The Pew Global Attitudes project has released their 2009 report, which means we finally have some hard numbers to see whether the election of Barack Obama has altered global perceptions of the United States. 

And it turns out the answer is yes in most places: 

The image of the United States has improved markedly in most parts of the world, reflecting global confidence in Barack Obama. In many countries opinions of the United States are now about as positive as they were at the beginning of the decade before George W. Bush took office. Improvements in the U.S. image have been most pronounced in Western Europe, where favorable ratings for both the nation and the American people have soared. But opinions of America have also become more positive in key countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, as well.

Here are the numbers:

Most of the results are not surprising.  The Obama effect is pretty substantial in Western Europe and Latin America, and nonexistent or negative in the Middle East and Russia.  A small positive effect in sub-Saharan Africa, though this is in pat due to the fact that U.S. favorables were already pretty high in that region. 

The surprising results are in Eastern Europe, Pacific Rim and South Asia.  Obama does poorly in Poland -- perhaps because he's been perceived as more accomodating towards Russia. 

In the Pacific Rim and India, however, favorability ratings increased by a fair amount.  I'm particularly surprised by the bump in India, given the occasionally prickly tone between the policymakers of the two countries. 

Question to readers:  Obama said a few weeks ago that he thought a soft power bump would help advance U.S. interests.  Given the data, do you agree? 

UPDATE:  Wow.  Kevin Drum digs through the report and finds an even better measure of the increase in U.S. standing -- asking respondents whether they think "America will do the right thing in world affairs."  The numbers here are pretty stunning: 

Wow.  I mean, wow.  In a lot of ways this is the more interesting result, because it suggests that other countries think the United States is now more competent. 

Yesterday there was a small but very public disagreement between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh:

[T]he clash between developed and developing countries over climate change intruded on the high-profile photo opportunity midway through Clinton's three-day tour of India. Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh complained about U.S. pressure to cut a worldwide deal, and Clinton countered that the Obama administration's push for a binding agreement would not sacrifice India's economic growth.

As dozens of cameras recorded the scene, Ramesh declared that India would not commit to a deal that would require it to meet targets to reduce emissions. "It is not true that India is running away from mitigation," he said. But "India's position, let me be clear, is that we are simply not in the position to take legally binding emissions targets."

"No one wants to in any way stall or undermine the economic growth that is necessary to lift millions more out of poverty," Clinton responded. "We also believe that there is a way to eradicate poverty and develop sustainability that will lower significantly the carbon footprint."

Both sides appeared to be playing to the Indian audience, with Ramesh taking the opportunity to reinforce India's bottom line.

Now, on the one hand, I'm shocked, shocked that the great powers have some disagreement over global warming.  And it should be noted that the rest of Clinton's India trip seems to have gone pretty well. 

That said, I'm also not surprised that the Indians are acting surly towards the Americans.  India did quite well uner the Bush administration on several dimensions.  On the security front, India and U.S. interests converged on anti-terrorism and nonproliferation.  On the economic front, the Bush administration refrained from criticizing the offshore outsourcing phenomenon that helped boost India's growth. 

The Obama administration has not been hostile towards India, but I think they have taken the state of bilateral relations for granted.  They've also committed a series of small blunders that riled New Delhi.  This began with the attempt to have special envoy Richard Holbrooke's remit include India, and includes the administration's appointment of Ellen Tauscher to be the new Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security (Tauscher led the fight against the India nuclear accord in the House).

It looks like Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be the first foreign dignitary to be the guest of President Obama for a state, so it's not like relations with New Delhi are being significantly downgraded.  Still, I'd expect little flare-ups like the one between Ramesh and Clinton to occur from time to time -- and it's not just about atmospherics. 

Watch this space at 1 PM Eastern time today, as I'll be liveblogging Hillary Clinton's speech today to the Council on Foreign Relations. 

3:00 PM:  State Department website back online -- here's a link to the text of the speech.   

