Hillary began by saying that a more effective air coalition is necessary along with ground forces emphasizing that local people must secure their own communities. She noted that an intelligence surge is needed and called upon Silicon Valley for assistance. She spoke of a need to create a safe zone for Syrians so that they would not have to leave. She said the Saudi government must prevent their citizens from contributing funds to terrorist groups. The Q & A was moderated by Fareed Zakaria.
Hillary Clinton laid out her comprehensive strategy for defeating ISIS and combatting the scourge of radical jihad during remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations on Thursday. In the face of horrific terrorist attacks like the recent ones in Paris, Sinai, Beirut and Nigeria, she said the nation faces a choice – between fear and resolve. In this speech, Hillary Clinton urged the country to choose resolve.
The strategy Clinton outlined hinges on three main elements – defeating ISIS in Syria, Iraq, and across the Middle East; disrupting and dismantling the growing terrorist infrastructure that facilitates the flow of fighters, financing, arms, and propaganda around the world; and hardening our defenses and those of our allies against external and homegrown threats.
“Thank you to Richard and thanks for the great work that the council does under your leadership. It truly is an important resource for us all. Fareed, I look forward to having the conversation with you, everyone here at the Council, and Mr. Mayor, thank you very much for being here and for everything you are doing and will do to keep our city safe and strong. I am very grateful
I wanted to come here, to our city, which has shown such resilience in the face of terrorism, to talk about the events of the past week and the work we must do together to protect our country and our friends.
When the United States was hit on 9/11, our allies treated that attack against one as an attack against all. Now it is our turn to stand in solidarity with France and all of our friends. We cherish the same values, we face the same adversaries, we must share the same determination.
After a major terrorist attack, every society faces a choice between fear and resolve. The world’s great democracies can’t sacrifice our values or turn our backs on those in need. Therefore, we must choose resolve. And we must lead the world to meet this threat.
Now, let us be clear about what we are facing.
Beyond Paris, in recent days, we have seen deadly terrorist attacks in Nigeria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey. And a Russian civilian airliner destroyed over the Sinai.
At the heart of today’s new landscape of terror is ISIS. They persecute religious and ethnic minorities, kidnap and behead civilians, murder children. They systematically enslave, torture, and rape women and girls.
ISIS operates across three mutually reinforcing dimensions: a physical enclave in Iraq and Syria,
an international terrorist network that includes affiliates across the region and beyond, and an ideological movement of radical jihadism. We have to target and defeat all three.
And time is of the essence. ISIS is demonstrating new ambition, reach, and capabilities. We have to break the group’s momentum and then its back. Our goal is not to deter or contain ISIS, but to defeat and destroy ISIS.
But we have learned that we can score victories over terrorist leaders and networks only to face metastasizing threats down the road. So we also have to play and win the long game.
We should pursue a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy – one that embeds our mission against ISIS within a broader struggle against radical jihadism that is bigger than any one group, whether it’s al Qaeda or ISIS or some other network. An immediate war against an urgent enemy and a generational struggle against an ideology with deep roots will not be easily be torn out.It will require sustained commitment and every pillar of American power. This is a worldwide fight – and America must lead it.
Our strategy should have three main elements. One, defeat ISIS in Syria, Iraq, and across the Middle East. Two, disrupt and dismantle the growing terrorist infrastructure that facilitates the flow of fighters, financing, arms, and propaganda around the world. Three, harden our defenses and those of our allies against external and homegrown threats.
Let me start with the campaign to defeat ISIS across the region. The United States and our international coalition have been conducting this fight for more than a year. It is time to begin a new phase and intensify and broaden our efforts to smash the would-be caliphate and deny ISIS control of territory in Iraq and Syria. That starts with a more effective coalition air campaign, with more allied planes, more strikes, and a broader target set. A key obstacle standing in the way is a shortage of good intelligence about ISIS and its operations.
So we need an immediate “intelligence surge” in the region, including technical assets, Arabic speakers with deep expertise in the Middle East, and even closer partnership with regional intelligence services. Our goal should be to achieve the kind of penetration we accomplished with al Qaeda in the past. This would help us identify and eliminate ISIS’s command and control and its economic lifelines. A more effective coalition air campaign is necessary, but not sufficient. And we should be honest about the fact that, to be successful, air strikes will have to be combined with ground forces actually taking back more territory from ISIS.
Like President Obama, I do not believe that we should again have a hundred thousand American troops in combat in the Middle East. That is just not the smart move to make here. If we have learned anything from 15 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is that local people and nations have to secure their own communities. We can help them and we should, but we cannot substitute for them.
But we can and should support local and regional ground forces in carrying out this mission. Now, the obstacles to achieving this are significant.
On the Iraqi side of the border, Kurdish forces have fought bravely to defend their own lands and to retake towns from ISIS. But the Iraqi national army has struggled. It is going to take more work to get it up to fighting shape. As part of that process, we may have to give our own troops advising and training the Iraqis greater freedom of movement and flexibility, including embedding in local units and helping target airstrikes.
Ultimately, however, the ground campaign in Iraq will only succeed if more Iraqi Sunnis join the fight. But that will not happen so long as they do not feel they have a stake in their country or confidence in their own security and capacity to confront ISIS.
Now, we have been in a similar place before in Iraq. In the first Sunni Awakening in 2007, we were able to provide sufficient support and assurances to the Sunni tribes to persuade them to join us in rooting out Al Qaeda. Unfortunately, under Prime Minister Maliki’s rule, those tribes were betrayed and forgotten. So the task of bringing Sunnis off the sidelines into this new fight will be considerably more difficult. But nonetheless we need to lay the foundation for a second Sunni Awakening.
We need to put sustained pressure on the government in Baghdad to get its political house in order, move forward with national reconciliation, and finally stand up a National Guard. Baghdad needs to accept – even embrace – arming Sunni and Kurdish forces in the war against ISIS. But if Baghdad will not do that, the coalition should do so, directly.
On the Syrian side, the big obstacle to getting more ground forces to engage ISIS – beyond the Syrian Kurds who are already deep in the fight – is that the viable Sunni opposition groups remain understandably preoccupied with fighting Assad, who let us remember has killed many more Syrians than the terrorists have. But they are increasingly seeing the threat from ISIS as well.
So we need to move simultaneously toward a political solution to the civil war that paves the way for a new government with new leadership, and to encourage more Syrians to take on ISIS as well. To support them, we should immediately deploy the Special Operations force President Obama has already authorized and be prepared to deploy more, as more Syrians get into the fight. And we should retool and ramp up our efforts to support and equip viable Syrian opposition units.
Our increased support should go hand-in-hand with increased support from our Arab and European partners, including special forces who can contribute to the fight on the ground. We should also work with the coalition and the neighbors to impose no fly zones that will stop Assad from slaughtering civilians and the opposition from the air. Opposition forces on the ground, with material support from the coalition, could then help create safe areas where Syrians could remain in the country rather than fleeing toward Europe. This combined approach would help enable the opposition to retake the remaining stretch of the Turkish border from ISIS, choking off its supply lines. It would also give us new leverage in the diplomatic process that Secretary Kerry is pursuing.
Of course, we have been down plenty of diplomatic dead-ends before in this conflict. But we have models for how seemingly intractable, multi-sectarian civil wars do eventually end. We can learn lessons from Lebanon and Bosnia about what it will take. And Russia and Iran have to face the fact that continuing to prop up a vicious dictator will not bring stability. Right now, I am afraid President Putin is actually making things somewhat worse.
Now to be clear though, there is a role for Russia to help for resolving the conflict in Syria. And we have indicated a willingness to work with them toward an outcome that preserves Syria as a unitary, non-sectarian state, with protections of the rights of all Syrians and to keep key state institutions in tact. There is no alternative to a political transition that allows Syrians to end Assad’s rule. Now, much of this strategy on both sides of the border hinges on the roles of our Arab and Turkish partners. And we must get them to carry their share of the burden, with military, intelligence, and financial contributions, as well as using their influence with fighters and tribes in Iraq and Syria.
Countries like Jordan have offered more, and we should take them up on it. Because ultimately, our efforts will only succeed if the Arabs and Turks step up in a much bigger way. This is their fight and they need to act like it.So far, however, Turkey has been more focused on the Kurds than on countering ISIS. And to be fair, Turkey has a long and painful history with Kurdish terrorist groups. But the threat from ISIS cannot wait.
As difficult as it may be, we need to get Turkey to stop bombing Kurdish fighters in Syria who are battling ISIS and become a full partner our coalition efforts against ISIS. The United States should also work with our Arab partners to get them more invested in the fight against ISIS.
At the moment, they are focused in other areas, because of their concerns in the region, especially the threat from Iran. That is why the Saudis, for example, shifted attention from Syria to Yemen. So we have to work out a common approach.
In September, I laid out a comprehensive plan to counter Iranian influence across the region and its support for terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas. We cannot view Iran and ISIS as separate challenges. Regional politics are too interwoven. Raising the confidence of our Arab partners and raising the costs to Iran for bad behavior will contribute to a more effective fight against ISIS.
And as we work out a broader regional approach, we should of course be closely consulting with Israel, our strongest ally in the Middle East. Israel increasingly shares with our Arab partners and has the opportunity to do more in intelligence and in joint efforts as well.
We should have no illusions about how difficult the mission before us really is. We have to fit a lot of pieces together, bring a lot of partners along, move on multiple fronts at once. But if we press forward on both sides of the border, in the air and on the ground, as well as diplomatically, I do believe we can crush ISIS’s enclave of terror.
