RIP Richard Holbrooke

About the only news of any non-local sort I heard during my trip to SC was of Richard Holbrooke's aortic tear and his subsequent death.

I was sorry to hear of his passing.

Al Kamen: And Now for the Clinton Team

Al Kamen has more today on possible appointments at State:

And Now for the Clinton Team

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is bringing in a well-connected foreign policy hand to serve under policy planning chief Anne-Marie Slaughter. Derek Chollet, who in 2004 was a foreign policy adviser to vice presidential candidate John Edwards and helped former secretaries of state James A. Baker III and Warren M. Christopher write their memoirs, will become deputy director of policy planning at the State Department.

Chollet is particularly close to veteran diplomat Richard C. Holbrooke, Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, having served as his speechwriter at the United Nations. Most recently a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, Chollet will help Slaughter -- an academic from Princeton -- navigate Washington's policy world.

Clinton is also looking for an assistant secretary for public affairs. Candidates include two Clinton White House veterans. Calvin Mitchell, now executive vice president of communications at the New York Fed, was director of public affairs at the National Security Council and assistant press secretary at the Clinton White House.

Mary Ellen Glynn, now gone private at Pyramid Communications on the West Coast, had been spokeswoman for former U.N. ambassador Holbrooke, a spokeswoman at State and White House deputy press secretary. Also oft-mentioned is Doug Hattaway, a Hillary Clinton spokesman during the campaign who's developed a communications business in Boston.

One question the Clinton folks are sorting out is whether the assistant secretary also handles the daily briefings to keep the media at bay. If the spokesman is not part of the secretary's inner circle, then his utility is much reduced, and the jackals will seek other game. But that means they'll have to work harder, which makes them surlier. That's why media folks like the models set by insiders such as Margaret Tutwiler or James P. Rubin at State or Michele Davis at Treasury.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

I've been remiss in telling you anything about the new folks coming in at the State Department, and I thought I would begin to try to remedy that.

You may have heard long ago that Secretary Clinton will have two Deputies (D in State Department shorthand), James B. Steinberg and Jacob Lew.

Steinberg will have the role vacated by Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte (and will be considered the Principal Deputy). Steinberg served as deputy national security adviser in Bill Clinton's administration.

Lew, former Office of Management and Budget director during President Clinton's administration, will focus on budget and resources. His appointment is to what is essentially a new position at the Department. There is usually there is only one deputy, and this may be a sign of Secretary Clinton's interest in expanding resources for the department. I certainly hope so. It is clear from her welcoming remarks and the subsequent visit by President Obama that both Secretary Clinton and the President are committed to revitalizing the role of diplomacy in national security policy, and the Department needs more resources to do that job.

It seems that Under Secretary for Political Affairs Bill Burns (P in State Department shorthand) and Under Secretary for Management Pat Kennedy (M) will both be staying on. I think that will be good both for continuity and for keeping careerists in prominent positions.

A former top State Department official during President Clinton's administration, Wendy R. Sherman, may be to be returning to the Department, possibly in another stint as counselor (C) to the Secretary.

Al Kamen, in today's In the Loop in the Washington Post, had these picks:

Daniel Benjamin, a terrorism expert at the Brookings Institution who had been Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's terrorism adviser during the presidential campaign, appears to be joining the State Department as assistant secretary for counterterrorism. "The Next Attack," a book he co-authored, opens with: "We are losing . . ."

Jennifer E. Sims, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for intelligence coordination and Senate intelligence committee aide who is now a Georgetown professor, is returning to Foggy Bottom to head the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

[...]

Rose Gottemoeller is reportedly coming back from the Carnegie Institute's Moscow office to be assistant secretary of state for verification.

[...]

There still appear to be openings at State for top jobs minding South Asia -- but no one seems to want them now, because the odds are you'll never know what's really going on in your region what with special envoy Richard C. Holbrooke in charge. Ditto for the Middle East post, but they might decide to just elevate the highly regarded career deputy, Jeffrey D. Feltman, to take care of things new special envoy George J. Mitchell (and maybe Dennis Ross) don't care about.