2:07 PM:  That's a wrap, people -- State Department website still down, OK speech.  I'll leave the post-game analysis to the commenters. 

2:05 PM:  Haass closes by asking Clinton what her biggest surprise was in her first six months.  Pivots the question by pointing out the difficulties of getting people confirmed.  She ends graciously, faux acknowledging that now she realizes what a pain she must have been as a Senator when she queried Foggy Bottom. 

2:04 PM:  A Boeing guy asks what the State Department will be doing on export promotion and commercial diplomacy.  Clinton finesses the question by saying she takes the economic dimension of foreign policy seriously, arguing that economic components cannot be separated from foreign policy. 

2:00 PM:  Bob Lieber asks a question (he thinks the previous queries have been creampuffs).  If other engagement efforts don't work, can the U.S. live with a nuclear Iran?  Clinton's response:  "I'm not going to negotiate with Iran sitting here."  Basically says that she's not optimistic about direct negotiations with Iran, but argues that outsourcing U.S. diplomacy to the EU-3 really didn't work either. 

1:55 PM:  Good question about the policy dividends received to date from NATO allies on re-engaging allies.  Clinton's answer here was both candid and good -- i.e., this is not going to be easy, fears and anxieties need to be assuaged, we're hoping for more progress in the future.  Then she wandered into agricultural aid in Afganistan and I lost my focus there for a second. 

1:50 PM:  State Department website still down, by the way. 

1:49 PM:  Gets spoon-fed a question that allows her to elaborate on the new Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, patterned after the DoD's Quadrennial Defense Review (more here from Spencer Ackerman). 

1:47 PM:  Point-blank question about whether George Mitchell allowed that the completion of in-construction housing settlements in the occupied territories would be permitted.  Clinton ducks the question faster than Peyton Manning facing the New York Giants pass rush. 

1:42 PM:  Question about India.  Responds by pointing out how strong the bilateral dialogue is, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Sounds a bit more skeptical about engaging India (or a bit less briefed, take your pick). 

1:41 PM:  Glenn Kessler's take on the speech.  Intriguingly, there's nothing about the speech on the front of the New York Times website. 

1:40 PM:  Question about Iran.  Acknowledges that a post-election regime "puts a different complexion" on the government.  Nothing new, however. 

1:35 PM:  First question is on Palestine and Syria, whether she sees progress.  Her words say "maybe", but her tone says no.  Haass asks a good follow-up question on Hamas' role.  Clinton responds with boilerplate -- no change in the U.S. position. 

1:34 PM:  OK, speech over -- let's get to the Q&A which is always more interesting)!

1:31 PM:  Fires a warning shot across Timothy Geithner's bow by saying she wants to upgrade the State Deprtment's role in foreign economic policy.  I don't have a problem with that -- so long as the State Department officials actually know what they're talking about.  Also echoes SecDef Bob Gates' numerous speeches on this topic. 

1:29 PM:  Ah, Clinton clears up the idea of leveraging traditional sources of U.S. power -- she's talking about exemplarism.  Abolishing torture, reducing nuclear weapons, getting serious on global warming, having the U.S. as a shining city on a hill, etc.  She throughs in narco-trafficking into this section, and I'm not entuirely sure how that fits. 

1:25 PM:  Hmm.... State Department's website is now down.  Read into this what you will. 

1:24 PM:  On development, admits that the U.S. has given less as a percentage of GDP compared to other advanced industrialized states.  That sound you hear is the Center for Global Development jumping up for joy. 

1:21 PM:  The Iran section -- Clinton "appalled" by Iranian government action, but thinks not dealing with the Islamic Republic doesn't solve anything.  Acknowledges that the prospects of success have declined in recent weeks.  Still thinks its worth making the genuine offer for direct talks.  Recognizes Iran's right to civilian nuclear power, conditional on complying with the IAEA, but not a right to the military use of nuclear power. 