And to support this campaign, Congress should swiftly pass an updated authorization to use military force. That will send a message to friend and foe alike that the United States is committed to this fight. The time for delay is over. We should get this done.
Now, the second element of our strategy looks beyond the immediate battlefield of Iraq and Syria to disrupt and dismantle global terrorist infrastructure on the ground and online. A terror pipeline that facilitates the flow of fighters, financing, arms, and propaganda around the world, has allowed ISIS to strike at the heart of Paris last week, and allowed al Qaeda affiliate to do the same at Charlie Hebdo earlier this year.
ISIS is working hard to extend its reach, establishing affiliates and cells far from its home base. And despite significant setbacks it has encountered, not just with ISIS and its ambitious plans but even al Queda, including the death of Osama bin Laden. They are still posing rape threats to so many. Let’s take one example. We have had a lot of conversation about ISIS in the last week. Let’s not al Queda. They still have the most sophisticated bomb-makers, ambitious plotters, and active affiliates in places like Yemen and North Africa.
So we can’t just focus on Iraq and Syria – we need to intensify our counterterrorism efforts across a wider scope. Most urgent is stopping the flow of foreign fighters to and from the war zones of the Middle East. Thousands, thousands, of young recruits have flocked to Syria from France, Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and yes, even the United States. Their western passports make it easier for them to cross borders and eventually return home, radicalized and battle-hardened.
Stemming this tide will require much better coordination and information sharing among countries every step of the way. We should not stop pressing until Turkey, where most foreign fighters cross into Syria, finally locks down its border. The United States and our allies need to know and share the identities of every fighter who has traveled to Syria.
We also have to be smart and target interventions that will have the greatest impact. For example, we need a greater focus on shutting down key enablers who arrange transportation, documents, and more. When it comes to terrorist financing, we have to go after the nodes that facilitate illicit trade and transactions.
The UN Security Council should update its terrorism sanctions. They have a resolution that does try to block terrorist financing and other enabling activities but we have to place more obligation on countries to police their own banks. And the United States, which has quite a record of success in this area, can share more intelligence to help other countries.
And, once and for all, the Saudis, the Qataris, and others need to stop their citizens from directly funding extremist organizations, as well as schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path toward radicalization. When it comes to blocking terrorist recruitment, we have to identify the hotspots – the specific neighborhoods and villages, the prisons and schools – where recruitment happens in clusters. Like the neighborhood in Brussels where the Paris attacks were planned. Through partnerships with local law enforcement and civil society – especially Muslim community leaders – we have to work to tip the balance away from extremism in these hotspots.
Radicalization and recruitment also is happening online. And there is no doubt we have to do a better job contesting online space, including websites and chat rooms where jihadists communicate with followers. We must deny them virtual territory, just as we deny them actual territory.
At the State Department, I built up a unit of communications specialists fluent in Urdu, Arabic, Somali, and other languages to do battle with extremists online. We need more of that, including from the private sector.
Social media companies can also do their part by swiftly shutting down terrorist accounts so they are not used to plan, provoke, or celebrate violence.
Online or offline, the bottom line is that we are in a contest of ideas against an ideology of hate – and we have to win it.
Now, let’s be clear though: Islam itself is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.
The obsession in some quarters with a “clash of civilizations” or repeating the specific words “Radical Islamic Terrorism” is not just a distraction, it gives these criminals, these murderers, more standing than they deserve and it actually plays into their hands by alienating partners we need by our side. Our priority should be how to fight the enemy.
In the end, it didn’t matter what kind of terrorist we called Bin Laden, it mattered that we killed Bin Laden. But we still can’t close our eyes to the fact that there is a distorted and dangerous strain of extremism within the Muslim world that continues to spread. Its adherents are relatively few in number, but capable of causing profound damage – most especially to their own communities throughout an arc of instability that stretches from North and West Africa to Asia.
Overlapping conflicts, collapsing state structures, widespread corruption, poverty, and repression have created openings for extremists to exploit. Before the Arab Spring, I warned that the region’s foundations would “sink into the sand” without immediate reforms. Well, the need has only grown more urgent.
We have to join with our partners to do the patient, steady work of empowering moderates and marginalizing extremists: supporting democratic institutions and the rule of law, creating economic growth that supports stability, working to curb corruption, helping train effective and accountable local intelligence, law enforcement, and counterterrorism services.
As we do this, we must be building up a global counterterrorism infrastructure that is more effective and adaptable than the terror networks we’re trying to defeat. When I became Secretary of State, I was surprised to find that nearly a decade after 9/11, there was still no dedicated international vehicle to regularly convene key countries to deal with terrorist threats.
So we created the Global Counterterrorism Forum, which now brings together nearly 30 countries, many from the Muslim world. It should be a clearinghouse for directing assistance to countries that need it, for mobilizing common action against threats.
And let’s not lose sight of the global cooperation needed to lock down loose nuclear material, and chemical and biological weapons – and keep them out of the hands of terrorists.
At the end of the day, we still must be prepared to go after terrorists wherever they plot, using all the tools at our disposal. That includes targeted strikes by U.S. military aircraft and drones, with proper safeguards, when there aren’t any other viable options to deal with continuing imminent threats. All of this – stopping foreign fighters, blocking terrorist financing, doing battle in cyberspace – is vital to the war against ISIS, but it is also lays the foundation for defusing and defeating the next threat and the one after that.
Now the third element of our strategy has to be hardening our defenses at home and helping our partners do the same against both external and homegrown threats.
After 9/11, the United States made a lot of progress breaking down bureaucratic barriers to allow for more and better information sharing among agencies responsible for keeping us safe.
We still have work to do on this front, but by comparison, Europe is way behind.
Today, European nations do not even always alert each other when they turn away a suspected jihadist at the border or when a passport is stolen. It seems like after most terrorist attacks, we find out that the perpetrators were known to some security service or another, but too often the dots never get connected. I appreciate how hard this is, especially given the sheer number of suspects and threats, but this has to change. The United States must work with Europe to dramatically and immediately improve intelligence sharing and counterterrorism coordination.
European countries also should have the flexibility to enhance their border controls when circumstances warrant. And here at home, we face a number of our own challenges.
The threat to airline security is evolving as terrorists develop new devices like non-metallic bombs, so our defenses have to stay, at least, one step ahead. We know that intelligence gathered and shared by local law enforcement officers is absolutely critical to breaking up plots and preventing attacks. So they need all the resources and support we can give them.
Law enforcement also needs the trust of residents and communities, including in our own country Muslim-Americans. This should go without saying, but in the current climate it bears repeating: Muslim Americans are working every day on the frontlines of the fight against radicalization.
Another challenge is how to strike the right balance of protecting privacy and security. Encryption of mobile communications presents a particularly tough problem. We should take the concerns of law enforcement and counterterrorism professionals seriously. They have warned that impenetrable encryption may prevent them from accessing terrorist communications and preventing a future attack.
On the other hand we know there are legitimate concerns about government intrusion, network security, and creating new vulnerabilities that bad actors can and would exploit. So we need Silicon Valley not to view government as its adversary. We need to challenge our best minds in the private sector to work with our best minds in the public sector. To develop solutions that will both keep us safe and protect our privacy. Now is the time to solve this problem, not after the next attack.
Since Paris, no homeland security challenge is being more hotly debated than how to handle Syrian refugees seeking safety in the United States.
Our highest priority, of course, must always be protecting the American people.
So yes, we do need to be vigilant in screening and vetting any refugees from Syria, guided by the best judgment of our security professionals in close coordination with our allies and partners.
And congress needs to make sure the necessary resources are provided for comprehensive background checks, drawing on the best intelligence we can get. And we should be taking a close look at the safeguards in visa programs as well. But we cannot allow terrorists to intimidate us into abandoning our values and humanitarian obligations.
Turning away orphans, applying a religious test, discriminating against Muslims, slamming the door on every single Syrian refugee – that is just not who we are. We are better than that.
And remember, many of these refugees are fleeing the same terrorists who threaten us.
It would be a cruel irony indeed if ISIS can force families from their homes and then also prevent them from ever finding new ones. We should be doing more to ease this humanitarian crisis, not less. We should lead the international community in organizing a donor conference and supporting countries like Jordan who are sheltering the majority of refugees fleeing Syria.
And we can get this right. America’s open, free, tolerant society is described by some as a vulnerability in the struggle against terrorism. But I actually believe it is one of our greatest strengths. It reduces the appeal of radicalism and enhances the richness and resilience of our communities.
This is not a time for scoring political points. When New York was attacked on 9/11, we had a Republican president, a Republican governor, and a Republican mayor, and I worked with all of them. We pulled together and put partisanship aside to rebuild our city and protect our country. This is a time for American leadership.
No other country can rally the world to defeat ISIS and win the generational struggle against radical jihadism. Only the United States can mobilize common action on a global scale.
And that is exactly what we need. The entire world must be part of this fight, but we must lead it.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about coalitions. Everyone seems to want one. But there is not nearly as much talk about what it actually takes to make a coalition work in the heat and pressure of an international crisis.
I know how hard this is because we have done it before–To impose the toughest sanctions in history on Iran. To stop a dictator from slaughtering his people in Libya. To support a fledgling democracy in Afghanistan.
We have to use every pillar of American power – military might but also diplomacy, development aid, economic and cultural influence, technology, and the force of our values, that is smart power.
You have to work with institutions and partners, like NATO, the EU, the Arab League, and the UN. Strengthen alliances and never get tired of old-fashioned shoe-leather diplomacy.
And, if necessary, be prepared to act decisively on our own, just as we did to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. The United States and our allies must demonstrate that free people and free markets are still the hope of humanity.
