Officially Persona Non Grata

February 11, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Obama administration 

In his column yesterday, Dick Morris explained that with layers of diplomats, cabinet officials, and foreign policy advisers who report directly to the President, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is robbed of clout and a specific issue to call her own, ostensibly a lonely Secretary of career bureaucrats. Special Middle East envoy George Mitchell will be the inevitable point man in press reports from Jerusalem, Richard Holbrooke will be credited for his work at the epicenter of Islamic extremism, rising to Cabinet level Ambassador Susan Rice will be seen as a hard nosed negotiator opposite of Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on 1st Avenue and 49th, and National Security Adviser General Jim Jones and Clinton nemesis Samantha Powers are a stroll away from the Oval Office:

So what is Hillary’s mandate? Of what is she secretary of State? If you take the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan out of the equation, what is left? One would have to assume that the old North Korea hands in the government would monopolize that theater of action. What, precisely, is it that Hillary is to do? The question lingers.

Echoing, Morris, that would leave her with the task and achievement of stopping North Korea from going nuclear, right? After all she is set to visit East Asia next week. Well not so fast:

Stephen Bosworth, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, is expected to be named as the U.S. envoy to six-party talks on curbing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

The sources spoke on condition they not be identified, noting that the selection of the envoy was a sensitive matter before U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China next week.

Reached at home, Bosworth declined to comment on whether he may be named the six-party envoy. A State Department spokesman also declined comment on the matter.

Near the top of Clinton’s agenda will be discussing how to approach North Korea, which committed in 2005 to abandon its nuclear programs under a six-party deal struck in talks among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

But Pyongyang went on to test a nuclear device in 2006, has since been slow to carry out agreements on disabling its plutonium-based program and has refused to commit to a verification regime, leaving the multilateral process stalled.

Analysts believe that among Clinton’s main objectives in Asia is to reassure U.S. allies Japan and South Korea that the United States will not bargain over their heads in talks with North Korea and will consult closely on negotiating strategy.

Hillary might just have relished her role as member of a “team of rivals,” but it won’t be long till she ambandons her role as stradivarius.

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