1:13 PM:  Clinton lists her travel schedule for the rest of the year.  Not-so-subtle message:  "Hey, you people who think I'm doing nothing?  Piss off." 

1:11 PM:  Ah, here's the meat of the speech:  the five pillars of Clinton's "smart power" approach: 

• Re-building alliancess and updating global governance structures;
• Engaging adversaries;
• The promotion of economic development as a "core pillar" of U.S. foreign policy;
• Merging the military and civilian components of power;
• Leveraging key sources of American power

That last one is a bit vague to me, so we'll see how that develops. 

1:10 PM:  So far, with the emphasis newtworks of non-state actors, "partnerships with people," and the emphasis on burnishing global governance structures, I'm seeing Anne-Marie Slaughter's fingerprints all over this sucker. 

1:08 PM:  Repeating a trope of President Obama's, there are some passages here where Clinton talks about how old IR concepts are out of date.  Disdains 19th century great power concerts and 20th century balance of power coalitions.   Replacing a "multipolar" world with a "multi-partner" world.  Meh. 

1:05 PM:  Cute, flip remark comparing U.S. foreign policy under the Bush administration to her elbow -- wounded, but getting better.   

1:04 PM:  An unsurprising laundry list of policy goals.  Free ponies are not discussed, which is too bad.   

1:03 PM:  According to Hillary, multi-tasking is a gender-laden term.  Who knew?  Well, besides women, of course. 

1:01 PM:  Talks about how President Obama has stressed "common interests, shared values, and mutual cooperation."  No mention of what happens when there's, you know, a divergence of values. 

12:59 PM:  Clinton immediately pulls what I'll call an Obama -- observing that the very sources of American vulnerability (interdependence, openness, etc.) are also our sources of strength.  It's a neat rhetorical trick. 

12:57 PM:  And we're off -- a few minutes early, no less! 

12:55 PM:  In an unconscious sign of how members of the foreign policy community prioritize things, I find it interesting that CFR president Richard Haass is moderating Clinton's speech, whereas Rogert Altman was the moderator when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner came to speak. 

11:21 AM:  FP's own Laura Rozen provides an excellent backgrounder to the speech itself. 

The speech matters for the future of U.S. foreign policy and Hillary Clinton's role in it.  I had a conversation with a prominent foreign policy professional who characterized Hillary Clinton as the most "invisible" Secretary of State he's seen to date.  I think this is partly due to her restricted travel during the elbow injury, partly due to her lack of confirmed subordinates, partly due to Barack Obama's genuine interest in foreign affairs, and mostly due to her style. 

If memory serves, when Clinton was elected Senator of New York she put her nose to the grindstone and did nothing flashy for the first six months.  In the process, she won the respect of colleagues on both sides of the aisle.  I suspect something similar has been going on for most of this year. 

This speech is designed to be her coming-out party.  Her friends, staffers and hangers-on have been trying to build some buzz and raise some expectations.  We'll see how this plays out -- live!

President Obama gave a speech today in Moscow outlining his view of the Russian-American relationship.  This was the part that stuck in my academic IR craw: 

There is the 20th century view that the United States and Russia are destined to be antagonists, and that a strong Russia or a strong America can only assert themselves in opposition to one another. And there is a 19th century view that we are destined to vie for spheres of influence, and that great powers must forge competing blocs to balance one another.

These assumptions are wrong. In 2009, a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonizing other countries. The days when empires could treat sovereign states as pieces on a chess board are over. As I said in Cairo, given our independence, any world order that -- given our interdependence, any world order that tries to elevate one nation or one group of people over another will inevitably fail. The pursuit of power is no longer a zero-sum game -- progress must be shared. (emphasis added)

If he had said, "The pursuit of prosperity is no longer a zero-sum game," I'd be fine with the passage.  I still think power is a zero-sum concept, however.  The two ideas are linked but hardly the same. 