This past week, as I watched the tragic scenes from France, I kept thinking back to a young man the world met in January, after the last attack in Paris. His name was Lassana, a Muslim immigrant from Mali who worked at a kosher market. He said the market had become a new home and his colleagues and customers, a “second family.”
When the terrorist arrived and the gunfire began, Lassana risked his life to protect his Jewish customers. He moved quickly, hiding as many people as he could in the cold storage room and then slipping out to help the police.
“I didn’t know or care,” he said, “if they were Jews or Christians or Muslims. We are all in the same boat.”
What a rebuke to the extremists’ hatred.
The French government announced it would grant Lassana full citizenship. But when it mattered most, he proved he was a citizen already.
That is the power of free people. That is what the jihadis will never understand and never defeat.
And as we meet here today, let us resolve that we will go forward together and we will do all we can to lead the world against this threat that threatens people everywhere. Thank you all.”
Democratic presidential candidatel Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015. Clinton and Bernie Sanders are outlining the steps on Thursday they would take to combat the Islamic State group, each making major speeches less than a week after the deadly attacks in Paris. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York November 19, 2015. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
#ICYMI: Hillary often makes reference to this speech in Doha from January, 2011. In case you have never read that speech, here it is.
Accompanied by Chelsea, Hillary visited the Manhattan headquarters of the Council on Foreign Relations this morning to participate in “A Conversation with Hillary Clinton.” She shared the stage with CFR president Richard N. Haass to discuss Hard Choices, her career in public service, and current events. Longtime Clinton associate and family friend Vernon Jordan was in attendance.
This evening, both Chelsea and Hillary will be honored by the Wildlife Conservation Society for their Clinton Foundation efforts in the battle against the ivory trade.
Remarks on American Leadership at the Council on Foreign Relations
Remarks
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
January 31, 2013
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you, Richard, for that introduction and for everything you’ve done to lead this very valuable institution. I also want to thank the board of the Council on Foreign Relations and all my friends and colleagues and other interested citizens who are here today, because you respect the Council, you understand the important work that it does, and you are committed to ensuring that we chart a path to the future that is in the best interests not only of the United States, but of the world.
As Richard said, tomorrow is my last day as Secretary of State. And though it is hard to predict what any day in this job will bring, I know that tomorrow, my heart will be very full. Serving with the men and women of the State Department and USAID has been a singular honor. And Secretary Kerry will find there is no more extraordinary group of people working anywhere in the world. So these last days have been bittersweet for me, but this opportunity that I have here before you gives me some time to reflect on the distance that we’ve traveled, and to take stock of what we’ve done and what is left to do.
I think it’s important, as Richard alluded in his opening comments, what we faced in January of 2009: Two wars, an economy in freefall, traditional alliances fraying, our diplomatic standing damaged, and around the world, people questioning America’s commitment to core values and our ability to maintain our global leadership. That was my inbox on day one as your Secretary of State.
Today, the world remains a dangerous and complicated place, and of course, we still face many difficult challenges. But a lot has changed in the last four years. Under President Obama’s leadership, we’ve ended the war in Iraq, begun a transition in Afghanistan, and brought Usama bin Ladin to justice. We have also revitalized American diplomacy and strengthened our alliances. And while our economic recovery is not yet complete, we are heading in the right direction. In short, America today is stronger at home and more respected in the world. And our global leadership is on firmer footing than many predicted.
To understand what we have been trying to do these last four years, it’s helpful to start with some history.
Last year, I was honored to deliver the Forrestal Lecture at the Naval Academy, named for our first Secretary of Defense after World War II. In 1946, James Forrestal noted in his diary that the Soviets believed that the post-war world should be shaped by a handful of major powers acting alone. But, he went on, “The American point of view is that all nations professing a desire for peace and democracy should participate.”
And what ended up happening in the years since is something in between. The United States and our allies succeeded in constructing a broad international architecture of institutions and alliances – chiefly the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, and NATO – that protected our interests, defended universal values, and benefitted peoples and nations around the world. Yet it is undeniable that a handful of major powers did end up controlling those institutions, setting norms, and shaping international affairs.
Now, two decades after the end of the Cold War, we face a different world. More countries than ever have a voice in global debates. We see more paths to power opening up as nations gain influence through the strength of their economies rather than their militaries. And political and technological changes are empowering non-state actors, like activists, corporations, and terrorist networks.
At the same time, we face challenges, from financial contagion to climate change to human and wildlife trafficking, that spill across borders and defy unilateral solutions. As President Obama has said, the old postwar architecture is crumbling under the weight of new threats. So the geometry of global power has become more distributed and diffuse as the challenges we face have become more complex and crosscutting.
So the question we ask ourselves every day is: What does this mean for America? And then we go on to say: How can we advance our own interests and also uphold a just, rules-based international order, a system that does provide clear rules of the road for everything from intellectual property rights to freedom of navigation to fair labor standards?
Simply put, we have to be smart about how we use our power. Not because we have less of it – indeed, the might of our military, the size of our economy, the influence of our diplomacy, and the creative energy of our people remain unrivaled. No, it’s because as the world has changed, so too have the levers of power that can most effectively shape international affairs.
I’ve come to think of it like this: Truman and Acheson were building the Parthenon with classical geometry and clear lines. The pillars were a handful of big institutions and alliances dominated by major powers. And that structure delivered unprecedented peace and prosperity. But time takes its toll, even on the greatest edifice.
And we do need a new architecture for this new world; more Frank Gehry than formal Greek. (Laughter.) Think of it. Now, some of his work at first might appear haphazard, but in fact, it’s highly intentional and sophisticated. Where once a few strong columns could hold up the weight of the world, today we need a dynamic mix of materials and structures.
Now, of course, American military and economic strength will remain the foundation of our global leadership. As we saw from the intervention to stop a massacre in Libya to the raid that brought bin Ladin to justice, there will always be times when it is necessary and just to use force. America’s ability to project power all over the globe remains essential. And I’m very proud of the partnerships that the State Department has formed with the Pentagon, first with Bob Gates and Mike Mullen and then with Leon Panetta and Marty Dempsey.
By the same token, America’s traditional allies and friends in Europe and East Asia remain invaluable partners on nearly everything we do. And we have spent considerable energy strengthening those bonds over the past four years.
And, I would be quick to add, the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, and NATO are also still essential. But all of our institutions and our relationships need to be modernized and complemented by new institutions, relationships, and partnerships that are tailored for new challenges and modeled to the needs of a variable landscape, like how we elevated the G-20 during the financial crisis, or created the Climate and Clean Air Coalition out of the State Department to fight short-lived pollutants like black carbon, or worked with partners like Turkey, where the two of us stood up the first Global Counterterrorism Forum.
We’re also working more than ever with invigorated regional organizations. Consider the African Union in Somalia and the Arab League in Libya, even sub-regional groups like the Lower Mekong Initiative that we created to help reintegrate Burma into its neighborhood and try to work across national boundaries on issues like whether dams should or should not be built.
We’re also, of course, thinking about old-fashioned shoe-leather diplomacy in a new way. I have found it, and I’ve said this before, highly ironic that in today’s world, when we can be anywhere virtually, more than ever, people want us to actually show up. But while a Secretary of State in an earlier era might have been able to focus on a small number of influential capitals, shuttling between the major powers, today we, by necessity, must take a broader view.
And people say to me all the time, “I look at your travel schedule; why Togo?” Well, no Secretary of State had ever been to Togo. But Togo happens to hold a rotating seat on the UN Security Council. Going there, making the personal investment has a strategic purpose.
And it’s not just where we engage, but with whom. You can’t build a set of durable partnerships in the 21st century with governments alone. The opinions of people now matter as to how their governments work with us, whether it’s democratic or authoritarian. So in virtually every country I have visited, I’ve held town halls and reached out directly to citizens, civil society organizations, women’s groups, business communities, and so many others. They have valuable insights and contributions to make. And increasingly, they are driving economic and political change, especially in democracies.
The State Department now has Twitter feeds in 11 languages. And just this Tuesday, I participated in a global town hall and took questions from people on every continent, including, for the first time, Antarctica.
So the point is: We have to be strategic about all the levers of global power and look for the new levers that could not have been possible or had not even been invented a decade ago. We need to widen the aperture of our engagement, and let me offer a few examples of how we’re doing this.
First, technology. You can’t be a 21st century leader without 21st century tools, not when people organize pro-democracy protests with Twitter and while terrorists spread their hateful ideology online. That’s why I have championed what we call 21st century statecraft.
We’ve launched an interagency Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications at State. Experts, tech-savvy specialists from across our government fluent in Urdu, Arabic, Punjabi, Somali, use social media to expose al-Qaida’s contradictions and abuses, including its continuing brutal attacks on Muslim civilians.
We’re leading the effort also to defend internet freedom so it remains a free, open, and reliable platform for everyone. We’re helping human rights activists in oppressive internet environments get online and communicate more safely. Because the country that built the internet ought to be leading the fight to protect it from those who would censor it or use it as a tool of control.
Second, our nonproliferation agenda. Negotiating the New START Treaty with Russia was an example of traditional diplomacy at its best. Then working it through the Congress was an example of traditional bipartisan support at its best. But we also have been working with partners around the world to create a new institution, the Nuclear Security Summit, to keep dangerous materials out of the hands of terrorists. We conducted intensive diplomacy with major powers to impose crippling sanctions against Iran and North Korea. But to enforce those sanctions, we also enlisted banks, insurance companies, and high-tech international financial institutions. And today, Iran’s oil tankers sit idle, and its currency has taken a massive hit.
Now, this brings me to a third lever: economics. Everyone knows how important that is. But not long ago, it was thought that business drove markets and governments drove geopolitics. Well, those two, if they ever were separate, have certainly converged.