I guess this also means that Elizabeth Jones, the former Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (EUR), who had been mentioned as the new A/S for Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), has bowed out of consideration. I would be happy to see Ambassador Feltman get the top spot at NEA, not just because he is a careerist but because he is an all-around decent guy. As for who would take the A/S position in SCA, I haven't heard. Kurt Campbell, who had been at the Pentagon in the Clinton administration as deputy assistant secretary for Asia-Pacific matters, is still apparently the choice to be assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs (EAP).

RHH: New emphasis on diplomacy welcome

I found this editorial in the Rock Hill (SC) Herald from their retired editor, who is also the father of an FSO.

New emphasis on diplomacy welcome
By Terry Plumb - The Herald

During her first day on the job last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presided over an event of some significance.

President Obama and Vice President Biden came to the State Department to affirm their confidence in Clinton. She, in turn, introduced two seasoned diplomats called back into service to resolve conflicts between Israel and its neighbors, and the ongoing strife in Afghanistan and Pakistan, respectively.

Not surprisingly, more media attention has been paid to Obama's announcements on torture and closing the prison at Guantanamo, but neither should eclipse what else took place at Foggy Bottom on Thursday.

Biden's presence may have been intended to dispel the idea -- fomented by a slip of Jill Biden's lips -- that Hillary Clinton was not necessarily Obama's first choice to lead State.

"Mr. President, your choice of our colleague, Sen. Clinton, is absolutely the right person, in my view, at the right moment in American history," Biden gushed.

Few in the audience doubted that had he wanted the job, the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would be secretary of state. The personal diplomacy was appreciated by his audience, nonetheless.

Obama himself deferred to his appointee. It was Clinton who introduced George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke, A-team diplomats charged with our thorniest problems abroad.

The appointments came as no surprise. True to fashion, Mitchell's and Holbrooke's new jobs had been leaked to the press hours earlier. By the time they were formally introduced, the world knew the new sheriff in town was sending our best negotiators into the fray.

It was only after Mitchell and Holbrooke spoke, however, that our new president took the microphone. I find it hard to imagine either George W. Bush or Bill Clinton showing such deference to subordinates. Clearly, Obama wanted to signify that his administration would restore diplomacy to its proper role.

"And part of what we want to do is to make sure that everybody understands that the State Department is going to be absolutely critical to our success in the years to come," Obama told State Department employees "and you individually are going to be critical to our success in the years to come."

My wife and I were in the audience seven years earlier when then-Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed 97 new Foreign Service officers, including our older daughter. We therefore were heartened by President Obama's next remark: "And we want to send a signal to all kinds of young people who may be thinking about the Foreign Service that they are going to be critical in terms of projecting not just America's power, but also America's values and America's ideals."

Others have noted that Obama's visit to State precedes his first trip to the Pentagon. At the same time, by retaining Robert Gates as secretary of defense and Gen. David Petraus over U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama previously had shown that he values continuity in the military chain of command.

With State, it's another matter. Secretary Clinton follows two public servants who were undercut by the White House. Powell's tenure had a bright beginning but floundered after he was duped by the neocons looking for the flimsiest justification to invade Iraq. Condoleezza Rice, also a respected public figure, never was given a winnable hand. Her ultimate indignity came recently when Israeli Prime Minister Olmert publicly boasted he browbeat President Bush into repudiating a ceasefire Rice had crafted for conflict in Gaza.

Just as every basketball team is undefeated until after its first game of the season, success in diplomacy is easier to predict than to achieve. As George Mitchell, architect of the agreement that ended centuries of conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, put it, "In the negotiations which led to that agreement, we had 700 days of failure and one day of success."

That a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the war in Afghanistan could take 700 days or longer to negotiate is painful to contemplate.

Then again, as Mitchell put it so well: "Conflicts are created, conducted and sustained by human beings; they can be ended by human beings."

Like Two Rock Stars In One Day

Everyone knew President Obama was coming yesterday. It was in the Washington Post and the New York Times (I'm sure security just LOVED that).