Obama is hardly the first president to mangle IR concepts in his speeches -- remember "a balance of power that favors freedom"? 

Still, I hope that's a rhetorical flourish rather than a genuine belief of the administraion.  

Continuing the Iran discussion, I see John Boonstra at UN Dispatch takes issue (respectfully) with my recent prognostications.  John's rejoinder:

[A] Rubicon may indeed have been crossed, with no going back to "the way things were" in Iran. That certainly seems to be the consensus. But I also wonder if it might be a bit of wishful thinking. There's a tendency to imbue events as-they're-happening as more important than they may turn out to be. To take just the color revolutions to which it has been so trendy to compare the situation in Iran: Ukraine's "Orange" and Georgia's "Rose" (not to mention Kyrgyzstan's "Tulip") were certainly major events, but the hype that they generated at the time far surpasses the attention that those countries, modestly different though their governments might be, attract today.

I think more useful comparisons would be Tianenmen or, better, the monks' uprising in Burma in late 2007. What these examples -- or even, as I suggested before, those of Kenya or Zimbabwe -- show us is the possibility of an outcome distinct from Drezner's either-or (or both) model. At the time, many thought that Burma's junta couldn't possibly survive such a brutal onslaught against the country's most venerable institution. But...it survived. In Iran, the possibilities are simply too many to predict: Khamenei may retrench, and allow Ahmadinejad to take the fall; or, the two of them may make some sort of minor concession to the protestors; or again, they could simply wait until the crowds peter out. Revolution is not inevitable. In such an interesting situation, nothing is.

As someone leery of historical analogies and fond of nuance, I would like to agree with what John is saying.  Except that I don't. 

First, I think it's pretty clear Khamenei is not going to retrench.  The moment he said that Ahmadinejad's victory was a "divine victory," he sealed his position on the matter.  He can't back down now.    I'm pretty sure supreme leaders in Iran don't change political tack because of mass protests -- it undercuts their claim to be, you know, supreme leaders.  In his latest sermon, Khamenei is doubling down on his bet with Ahmadinejad. 

Is there any other way this ends without one camp or the other abjectly losing?  I don't think so.  Minor concessions will not mollify the protestors.  A "compact"-like solution doesn't work terribly well here, since the factions don't trust each other enough to believe that force won't be used down the road.  A re-run of the election won't work, because Khamenei's been digging in his heels and can't back down now.  A straight-out Revolutionary Guards-style coup is possible, but that's going to come with a lot of bloodshed. 

Second, I think Boonstra is slightly misreading my post.  I'm not sure that Ahmadinejad and Khamenei will be out of power soon.  What I am pretty sure of is that the only way they're going to stay in power from hereon in is through a display of brute force on a Tiananmen-like scale. 

Third, Boonstra raises a valid question, which is whether a genuine regime transition would really mean all that much.  Color revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan have not necessarily amounted to all that much.  Similarly, I see that Steve Walt has reverted to "regime type is irrelevant" arguments with regard to Iranian foreign policy. 

Hmmm....... nope, not persuaded.  There are two big differences in the case of Iran.  The first is that, unlike all the other color revolution countries, Iran is a regional heavyweight.  Every other color revolution government had to worry about a more powerful neighbor who liked the old regime better staring them down.  Iran is a more powerful and less divided country.  This does not mean that realipolitik pressures will not apply -- but it does mean that they are less binding than in the case of, say, Ukraine.  And because of Iran's material power, a possible Green Revolution matters more in more strategic areas, like the Persian Gulf. 

On the nuclear question, I take Walt's points, but I'm not sure how relevant they are after the past week.  Post-regime transition governments have been quite willing to give up nuclear programs in the past -- Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, to name a few.  Steve cites polls that show strong Iranian support for the nuclear program -- but those same polls also show strong opposition to creating nuclear weapons. 