So creating jobs at home is now part of the portfolio of diplomats abroad. They are arguing for common economic rules of the road, especially in Asia, so we can make trade a race to the top, not a scramble to the bottom. We are prioritizing economics in our engagement in every region, like in Latin America, where, as you know, we ratified free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.
And we’re also using economic tools to address strategic challenges, for example, in Afghanistan, because along with the security transition and the political transition, we are supporting an economic transition that boosts the private sector and increases regional economic integration. It’s a vision of transit and trade connections we call the New Silk Road.
A related lever of power is development. And we are helping developing countries grow their economies not just through traditional assistance, but also through greater trade and investment, partnerships with the private sector, better governance, and more participation from women. We think this is an investment in our own economic future. And I love saying this, because people are always quite surprised to hear it: Seven of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa. Other countries are doing everything they can to help their companies win contracts and invest in emerging markets. Other countries still are engaged in a very clear and relentless economic diplomacy. We should too, and increasingly, we are.
And make no mistake: There is a crucial strategic dimension to this development work as well. Weak states represent some of our most significant threats. We have an interest in strengthening them and building more capable partners that can tackle their own security problems at home and in their neighborhoods, and economics will always play a role in that.
Next, think about energy and climate change. Managing the world’s energy supplies in a way that minimizes conflict and supports economic growth while protecting the future of our planet is one of the greatest challenges of our time.
So we’re using both high-level international diplomacy and grassroots partnerships to curb carbon emissions and other causes of climate change. We’ve created a new bureau at the State Department focused on energy diplomacy as well as new partnerships like the U.S.-EU Energy Council. We’ve worked intensively with the Iraqis to support their energy sector, because it is critical not only to their economy, their stability as well. And we’ve significantly intensified our efforts to resolve energy disputes from the South China Sea to the eastern Mediterranean to keep the world’s energy markets stable. Now this has been helped quite significantly by the increase in our own domestic production. It’s no accident that as Iranian oil has gone offline because of our sanctions, other sources have come online, so Iran cannot benefit from increased prices.
Then there’s human rights and our support for democracy and the rule of law, levers of power and values we cannot afford to ignore. In the last century, the United States led the world in recognizing that universal rights exist and that governments are obligated to protect them. Now we have placed ourselves at the frontlines of today’s emerging battles, like the fight to defend the human rights of the LGBT communities around the world and religious minorities wherever and whoever they are. But it’s not a coincidence that virtually every country that threatens regional and global peace is a place where human rights are in peril or the rule of law is weak.
More specifically, places where women and girls are treated as second-class, marginal human beings. Just ask young Malala from Pakistan. Ask the women of northern Mali who live in fear and can no longer go to school. Ask the women of the Eastern Congo who endure rape as a weapon of war.
And that is the final lever that I want to highlight briefly. Because the jury is in, the evidence is absolutely indisputable: If women and girls everywhere were treated as equal to men in rights, dignity, and opportunity, we would see political and economic progress everywhere. So this is not only a moral issue, which, of course, it is. It is an economic issue and a security issue, and it is the unfinished business of the 21st century. It therefore must be central to U.S. foreign policy.
One of the first things I did as Secretary was to elevate the Office of Global Women’s Issues under the first Ambassador-at-Large, Melanne Verveer. And I’m very pleased that yesterday, the President signed a memorandum making that office permanent.
In the past four years, we’ve made – (applause) – thank you. In the past four years, we’ve made a major push at the United Nations to integrate women in peace and security-building worldwide, and we’ve seen successes in places like Liberia. We’ve urged leaders in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya to recognize women as equal citizens with important contributions to make. We are supporting women entrepreneurs around the world who are creating jobs and driving growth.
So technology, development, human rights, women. Now, I know that a lot of pundits hear that list and they say: Isn’t that all a bit soft? What about the hard stuff? Well, that is a false choice. We need both, and no one should think otherwise.
I will be the first to stand up and proclaim loudly and clearly that America’s military might is and must remain the greatest fighting force in the history of the world. I will also make very clear, as I have done over the last years, that our diplomatic power, the ability to convene, our moral suasion is effective because the United States can back up our words with action. We will ensure freedom of navigation in all the world’s seas. We will relentlessly go after al-Qaida, its affiliates, and its wannabes. We will do what is necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
There are limits to what soft power on its own can achieve. And there are limits to what hard power on its own can achieve. That’s why, from day one, I’ve been talking about smart power. And when you look at our approach to two regions undergoing sweeping shifts, you can see how this works in practice.
First, America’s expanding engagement in the Asia Pacific. Now, much attention has been focused on our military moves in the region. And certainly, adapting our force posture is a key element of our comprehensive strategy. But so is strengthening our alliances through new economic and security arrangements. We’ve sent Marines to Darwin, but we’ve also ratified the Korea Free Trade Agreement. We responded to the triple disaster in Japan through our governments, through our businesses, through our not-for-profits, and reminded the entire region of the irreplaceable role America plays.
First and foremost, this so-called pivot has been about creative diplomacy:
Like signing a little-noted treaty of amity and cooperation with ASEAN that opened the door to permanent representation and ultimately elevated a forum for engaging on high-stakes issues like the South China Sea. We’ve encouraged India’s “Look East” policy as a way to weave another big democracy into the fabric of the Asia Pacific. We’ve used trade negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership to find common ground with a former adversary in Vietnam. And the list goes on. Our effort has encompassed all the levers of powers and more that I’ve both discussed and that we have utilized.
And you can ask yourself: How could we approach an issue as thorny and dangerous as territorial disputes in the South China Sea without a deep understanding of energy politics, subtle multilateral diplomacy, smart economic statecraft, and a firm adherence to universal norms?
Or think about Burma. Supporting the historic opening there took a blend of economic, diplomatic, and political tools. The country’s leaders wanted the benefits of rejoining the global economy. They wanted to more fully participate in the region’s multilateral institutions and to no longer be an international pariah. So we needed to engage with them on many fronts to make that happen, pressing for the release of political prisoners and additional reforms while also boosting investment and upgrading our diplomatic relations.
Then there’s China. Navigating this relationship is uniquely consequential, because how we deal with one another will define so much of our common future. It is also uniquely complex, because – as I have said on many occasions, and as I have had very high-level Chinese leaders quote back to me – we are trying to write a new answer to the age-old question of what happens when an established power and a rising power meet.
To make this work, we really do have to be able to use every lever at our disposal all the time. So we expanded our high-level engagement through the Strategic & Economic Dialogue to cover both traditional strategic issues like North Korea and maritime security, and also emerging challenges like climate change, cyber security, intellectual property concerns, as well as human rights.
Now, this approach was put to the test last May when we had to keep a summit meeting of the dialogue on track while also addressing a crisis over the fate of a blind human rights dissident who had sought refuge in our American Embassy. Not so long ago, such an incident might very well have scuttled the talks. But we have though intense effort, confidence building, we have built enough breadth and resilience into the relationship to be able to defend our values and promote our interests at the same time.
We passed that test, but there will be others. The Pacific is big enough for all of us, and we will continue to welcome China’s rise – if it chooses to play a constructive role in the region. For both of us, the future of this relationship depends on our ability to engage across all these issues at once.
That’s true as well for another complicated and important region: the Middle East and North Africa.
I’ve talked at length recently about our strategy in this region, including in speeches at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Saban Forum, and in my recent testimony before Congress. So let me just say this.
There has been progress: American soldiers have come home from Iraq. People are electing their leaders for the first time in generations, or ever, in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. The United States and our partners built a broad coalition to stop Qadhafi from massacring his people. And a ceasefire is holding in Gaza. All good things. But not nearly enough.
Ongoing turmoil in Egypt and Libya point to the difficulties of unifying fractured countries and building credible democratic institutions. The impasse between Israel and the Palestinians shows little sign of easing. In Syria, the Assad regime continues to slaughter its people and incite intercommunal conflict. Iran is pursuing its nuclear ambitions and sponsoring violent extremists across the globe. And we continue to face real terrorist threats from Yemen and North Africa.
So I will not stand here and pretend that the United States has all the solutions to these problems. We do not. But we are clear about the future we seek for the region and its peoples. We want to see a region at peace with itself and the world – where people live in dignity, not dictatorships, where entrepreneurship thrives, not extremism. And there is no doubt that getting to that future will be difficult and will require every single tool in our toolkit.
Because you can’t have true peace in the Middle East without addressing both the active conflicts and the underlying causes. You can’t have true justice unless the rights of all citizens are respected, including women and minorities. You can’t have the prosperity or opportunity that should be available unless there’s a vibrant private sector and good governance.
And of this I’m sure: you can’t have true stability and security unless leaders start leading; unless countries start opening their economies and societies, not shutting off the internet or undermining democracy; investing in their people’s creativity, not fomenting their rage; building schools, not burning them. There is no dignity in that and there is no future in it either.
Now, there is no question that everything I’ve discussed and all that I left off this set of remarks adds up to a very big challenge that requires America to adapt to these new realities of global power and influence in order to maintain our leadership. But this is also an enormous opportunity. The United States is uniquely positioned in this changing landscape.
The things that make us who we are as a nation – our openness and innovation, our diversity, our devotion to human rights and democracy – are beautifully matched to the demands of this era and this interdependent world. So as we look to the next four years and beyond, we have to keep pushing forward on this agenda, consolidate our engagement in the Asia Pacific without taking our eyes off the Middle East and North Africa; keep working to curb the spread of deadly weapons, especially in Iran and North Korea; effectively manage the end of our combat mission in Afghanistan without losing focus on al-Qaida and its affiliates; pursue a far-ranging economic agenda that sweeps from Asia to Latin America to Europe.
