clinton is the first U.S. secretary of state in nearly 50 years to visit Asia during his or her first trip abroad.

Dick Morris Gets It Wrong: The Critical Importance of Hillary’s Trip to Asia

Dick Morris, removed from President Bill Clinton’s political team in 1996, continues to seek revenge in his attacks on Hillary Clinton. Morris posted in the Hill on Monday a piece titled Hillary’s incredible shrinking role. Here’s the lead paragraph: “Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is finding that her job description is dissolving under her feet, leaving her with only a vestige of the power she must have thought she acquired when she signed on to be President Obama’s chief Cabinet officer.”

You’ve got it wrong, Dick.

Robert D. Kaplan in the Atlantic sets the record straight:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has chosen Asia as the destination for her first overseas trip. Starting this Sunday, she’ll be on a week-long trip to Japan, South Korea, China, and Indonesia. This has significance for several reasons.

Asian economies have been dramatically expanding since the 1970s – no surprise there. But what is less widely recognized is their equally dramatic military expansion, which has transformed them from low-tech land forces to high-tech, civilian-military, air and sea post-industrial complexes. Asia is bristling with nationalism and weaponry, even as Europe drifts into functional pacifism (despite its contribution to NATO forces in Afghanistan). It is this joining of economic might with military might that makes Asia the strategic focal point of the new century.

The Bush Administration understood this reality, but could not address it because it was preoccupied with Iraq and Afghanistan. The new Obama Administration is also preoccupied with Iraq and Afghanistan. But whereas former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was running all over the world on her own, the Obama White House has reorganized the top levels of the State Department so that certain issues, like the Greater Middle East, can be delegated to special envoys, allowing Clinton to give Asia the attention it deserves.

The Bush strategy was to leverage Japan and India militarily and diplomatically against a rising China, even as it sought good relations with Beijing. President Obama will do the same – for there really is no other choice. The difference will be in the energy applied to the task. Half of life is showing up, as the cliché goes, and Secretary Clinton has signaled with her first trip that she plans to show up often in Asia.

A measure of the new administration’s realization of the importance and nuances of Asia is demonstrated by Clinton’s decision to add Indonesia to the itinerary. Indonesia is crucial for many more reasons than the fact that President Obama went to school there for a few years as a child. It is the largest Muslim country in the world and the fourth most populous one. It commands the narrow Strait of Malacca, which is the world’s energy highway, where supertankers transport Middle Eastern oil to the burgeoning middle class fleshpots of the Pacific Rim. Thailand – Southeast Asia’s former political linchpin – is polarized and increasingly unstable, and Malaysia and Singapore are facing their own difficult political transitions, but Indonesia seems to be on its way to becoming an authentically stable Muslim democracy.

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