Iran's security interests will remain paramount to any new government, of course.  But I do wonder just how much of Iran's insecurity has been a product of the current regime's own making.  Would a Mousavi/Rafsanjani regime be as insecure about its staus in the region? 

If, on the other hand, Khamenei and Ahmadinejad manage to keep their grip on power, I can't see them ever giving up their grip on their nuclear program, no matter what is on the table in negotiations. 

I'll leave this as an open question to readers -- to what extent would a post-Khamenei Iran have a different attitude towards its nuclear program? 

My pace on commenting on Iran has been about as sluggish as CNN's.  By my rough estimate, I'm now approximately 4,567 posts behind Andrew Sullivan on the Iran election. Let's try to get back in the game! 

In this post I want to look at what's likely to happen in Iran; the next post will look at what the Obama administration's response. 

OK, so, Iran. There are protests, riots, and Twitters galore -- will it amount to regime change? 

Alas, I think the answer is no.  I don't want this to be the answer.  No matter how I slice the data, however, I get to that outcome.

Let's stiputlate that the election results were rigged.  Here's the question -- why were they so blatant about it?  The speed and skewness of the "official" results seemed design to trigger disbelief. Was that intentional? 

Hey, you know what, I think it was.  University of Chicago political scientist Alberto Simpser has written about why authoritarian leaders like Khamenei would engage in electoral corruption (.pdf). The answer is not pretty: 

[A]n overwhelming victory today can send a powerful signal to the citizenry tomorrow – a large margin of victory can deter opposition turnout, discourage opposition coordination (e.g. when the opposition is fragmented into a number of parties), and increase the winner’s bargaining power with respect to electorally important social actors by rendering it less likely that they are pivotal in a winning coalition.

I suspect that this was the intent in Iran. The question is whether it will work. Khamenei has backtracked a little from his endorsment of Ahmadinejad as the winner, and now wants the Guardian Council to investigate allegations of election fraud. I suspect this is an effort to play for time, however, in order to get his security apparatus prepped for a more brutal crackdown. Twice in the past 10 years (1999 and 2003), this regime has been perfectly willing to crack down on reformist groups to secure its hold on power. I see no reason for Khamenei to hold back this time around. 

In other words, unless Iran's security apparatus starts to split, I don't see how this ends in any outcome other than Khamenei staying in power. 

What does this mean for the rest of the world?  On to the next post! 

By Daniel W. Drezner

I think the Obama administration has come up with a novel way of dealing with the North Koreans -- get everyone to talk about something else. 

Half-seriously, this is not a bad idea, because I'm not sure that anything else is going to work better (beyond my modest Britney Spears proposal).  For this decade, the following facts have held: 

1. North Korea wants to be able to trade its nuclear program for security guarantees and cash -- and then be able to do it again a few years later.
2. The leadership in Pyongyang is perfectly willing to starve its own population rather than concede a smidgen of autonomy.
3. No one is entirely sure about the internal politics of the DPRK elite.  This includes China, by the way. 
4. None of the actors in the region want North Korea to collapse.  China and Russia likes the buffer, Seoul doesn't want to pony up the cash for reunification, and Japan (and China) doesn't want a unified Korean peninsula. 
5. None of the actors in the region really want North Korea to proliferate either, but that's less important than a collapsing North Korea.  Proliferation is Somebody Else's Problem -- i.e., the Middle East rather than Northeast Asia. 
6. So, oddly enough, the ideal short-term solution for the region is for the continued existence of the DPRK regime, the absence of any new nuclear activity, and some kid of "strategic ambiguity" regarding North Korea's nuclear status. 
7. The alternatives to the repeated short-term carrot strategy are even less appealing.  There is no viable military option unless everyone is comfortable with the destruction of Seoul; there is no viable sanctions option unless China decides to cut off the energy tap, and they'll only do this if they're sure it won't lead to a stream of North Korea refugees entering Manchuria. 