And keep looking for the next Burmas. They’re not yet at a position where we can all applaud, but which has begun a process of opening. Capitalize on our domestic energy renewal and intensify our efforts on climate change, and then take on emerging issues like cyber security, not just across the government but across our society.
You know why we have to do all of this? Because we are the indispensable nation. We are the force for progress, prosperity and peace. And because we have to get it right for ourselves. Leadership is not a birthright. It has to be earned by each new generation. The reservoirs of goodwill we built around the world during the 20th century will not last forever. In fact, in some places, they are already dangerously depleted. New generations of young people do not remember GIs liberating their countries or Americans saving millions of lives from hunger and disease. We need to introduce ourselves to them anew, and one of the ways we do that is by looking at and focusing on and working on those issues that matter most to their lives and futures.
So because the United States is still the only country that has the reach and resolve to rally disparate nations and peoples together to solve problems on a global scale, we cannot shirk that responsibility. Our ability to convene and connect is unparalleled, and so is our ability to act alone whenever necessary.
So when I say we are truly the indispensible nation, it’s not meant as a boast or an empty slogan. It’s a recognition of our role and our responsibilities. That’s why all the declinists are dead wrong. (Laughter.) It’s why the United States must and will continue to lead in this century even as we lead in new ways. And we know leadership has its costs. We know it comes with risks and can require great sacrifice. We’ve seen that painfully again in recent months. But leadership is also an honor, one that Chris Stevens and his colleagues in Benghazi embodied. And we must always strive to be worthy of that honor.
That sacred charge has been my north star every day that I’ve served as Secretary of State. And it’s been an enormous privilege to lead to the men and women of the State Department and USAID, nearly 70,000 serving here in Washington and in more than 270 posts around the world. They get up and go to work every day, often in frustrating, difficult, and dangerous circumstances, because they believe, as we believe, that the United States is the most extraordinary force for peace and progress the world has ever known.
And so today, after four years in this job, traveling nearly a million miles and visiting 112 countries, my faith in our nation is even stronger, and my confidence in our future is as well. I know what it’s like when that blue and white airplane emblazoned with the words “United States of America” touches down in some far-off capital and I get to feel the great honor and responsibility it is to represent the world’s indispensable nation. I’m confident that my successor and his successors and all who serve in the position that I’ve been so privileged to hold will continue to lead in this century just as we did in the last – smartly, tirelessly, courageously – to make the world more peaceful, more safe, more prosperous, more free. And for that, I am very grateful.
Thank you. (Applause.)
MR. HAASS: Well, thank you, Madam Secretary.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you.
MR. HAASS: Both for what you had to say as well as for the last four years. Let me just take advantage of my position and ask the first question.
You gave an extraordinarily comprehensive talk that touched on – I think you called them the many levers of American influence and power, and made the case for various forms of our power. So when it comes to putting it together, is there an Obama doctrine, is there a Clinton doctrine, that somehow ties together, gives a sense of priorities, helps explain what it is we should do and not do and how we should do it in the way that other doctrines historically have played that role?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think that, as you can tell from what I said, we believe that America must continue to be the indispensable nation and the global leader on behalf of peace, prosperity, and progress, and that that requires us not only to lead alone but also to build coalitions and networks that will put responsibility with others and expect them to play their role in a rules-based global order. So it’s not always easy to talk about what we are doing everyday everywhere in the world, but I think if you look at what we have done, we have certainly kept faith with that kind of mission.
MR. HAASS: I will show uncharacteristic self-restraint – (laughter) – as those of you who know me, and we’ll try to have time for a couple questions. Yes, ma’am, all the way in the back. Yeah, right there. Just wait for the microphone and just let us know who you are.
QUESTION: Thank you. My name is Nadia Bilbassy, I’m with MBC Television, Middle East Broadcasting Center. Madam Secretary, some of the successes that have been attributed to you is mending or fixing United States relation with the Arab and Muslim world. Yet the statistics contradict that. If you look at the Pew statistics, it shows that actually your favoritism in comparison to the Bush Administration is lower, and in countries like Turkey, Jordan, and in other places. So what is going wrong? Does that mean that America’s stand in the world is on the receding end, that its prestige has been affected? Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Let me say three things about that. First, I have obviously followed closely public opinion, and I think it’s fair to say that the United States, for the last decade, has not been viewed favorably by a very high percentage of the people in any of the countries in the Middle East or North Africa for a number of reasons, some of it rooted, of course, in our strong support for Israel over the many years of Israel’s existence as a state.
So this is not the Obama Administration, the Bush Administration, the Clinton Administration. This is the views of many people in the region about America. And I think it’s unfortunate because clearly what the United States stands for is absolutely in line with what the Arab revolutions have been publicly espousing.
Secondly, I think that we have done – and I take responsibility, along with our entire government and Congress and perhaps our private sector – we have not done a very good job in recent years reaching out in a public media way or in a culturally effective way to explain ourselves. I’m always encountering so many conspiracy theories that are totally off-base, wild, made-up stuff that the media in the region promotes about the United States that is absolutely untrue. Our response has been: Nobody will either believe it, or we can’t possibly contest it.
I take a different view. I think we ought to be in there every single day. I made a point of reaching out to Al Jazeera when I became Secretary of State because it was unrelentlessly – or was relentlessly negative about us. And I said, “Come on. That is not only inaccurate, but it’s deeply unfair.” And their response to me was, “Well, your government never puts anybody on Al Jazeera.” I said, “Well, that’s going to change right now.” You can’t be in the arena and expect there to be a change if you’re not willing to get off the bench. And from my perspective, that’s our fault. We have let a lot of stuff be said about us, believed about us that is contrary to who we are as a people, what we stand for, and what we’ve done.
I guess thirdly, we, in our efforts to support democracy, still are held accountable for supporting the governments that were there before democracy. You deal with governments of all kinds. We deal with China. Hardly anybody believes that China fully respects human rights, and it certainly is not a democracy. But we don’t get blamed because we do business with China, but we did business with other regimes and somehow that caused lasting negativity toward us, which I think, again, is unfounded.
So there are reasons for all of the points that you made that go more to the heart of American foreign policy and American values, but we can do a better job in at least disabusing and refuting some of what people are led to believe that is contrary to who we are.
MR. HAASS: Allan Wendt.
QUESTION: Allan Wendt, formerly with the State Department. Madam Secretary, you’ve outlined a very ambitious agenda and program of work for the Department of State. Could you tell us a little bit about the budgetary resources that will be required to carry out that agenda? (Laughter.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well —
MR. HAASS: I bet you’re glad he’s asked that question.
SECRETARY CLINTON: I’m very glad he asked that question. We’ve had some success in the very first years of my tenure in making the case to the Congress to increase our budgets, increase our workforce to be able to deal with the myriad of challenges, threats, and opportunities we face. But we are moving into the budget negotiations and a potential sequestration, which will be disastrous. And people will focus, and they should, on what sequestration will mean to the military. Hundreds of thousands, maybe 800,000 civilians will lose their jobs. Bases will have to be closed. Programs will have to be stopped. So the Defense Department will be able, if anyone’s willing to listen, say, “Look, here’s what the immediate effect will be,” and it won’t only be about our military might, it’ll be about the economy.
You saw in the 4th quarter slowdown one of the reasons was decreased military spending as people hedge against and get prepared for this absurd sequestration idea. In the State Department, we can’t look at military programs that are producing weapons, but we can look at people being furloughed, which they will. We can look at cutting back, once again, on security, which has been one of the challenges we have inherited over the years, and which I tried to explain to the Congress. We can look at the cutbacks in passports that the American people deserve us to provide, and on and on and on.
So although we are one-twelfth, one-thirteenth of the Defense Department budget, what we do does directly affect Americans. It’s not just programs over there, it’s what happens here at home and what we do through those programs and posts that make it possible for us to have jobs and travel easily and so much else. So I thank you for asking it. This is a government-wide challenge and something that no great country should do. I mean, just as a final note, I was giving a speech in Hong Kong during the last debt ceiling debate, and all these very sophisticated investors and government officials lined up to say, “Is the United States really going to default on its credit?” And I said, “Oh, no, no, no. We’ll never do that.” Oh lord, please be – (laughter). So are we really going to have mindless sequestration? Are we really going to, in effect, handicap ourselves? We’ll see. I hope not. I hope that cooler and smarter heads prevail.
MR. HAASS: Want to do one or two more?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Sure. Sure.
MR. HAASS: Okay. Diana.
QUESTION: Diana Lady Dougan, Center for Strategic and International Studies and Cybercentury Forum. Madam Secretary, I think all of us are – want to say how honored we are to have had you as our Secretary, but I will move quickly on to a question that for those of us, particularly who served during the Cold War, it was much easier to identify American interests, and we had much more of a moral compass. And now I would like to know when you are talking about protecting and advancing American interests, is becoming more and more difficult and more and more parochial in identifying American interests, particularly in a transnational world and the various vested interest groups. So what advice do you have to give to your successors in terms of defining American interests and redefining them?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, that’s an excellent question and I think it’s on two levels. On the most fundamental level, protecting America and Americans has to remain a core interest. Our security is nonnegotiable, and we have to be smart about what really threatens us and what doesn’t. We have to work better on intelligence so that we don’t make very unfortunate mistakes. So but security first and foremost, and I don’t think any official Secretary of State or otherwise could put anything before that.