I was glad that he did not come in with Secretary Clinton when she first came into the building in the morning. That was HER moment to shine. And to tell us that diplomacy matters again. President Obama then came later to re-enforce this new truth with the appointment of Senator George Mitchell as a special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Ambassador Richard Holbrooke as an envoy for Afghanistan/Pakistan (and I love that we have a President who knows how to pronounce that!). Soft power, or as Secretary Clinton calls it, Smart Power, is back. And I'd have to say the Department is THRILLED!

I was disappointed not to be among the ones selected to hear him speak, but I did get to hear him, Vice President Biden, and Secretary Clinton via our Department broadcast on BNET.

Secretary Clinton, in her introduction, said, "Anything short of relentless diplomatic efforts will fail to achieve peace." Amen. Vice President Biden seconded that thought, saying: "We are going to invigorate our nation's committment to diplomacy....For too long, we have put the bulk of the burden on the military." Amen again!

President Obama's remarks were again inspiring (and I must add, some of the most balanced I have heard in a long time on the Israeli-Paelstinian conflict...I liked that he said: "Now, just as the terror of rocket fire aimed at innocent Israelis is intolerable, so, too, is a future without hope for the Palestinians"). Of diplomacy and those of us serving America's foreign policy objectives, President Obama said:

My appearance today, as has been noted, underscores my commitment to the importance of diplomacy and renewing American leadership. And it gives me an opportunity to thank you for the services that you perform every single day.

Sometimes I think the American public doesn't fully understand the sacrifices that you and your families make, the dedication that is involved in you carrying on your tasks day in, day out.

And I know I speak for Joe Biden, as well as everybody else on this stage, when we tell you that we are proud of you. You are carrying on a vital task in the safety and security of the American people.

And part of what we want to do is to make sure that everybody understands that the State Department is going to be absolutely critical to our success in the years to come, and you individually are going to be critical to our success in the years to come. And we want to send a signal to all kinds of young people who may be thinking about the Foreign Service that they are going to be critical in terms of projecting not just America's power, but also America's values and America's ideals.

[...]

You can read the entire text of his remarks at Dead Men Working.

There is also a nice piece in Time that explains a bit about why folks in the Department are so optimistic:

The euphoria that greeted Hillary Clinton's arrival at the State Department on Thursday was not unfamiliar. Every few years, the usually reserved diplomats at Foggy Bottom drop their world-weariness and get all googly-eyed over a new leader: When Colin Powell took charge in January 2001, he was mobbed by star-struck Foreign Service Officers hoping he'd reverse the department's diminishing stature under Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright. In early 2005, their adulation was even more desperate as they greeted Condoleezza Rice following Powell's four-year emasculation at the hands of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney.

What the downcast diplomats really seek is someone who will return the State Department to the central role it played in the days when American diplomacy shaped the most important world events. And they embraced Secretary Clinton with fervor, as she arrived promising a new era of robust diplomacy. With President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at her side, she underscored that promise by announcing two high powered envoys to take charge of diplomatic efforts in two key hot spots: Richard Holbrooke was named Special Adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistan, while Senator George Mitchell was named special envoy for the Middle East.

[...]

There are reasons to be optimistic that Holbrooke and Mitchell, and Clinton herself for that matter, are part of a new beginning for American diplomacy. Obama had made rejuvenating diplomacy a centerpiece of his campaign, and he has named a serious and strong-willed team whose members, as much as anything, hate to fail. Both envoys are known to be energetic in the field and to have records of peace-making achievement, Holbrooke in brokering the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the Bosnia conflict, and Mitchell in negotiating the Good Friday Agreement that marked the beginning of the end of the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland.

[...]

If the weary diplomats at the State department want nothing more than action on the diplomatic front, they're certainly going to get it from Holbrooke and Mitchell. Whether the two men will actually succeed may depend on the policies that guide their efforts and on Hillary Clinton's skills in managing them. She had a simple message for everyone at Foggy Bottom on her first day at work. "This is a team," she told the gathered diplomats, and "We are not any longer going to tolerate the kind of divisiveness that has paralyzed and undermined our ability to get things done for America." Says Levy of the New America Foundation: "I think you can make it work."

As my A-100 coordinator Charlie used to say to us each morning when we came in, It is a Great Day to be serving this Great Nation!