The one thing that seems different this time around is that North Korea is really pulling out the stops this time to strip away the "pleasing illusion" that the U.N. Security Council will do something.  Paradoxically, this might actually goad China and Russia into doing something -- sanctions that might increase the likelihood of a DPRK collapse but also increase the likelihood of Pyongyang altering its behavior before that happens. 

If I, rather than my boss, were advising the Obama administration on this issue, the one other deliverable I would aim for in response to this latest provocation would be to get China to join the Proliferation Security Initiative.  China has resisted this for a whole bunch of reasons unrelated to North Korea.  If Beijing were to reverse course, it would make it much easier to engage in interdiction activities along North Korea's coast.  It would also signal to Pyongyang that, yes, there actually are some serious costs to thumbing one's nose at the U.N. Security Council.   

Am I missing anything?   

From Steve Walt: 

For some reason, AIPAC didn't invite me to speak at its policy conference this year.

Clive Crook wants to know what the Obama Doctrine will be in foreign policy: 

In domestic policy, an organising principle directs the innovation. Mr Obama wants to shove the US in the direction of a more social democratic – Americans say “progressive” – social contract, with universal healthcare and a tax and benefits system much more attuned to reducing inequality. Whether this is wise, feasible or what the country even wants is questionable, but the connecting theme is clear.

Is any such theme emerging in foreign policy? Can one begin to talk of an “Obama doctrine”?

(Let's skip the question of whether Crook's answer on the domestic front is correct {click here for an interesting take on that question}). 

Foreign policy doctrines often emerge after the fact -- i.e., someone looks at foreign policy decisions/actions and suggess a pattern or philosophy that tie everything together in one neat cognitive package. 

Looking at what Obama has done to date, I'd suggest that his foreign policy doctrine comes by way of Montesquieu -- crudely put, useless conflicts weaken necessary conflicts. 

To elaborate:  the United States suffers from an overextension of its foreign policy obligations.  With a weakened economy and a drop in U.S. standing, it is both costly and fruitless for the administration to continue policy conflicts that yield little beyond pleasing those invested in the policy status quo.

It looks like Obama and his foreign policy team have prioritized what issues they think are important -- righting the global economic ship, China, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, nuclear nonproliferation come to mind.  Those are the issues where the United States will stick to its preferred policy positions and be willing to accept no deal rather than a bad deal. 

One other issues -- Cuba, Venezuela, Iraq, trade policy, human rights, democratization, missile defense -- Obama's team sees little to be gained from continuing past policies that have borne little fruit.  Furthermore, by adjusting U.S. policy on these issues, the administration conserves resources, goodwill and focus for the first list of issues. 

Question to readers:  does this seem like an appropriate description?  If it is, do you agree with it?  Or is it just too soon to tell? 

I don't disagree with Steve Walt's read of Obama's Ankara speech (see Marc Lynch as well), or other hosannahs being heaped on Obama for his European tour.  Barack Obama acquitted himself well in London, Strasbourg, Prague and Ankara.  U.S. soft power would appear to be in a better place than it was, say, a year ago.

Does it mean anything, however?  I also don't disagree with Gideon Rachman's analysis of Obama's trip in the Financial Times:

On many levels, the new US president’s first tour of Europe was indeed a triumph. Mr Obama was articulate, ambitious and charming. His personal style has a touch of the emperor and a touch of the rock star – but with an appealing humility that is common to neither profession....

So Mr Obama scored very highly for style and ambition on his European tour. But can he deliver the substance? Here, the verdict has to be much more doubtful – for reasons that have more to do with the sheer difficulty of the situation he has inherited, rather than any particular failings on the part of the new president....

The new American president faces an economic disaster at home, a stalemated war in Afghanistan, unpredictable adversaries in places such as North Korea, and largely unhelpful allies in Europe. This week Mr Obama cemented the impression that he is an unusually gifted and intelligent politician. But that does not mean he will succeed. It could just be that he is the right man at the wrong time.