Secondly, we need an open, transparent free market in which Americans are able to compete on a level playing field. Because when we can compete, we often can win. But the deck has been stacked against us in the last years because of all kinds of forces converging, whether it’s state-owned enterprises or indigenous protections that are behind the borders and so forth. So it is very much in our interest to help write the rules for the 21st century global economy, and then to think of mechanisms to enforce those rules.
Thirdly, we have to continue to advance American values, which correspond with universal values. I’m always reminding my counterparts that when I talk about freedom of expression, freedom of religion, those are not just American values. The world agreed to those values back in the declaration, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And we’re going to stand up for them, and it’s not always easy and we have to pick our times. We can’t be shortsighted or counterproductive, but we’re going to continue to stand up for them. So on the fundamental first level, we do what we do because it’s in our security interest, our economic interest, and our moral interest, and we have to continue to do that.
But then, as you go up to sort of the second level, how you adapt that to the world of today, requires us to be more clever, more agile, and we’re trying to do that. So, for example, countering violent extremism, there are those who estimate that maybe there are 50,000 violent, homicidal extremists in the world, but they are able to maximize their impact and their messaging through the internet. And what we have tried to do, as I briefly mentioned, is to get in there with them, to undermine them, and to rebut them. It is something we did quite well in the Cold War.
The more I’ve done this job, the more lessons I think we can transfer from the Cold War to today. No, we don’t have some monolithic, Communist Soviet Union. But we were engaged minute by minute in pushing out our ideas, our values, refuting Communist propaganda. Cold War ended, people said, “Oh, my goodness, thank the lord, democracy has triumphed, we don’t have to do any of that anymore.” That is a terrible mistake. We have basically abdicated, in my views, the broadcast media. I have tried and will continue from the outside to try to convince Congress and others, if we don’t have an up-to-date, modern, effective broadcasting board of governors, we shouldn’t have one at all.
Other countries, Russia, China, and I mentioned Al Jazeera already, they have government messaging that is now predominant in so many places in the languages of the places. And we transport our culture and entertainment around the world, which doesn’t always unfortunately convey our best values – (laughter) – but we abdicate in really investing in and modernizing what our broadcasting potential could be.
So I think there are many more examples, but I would say that if you look at how successful we were in the Cold War – thankfully we never went to war with the Soviet Union, we never stopped negotiating with the Soviet Union, and we engaged in a lot of very sophisticated diplomacy around the world, and we did things like support certain people in elections because they were more democratic than other people. I mean, we did a lot.
I mean, George Shultz was here the other day and we did so much to kind of help those who were on the side of democracy and freedom survive behind the Iron Curtain and then thrive when the Iron Curtain fell. And I have a long list of things that I would love to see us doing in a modern way that we have not yet adapted to this new time.
MR. HAASS: Time for one last one. Yes, Ma’am. (Inaudible.) Just wait for the microphone.
QUESTION: Thank you. Ricki Tigert Helfer, Financial Regulation Reform International. Immigration reform has been seen as largely a domestic issue, but I would like very much for you to give us your views on to what extent immigration reform will enhance our ability to deal with other countries and to foster U.S. values abroad.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, it’s funny. My very last bilateral meeting was with, yesterday, the new Foreign Secretary of Mexico. And we talked about the benefits to both United States and Mexico, in fact, all of North America and better integrating our economies, our infrastructure, our energy, particularly our electricity grid and so much else that is possible.
So immigration reform is the right thing to do for America and for people who are here who have, in many instances, been here for a very long time, made their contributions to this country, have been law-abiding, contributing residents. But it’s also to our benefit with our neighbors to the south. What’s happened in the last several years has been actually a slowing down of immigration – undocumented immigration from Mexico, because as our economy was struggling and jobs were not as available, and the Mexican economy was growing, people didn’t come or they went home. So now much of the immigration flows are coming from further south, from countries where there is still a lot of instability and very significant poverty.
So what we have to do is have, as the President said, comprehensive immigration reform, which means not only border security on our borders, but helping with border security further south so that we can then move on to dealing with the 11 million-plus people who are here and creating some path to citizenship. That will be a huge benefit to us in the region, not just in Mexico, but further south. At the same time that we do immigration reform, we need to do more on border security and internal security in Central America.
We should be very proud of the role we played in stabilizing Colombia from the drug cartels and the FARC rebels, and we’ve made a lot of progress with Mexico under the Merida Initiative. But the result, that these Central American countries are increasingly squeezed. So their internal workforce will not have many opportunities once we do immigration reform, once the Mexicans get serious about their border. Then I think we have to do more with the Central American countries in order to help them the way that we have helped others.
MR. HAASS: Madam Secretary, you spoke about the indispensability of American leadership and how the world would be, I think, a much worse place were it not for such an active American role. But coming back to immigration reform and to your comments about sequestration, are you optimistic about the capacity of the American political system to come up with policies that will allow us to sustain that kind of American leadership?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Absolutely. I mean, if you look back, we’ve done some really stupid things. (Laughter.) And over 200 years we’ve passed terrible laws. We’ve had all kinds of government-sponsored or condoned discrimination against all kinds of people. We’ve made our mistakes. We may be indispensible; it doesn’t mean we’re perfect. We’re probably as close to perfect as anybody has been – (laughter) – but (inaudible). We’re maybe not there yet, but we’re still trying to form a more perfect union.
But no, I think – look, you look at the sweep of American history, and sometimes it takes longer than it should, but eventually we do overcome our own discriminatory tendencies, our own insecurities and fears, and I have no doubt that we will again. It is distressing when you’re watching some of what is happening, but I think you have to take a longer view. And certainly in my view, that’s one for optimism.
MR. HAASS: At the risk of leaving you all with an image that probably isn’t good, I would simply say that John Kerry has some fairly large Manolo Blahniks to fill. (Laughter.) I want to thank the Secretary of State again for everything she’s done. (Laughter and applause.)
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
PUBLIC SCHEDULE THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 2013
SECRETARY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
9:15 a.m. Secretary Clinton meets with the assistant secretaries, at the Department of State. (CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)
9:30 a.m. Secretary Clinton attends a reception honoring the Department of State’s Public/Private Partnerships, at the Department of State. Please click here for more information. (OPEN PRESS COVERAGE)
10:45 a.m. Secretary Clinton hosts the award presentation of the Holbrooke Award and Heroism Awards, at the Department of State. (CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)
2:00 p.m. Secretary Clinton delivers remarks on American Leadership, at the Council on Foreign Relations. Please click here for more information. Secretary Clinton’s remarks will be streamed live on www.state.gov (OPEN PRESS COVERAGE)
From the day she walked in, we all knew that this day would come.
Tomorrow will be her last official day as Secretary of State. I honestly have no words to describe how grateful I feel for everything she has done and for the ability afforded by the department to follow her so closely over the years.
Here are two huge events on her calendar for tomorrow. Then will come the great silence while she continues her recuperation out of our sight. Godspeed beautiful lady. We will be here on the other side when you emerge. Maybe you can send me your book-signing schedule. Readers here will be hungry to know when you are coming to a bookstore near them.
Secretary Clinton To Announce Launch of Up to $86.5 Million in Public-Private Partnerships
Notice to the Press
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
January 30, 2013
On Thursday, January 31, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will celebrate the global impact of public-private partnerships created under her tenure and launch four new initiatives valued at up to $86.5 million, at the U.S. Department of State. These new initiatives include: efforts to advance women’s clean energy entrepreneurship; a global partnership to promote affordable Internet access in poor communities; a new commitment to the Global Equality Fund which aims to protect the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons worldwide; and new investments in the clean cookstoves sector.
Secretary Clinton will be joined by Ambassador at Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer and the Special Representative for Global Partnerships Kris Balderston. Wanjira Mathai, daughter of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai and board member of the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies, will deliver remarks.
Since 2009, the Secretary has worked to strengthen and deepen U.S. diplomacy and development around the world by fostering partnerships between the Department of State and the private sector. Such partnerships have leveraged the creativity, innovation, and core business resources of private partners for greater impact on global issues. To date, the Department has worked with over 1,100 partners and mobilized more than $650 million in public and private resources to support key foreign policy objectives including climate change mitigation, women’s empowerment, economic growth, and human rights.
The event will begin promptly at 9:30 a.m. in the Benjamin Franklin Room of the Department of State.
Remarks on American Leadership
Speaker: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary, U.S. Department of State
Presider: Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations
January 31, 2013
Watch live on Thursday, January 31, 2013, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. (ET). Discuss this meeting live on Twitter using the #CFRLive hashtag. Problems viewing a CFR Live meeting? Visit our CFR Live troubleshooting page for help.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will deliver remarks on American leadership.
Secretary Clinton and Former Secretary James A. Baker, III to Host the Launch of the U.S. Diplomacy Center
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
January 17, 2013
On Friday, January 25th, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and guest of honor former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III will host the Launch of the United States Diplomacy Center at the U.S. Department of State.
The U.S. Diplomacy Center, a new state-of-the-art museum and education center, will dedicate 35,000 square feet to bringing the story of American diplomacy to life. It will be located at the Department of State’s headquarters, the historic Harry S Truman Building.
This space will invite audiences to explore the impact of diplomacy using the latest technologies, interactive exhibits, compelling artifacts, hands-on education programs, diplomatic simulations, and the expertise of on-hand foreign affairs specialists. Education will be at the core of the Center’s work, drawing on the experiences of our diplomats as case studies and as the basis for interactive simulations. The award-winning architectural firm, Beyer Blinder Belle, was selected for the project and the building is designed to meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED® Silver standards.