If there's any good news, it's that, after reading Arms Control Wonk, the North Koreans look more and more like an irritant rather than a threat.  

Question to readers:  will Obama's trip pay any long-term policy dividends?   

By complete accident Using my mastery of the interwebs, I've managed to get my name all over The National Interest online today. 

• My online essay asks a very deep question:  "what if the people who actually were right [about outlier events] also happened to be a**holes?"

• My first appearance on YouTube -- me discussing the global economy with TNI Editor Justine Rosenthal.  WARNING:  I look pretty rumpled.  [If only you had primped like this right before taping!!--ed.  If I had primped like that, I think the cameraman would have vomited on the camera.]   

• In the print edition of the journal, I review Les Gelb's Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy, an attempt to update Machiavelli to the 21st century.  You'll have to read the review to see what I think about the book. 

Go check them all out!!

Dean Stephen Bosworth sent out the following e-mail to the Fletcher School community less than an hour ago:

In the past few weeks, you have most likely seen news reports of my possible appointment as Special Representative for North Korea Policy.  I have wanted to keep you informed but naturally could not comment until Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had made a formal announcement.  Now that she has done so, I can confirm that I have accepted her offer.

This honor comes at a truly critical time as the Obama Administration begins to develop its strategy for engaging with North Korea.  I will serve as the U.S. representative to the six-party talks, which seek to find a peaceful resolution to security issues on the Korean Peninsula.
 
I want to assure you that, with the full support of our President Lawrence S. Bacow, our Chairman of the Board of Overseers Peter Ackerman, and Fletcher’s senior leadership team, I will continue to serve as Dean and will work to ensure Fletcher remains the world standard for graduate institutions of international affairs.  My commitment to The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy is undiminished.

Here's the Korea Times coverage on the announcement. 

The hard-working staff here at Danieldrezner.com wishes Dean Bosworth the best of luck in getting Pyongyang to agree to, er, anything.  As I said last week, "trying to manage faculty meetings at the Fletcher school is excellent prep work for negotiating with the obsteperous officials of the DPRK." 

From Amie Parnes' Politico story about internecine Clinton conflicts at the State Department:   

Sources familiar with the vetting process say Clinton is playing a role in the decisions and wants to keep some familiar faces around.

Cheryl Mills, who served as Clinton’s general counsel and played a major role in post-campaign operations, is likely to be named Clinton’s chief of staff, sources tell Politico. Clinton campaign aides credit Mills with helping to “bring order” to the Clinton campaign last year.

Seriously?  This was Mills' great achievement? 

By that standard, I look forward to the appointments of Richard Gere as ambassador to India, John Thain as undersecretary of state for economic affairs, and Alex Rodriguez as goodwill ambassador for baseball. 

Noam Scheiber reports on a battle a-brewin' within the Obama administration:

Foggy Bottom has spent the last month hinting at its designs on economic policy, which would presumably come at the expense of Treasury. The latest indications are that Hillary's first target may be the U.S.-China relationship, which Geithner's immediate predecessor, Hank Paulson, spearheaded in the Bush administration. Publicly, Treasury officials welcome a more active role for State. Privately, they say parting with Paulson's brainchild, the Strategic Economic Dialogue, is highly unlikely, noting Geithner's longstanding experience in the region. Let the border skirmishes begin.

On the one hand, this kind of turf war clearly needs to get settled in short order.

On the other hand, in a perverse kind of way, it's not a bad battle to have. Despite all the foreign policy heavyweights in the administration, China is kind of like the orphaned child looking through the window. Since Obama took office, I think it's safe to say that they haven't been feeling the love.

I normally abhor a big bureaucratic battle royale, but in this case it might be good for the Chinese to know that they're wanted.

Question to readers (and Laura Rozen and Megan Carpentier): who wins? Given the status quo -- in which Treasury controls the SED -- my money is on Geithner.