Funding for the Center is made possible through major contributions from the private sector, including those made by Alcoa, The Annenberg Foundation, The Honorable and Mrs. James A. Baker, III, Bank of America Corporation, S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, The Boeing Company, Caterpillar Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., Citigroup Inc., Una Chapman Cox Foundation, Nelson B. Delavan Foundation, eBay Inc., FedEx Express, Intel Corporation, PepsiCo Foundation, Mr. David Rockefeller, Sr, Arthur Ross Foundation, Inc., Mr. Bernard Schwartz, SNF USA Inc. and Stavros Niarchos Foundation, The Starr Foundation, Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Foundation, Walmart Foundation and The Honorable John C. Whitehead.
For more information on the U.S. Diplomacy Center, please visit diplomacy.state.gov.
Secretary Clinton to Deliver Remarks on American Leadership at the Council on Foreign Relations
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
January 17, 2013
On Thursday, January 31st, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will deliver remarks on American Leadership, at the Council on Foreign Relations. Additional details will be forthcoming.
Secretary Clinton To Address the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012)
Notice to the Press
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
July 17, 2012
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will address the opening plenary session at the 19th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012), on Monday, July 23, 2012 at 10:00 a.m. at the Washington Convention Center, Session Room 1.
The International AIDS Conference is the biennial gathering of AIDS scientists, international policymakers, implementers and people living with AIDS from around the world. AIDS 2012 will take place July 22 – 27 in Washington, D.C. The return of the conference to the U.S. after 22 years is the result of the U.S. government’s elimination of HIV-related entry restrictions.
Secretary Clinton’s remarks will be streamed live at www.kff.org/aids2012. Additional State Department officials will also participate in AIDS 2012 and related events, including Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides, who will speak at The Global Fund: The Next 5 Years on Thursday, July 26 at 4:30 p.m. Ambassador Melanne Verveer of the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues and Executive Director of the Secretary’s Global Health Initiative Lois Quam will speak at an event on Turning the Tide for Women at the Museum of Women in the Arts on Wednesday, July 25 at 6:30 p.m.
U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby, who leads the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) will participate in a variety of sessions throughout the conference. For a complete list of events in which the U.S. Government is participating, visit AIDS.gov. A complete conference program can be found at AIDS2012.org.
Secretary Clinton To Keynote the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Forward-Looking Symposium on Genocide Prevention
Notice to the Press
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
July 20, 2012
On Tuesday, July 24, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will deliver the keynote address at “Imagine the Unimaginable: A Symposium on Ending Genocide in the 21st Century” presented by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in cooperation with the Council on Foreign Relations and CNN. The symposium will explore the challenges of preventing genocide in the 21st Century.
Symposium participants will include senior leaders from government, think tanks, business, academia, philanthropy, and the genocide prevention field, as well as the next generation of young leaders. Topics will include how emerging global trends such as economic uncertainty, political upheaval, resource scarcity, population migration, new technologies, and other factors could impact at-risk populations, and will explore innovative strategies for genocide prevention and response.
The Museum will also unveil the results of a large-scale public opinion poll that will provide new insight into Americans’ attitudes towards genocide and prevention, including their perspectives on whether and how the U.S. should engage in recent situations such as Syria and Sudan.
The event will be held between 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. with Secretary Clinton’s remarks at approximately 9:30 a.m. at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for more information at www.ushmm.org/endgenocide.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Richard. And it is a pleasure to be back here at the Council with two working arms. That is something that I am very happy and grateful for, and I thank you for referencing what has been the most difficult balancing act of my time as Secretary of State: Pulling off my daughter’s wedding, which I kept telling people as I traveled around the world to all of the hot spots, was much more stressful than anything else on my plate. (Laughter.) It is a real delight to see so many friends and colleagues and to have this opportunity here once again to discuss with you where we are as a country and where I hope we are headed.
Now, it’s clear that many of us and many in our audience are just coming off of summer vacation. Yesterday at the State Department felt a little bit like the first day of school. Everyone showed up for our morning meeting and – (laughter) – looking a lot healthier than they did when they left. And it is also obvious that there isn’t any rest for any of us. The events of the past few weeks have kept us busy.
We are working to support direct talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and next week I will travel to Egypt and Jerusalem for the second round of these negotiations. In Iraq, where our combat mission has ended, we are transferring and transitioning to an unprecedented civilian-led partnership. We are stepping up international pressure on Iran to negotiate seriously on its nuclear program. We are working with Pakistan as it recovers from devastating floods and continues to combat violent extremism. And of course, the war in Afghanistan is always at the top of our minds as well as our agenda.
Now, none of these challenges exist in isolation. Consider the Middle East peace talks. At one level, they are bilateral negotiations involving two peoples and a relatively small strip of land. But step back and it becomes clear how important the regional dimensions and even the global dimensions of what started last week are. And what a significant role institutions like the Quartet, consisting of the United States and Russia and the European Union and the UN, as well as the Arab League, are playing, and equally, if not more so, how vital American participation really is.
Solving foreign policy problems today requires us to think both regionally and globally, to see the intersections and connections linking nations and regions and interests, to bring people together as only America can.
I think the world is counting on us today as it has in the past. When old adversaries need an honest broker or fundamental freedoms need a champion, people turn to us. When the earth shakes or rivers overflow their banks, when pandemics rage or simmering tensions burst into violence, the world looks to us. I see it on the faces of the people I meet as I travel, not just the young people who still dream about America’s promise of opportunity and equality, but also seasoned diplomats and political leaders, who, whether or not they admit it, see the principled commitment and can-do spirit that comes with American engagement. And they do look to America not just to engage, but to lead.
And nothing makes me prouder than to represent this great nation in the far corners of the world. I am the daughter of a man who grew up in the Depression and trained young sailors to fight in the Pacific. And I am the mother of a young woman who is part of a generation of Americans who are engaging the world in new and exciting ways. And in both those stories, I see the promise and the progress of America, and I have the most profound faith in our people. It has never been stronger.
Now, I know that these are difficult days for many Americans, but difficulties and adversities have never defeated or deflated this country. Throughout our history, through hot wars and cold, through economic struggles, and the long march to a more perfect union, Americans have always risen to the challenges we have faced. That is who we are. It is in our DNA. We do believe there are no limits on what is possible or what can be achieved.
And now, after years of war and uncertainty, people are wondering what the future holds, at home and abroad.
So let me say it clearly: The United States can, must, and will lead in this new century.
Indeed, the complexities and connections of today’s world have yielded a new American Moment, a moment when our global leadership is essential, even if we must often lead in new ways. A moment when those things that make us who we are as a nation – our openness and innovation, our determination and devotion to core values – have never been more needed.
This is a moment that must be seized through hard work and bold decisions to lay the foundations for lasting American leadership for decades to come.
But now, this is no argument for America to go it alone; far from it. The world looks to us because America has the reach and resolve to mobilize the shared effort needed to solve problems on a global scale in defense of our own interests, but also as a force for progress. In this we have no rival.
For the United States, global leadership is both a responsibility and an unparalleled opportunity.
When I came to the Council on Foreign Relations a little over a year ago to discuss the Obama Administration’s vision of American leadership in a changing world, I called for a new global architecture that could help nations come together as partners to solve shared problems. Today I’d like to expand on this idea, but especially to explain how we are putting it into practice.
Now, architecture is the art and science of designing structures that serve our common purposes, built to last and to withstand stress. And that is what we seek to build; a network of alliances and partnerships, regional organizations and global institutions, that is durable and dynamic enough to help us meet today’s challenges and adapt to threats that we cannot even conceive of, just as our parents never dreamt of melting glaciers or dirty bombs.
We know this can be done, because President Obama’s predecessors in the White House and mine in the State Department did it before. After the Second World War, the nation that had built the transcontinental railroad, the assembly line, the skyscraper, turned its attention to constructing the pillars of global cooperation. The third World War that so many feared never came. And many millions of people were lifted out of poverty and exercised their human rights for the first time. Those were the benefits of a global architecture forged over many years by American leaders from both political parties.
But this architecture served a different time and a different world. As President Obama has said, today it “is buckling under the weight of new threats.” The major powers are at peace, but new actors – good and bad – are increasingly shaping international affairs. The challenges we face are more complex than ever, and so are the responses needed to meet them. That is why we are building a global architecture that reflects and harnesses the realities of the 21st century.
We know that alliances, partnerships, and institutions cannot and do not solve problems by themselves. Only people and nations solve problems. But an architecture can make it easier to act effectively by supporting the coalition-forging and compromise-building that is the daily fare of diplomacy. It can make it easier to identify common interests and convert them to common action. And it can help integrate emerging powers into an international community with clear obligations and expectations.
We have no illusions that these goals can be achieved overnight or that countries will suddenly cease to have divergent interests. We know that the test of our leadership is how we manage those differences and how we galvanize nations and peoples around their commonalities even when they do have diverse histories, unequal resources, and competing world-views. And we know that our approach to solving problems must vary from issue to issue and partner to partner. American leadership, therefore, must be as dynamic as the challenges we face.
But there are two constants of our leadership, which lie at the heart of the President’s National Security Strategy released in May, and which run through everything we do:
First, national renewal aimed at strengthening the sources of American power, especially our economic might and moral authority. This is about more than ensuring we have the resources we need to conduct foreign policy, although that is critically important. I remember when I was a young girl, I was stirred by President Eisenhower’s assertion that education would help us win the Cold War. I really took it to heart. I didn’t like mathematics, but I figured I had to study it for my country. (Laughter.) I also believed that we needed to invest in our people and their talents and in our infrastructure.
President Eisenhower was right. America’s greatness has always flowed in large part from the dynamism of our economy and the creativity of our people. Today, more than ever, our ability to exercise global leadership depends on building a strong foundation here at home. That’s why rising debt and crumbling infrastructure pose very real long-term national security threats. President Obama understands this. You can see it in the new economic initiatives that he announced this week and in his relentless focus on turning the economy around.
The second constant is international diplomacy – good, old-fashioned diplomacy – aimed at rallying nations to solve common problems and achieve shared aspirations. As Dean Acheson put it in 1951, “the ability to evoke support from others” is “quite as important as the capacity to compel.” To this end, we have repaired old alliances and forged new partnerships. We have strengthened institutions that provide incentives for cooperation, disincentives for sitting on the sidelines, and defenses against those who would undermine global progress. And we’ve championed the values that are at the core of the American character.
Now there should be no mistake. Of course, this Administration is also committed to maintaining the greatest military in the history of the world and, if needed, to vigorously defend ourselves and our friends.
After more than a year and a half, we have begun to see the dividends of this strategy. We are advancing America’s interests and making progress on some of our most pressing challenges. Today, we can say with confidence that this model of American leadership, which brings every tool at our disposal to be put to work on behalf of our national interest works, and that it offers the best hope in a dangerous world. I’d like to outline several steps we’re taking with respect to implementing this strategy.
First, we have turned to our closest allies, the nations that share our most fundamental values and interests, and our commitment to solving common problems. From Europe and North America to East Asia and the Pacific, we are renewing and deepening the alliances that are the cornerstone of global security and prosperity.
And let me say a few words in particular about Europe. In November, I was privileged to help mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which closed the door on Europe’s broken past. And this summer in Poland, we marked the 10th anniversary of the Community of Democracies, which looks ahead to a brighter tomorrow. At both events, I was reminded of how far we have come together. What strength we draw from the common wellspring of our values and aspirations. The bonds between Europe and America were forged through war and watchful peace, but they are rooted in our shared commitment to freedom, democracy and human dignity. Today, we are working with our allies there on nearly every global challenge. President Obama and I have reached out to strengthen both our bilateral and multilateral ties in Europe.
And the post-Lisbon EU is developing an expanded global role, and our relationship is growing and changing as a result. Now, there will be some challenges as we adjust to influential new players such as the EU Parliament, but these are debates among friends that will always be secondary to the fundamental interests and values we share. And there is no doubt that a stronger EU is good for America and good for the world.
And of course, NATO remains the world’s most successful alliance. Together with our allies, including new NATO members in Central and Eastern Europe, we are crafting a new Strategic Concept that will help us meet not only traditional threats, but also emerging ones like cyber security and nuclear proliferation. Just yesterday, President Obama and I discussed these issues with NATO Secretary General Rasmussen.
After the United States was attacked on 9/11, our allies invoked Article V of the NATO charter for the first time. They joined us in the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban. And after President Obama refocused the mission in Afghanistan, they contributed thousands of new troops and significant technical assistance. We honor the sacrifices our allies continue to make, and recognize that we are always strongest when we work together.
A core principle of all our alliances is shared responsibility. Each nation must step up to do its part. An American leadership does not mean we do everything ourselves. We contribute our share, often the largest share, but we also have high expectations of the governments and peoples we work with.
Helping other nations develop that capacity to solve their own problems – and participate in solving other shared problems – has long been a hallmark of American leadership. Our contributions are well-known to the reconstruction of Europe, to the transformation of Japan and Germany. We moved them from aggressors to allies, to the growth of South Korea into a vibrant democracy that now contributes to global progress. These are among some of American foreign policy’s proudest achievements.
In this interconnected age, America’s security and prosperity depend more than ever on the ability of others to take responsibility for defusing threats and meeting challenges in their own countries and regions.
That’s why a second step in our strategy for global leadership is to help develop the capacity of developing partners. To help countries obtain the tools and support they need to solve their own problems. To help people lift themselves, their families, and their societies out of poverty, away from extremism and towards sustainable progress.
We in the Obama Administration view development as a strategic, economic, and moral imperative. It is central to advancing American interests – as central as diplomacy and defense. Our approach is not, however, development for development’s sake; it is an integrated strategy for solving problems.
Look at the work to build institutions and spur economic development in the Palestinian territories, something that Jim Wolfensohn knows firsthand. The United States invests hundreds of millions of dollars to build Palestinian capacity because we know that progress on the ground improves security and helps lay the foundation for a future Palestinian state. And it creates more favorable conditions for negotiations. The confidence that the new Palestinian security force has displayed has affected the calculus of Israeli leadership, and the United States was behind building that security force along with other partners like Jordan. But the principal responsibility rests on the decisions made by the Palestinian Authority themselves. So with our help and their courage and commitment, we see progress that influences negotiations and holds out a greater promise for an eventual agreement.
Now, this is the right thing to do, of course. We agree with that. But make no mistake, it is rooted in our understanding that when all people are given more tools of opportunity, they are more willing to actually take risks for peace. And that’s particularly true when it comes to women. You knew I would not get through this speech without mentioning women and women’s rights. We believe strongly that investing in opportunities for women drives social and economic progress that benefits not only their families and societies, but has a rebound effect that benefits others, including us as well.
Similarly, investments in countries like Bangladesh and Ghana bet on a future that they will join with neighbors and others in not only solving their own rather difficult challenges of poverty, but then helping to be bulwarks that send a different message to their regions. We take into account also the countries that are growing rapidly and already exercising influence, countries like China and India, Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, as well as Russia.
Our third major step, therefore, has been to deepen engagement with these emerging centers of influence. We and our allies, indeed, people everywhere have a stake and they’re playing constructive, regional, and global roles. Because being a 21st century power means having to accept a share of the burden of solving common problems, and of abiding by a set of the rules of the road, so to speak, on everything from intellectual property rights to fundamental freedoms.
So through expanded bilateral consultation and within the context of regional and global institutions, we do expect these countries to begin to assume greater responsibility. For example, in our most recent Strategic and Economic Dialogue in China, for the first time, development was on the agenda, something that the Chinese are doing in conjunction with their commercial interests, but which we wanted to begin to talk about so that we could better cooperate and we could perhaps share lessons learned about how best to pursue development. In one country in Africa, we’re building a hospital, the Chinese are building a road; we thought it was a good idea that the road would actually go to the hospital. It’s that kind of discussion that we think can make a difference for the people that we are both engaged with.
India, the world’s largest democracy, has a very large convergence of fundamental values and a broad range of both national and regional interests. And we are laying the foundation for an indispensible partnership. President Obama will use his visit in November to take our relationship to the next level.
With Russia, when we took office, it was amid cooling to cold relations and a return to Cold War suspicion. Now, this may have invigorated spy novelists and armchair strategists, but anyone serious about solving global problems such as nuclear proliferation knew that without Russia and the United States working together, little would be achieved. So we refocused the relationship. We offered a relationship based on not only mutual respect, but also mutual responsibility.
And in the course of the last 18 months, we have a historic new arms reduction treaty, which the Senate will take up next week; cooperation with China and the UN Security Council on tough new sanctions against both Iran and North Korea; a transit agreement to support our efforts in Afghanistan; a new bilateral presidential commission and civil society exchange that are forging closer people-to-people ties; and, of course, as we were reminded this past summer, the spy novelists still have plenty to write about, so it’s kind of a win-win. (Laughter.)
Now, working with these emerging powers is not always smooth or easy. Disagreements are inevitable. And on certain issues such as human rights with China or Russian occupation of Georgia, we simply do not see eye to eye, and the United States will not hesitate to speak out and stand our ground. When these nations do not accept the responsibility that accrues with expanding influence, we will do all that we can to encourage them to change course while we will press ahead with other partners. But we know it will be difficult, if not impossible, to forge the kind of future that we expect in the 21st century without enhanced comprehensive cooperation.
So our goal is to establish productive relationships that survive the times when we do not agree and that enable us to continue to work together. And a central element of that is to engage directly with the people of these nations. Technology and the speed of communication, along with the spread of democracy, at least in technology, has empowered people to speak up and demand a say in their own futures. Public opinions and passions matter even in authoritarian states. So in nearly every country I visit, I don’t just meet with government officials. In Russia, I did an interview on one of the few remaining independent radio stations. In Saudi Arabia, I held a town hall at a women’s college. In Pakistan, I answered questions from every journalist, student, and business leader we could find.
While we expand our relationships, therefore, with the emerging centers of influence, we are working to engage them with their own publics. Time and time again, I hear, as I do interviews from Indonesia to the Democratic Republic of Congo to Brazil, how novel it seems to people that an official would come and take questions from the public. So we’re not only engaging the public and expanding and explaining America’s values and views; we’re also sending a message to those leaders. And as we do so, we are making it clear that we expect more from them and that we do want the kind of challenges that we face to be addressed in a regional context.
Think about the complex dynamics around violent extremism both in Afghanistan and Pakistan and emerging out of those two countries to the rest of the world, or the process of reintegrating Iraq into its neighborhood, which is a very tough neighborhood indeed. Regional dynamics will not remain static. And there are a lot of other players who are working day and night to influence the outcomes of those particular situations.
And we know too that other emerging powers like China and Brazil have their own notions about what the right outcome would be or what regional institutions should look like, and they are busy pursuing them. So our friends, our allies, and people around the world who share our values depend on us to remain robustly engaged. So the fourth step in our strategy has been to reinvigorate America’s commitment to be an active transatlantic, transpacific, and hemispheric leader.
In a series of speeches and ongoing consultations with our partners, we’ve laid out core principles for regional cooperation and we’ve worked to strengthen institutions to adapt to these new circumstances.
Look at the Asia-Pacific region. When we took office, there was a perception, fair or not, that America was absent. So we made it clear from the beginning that we were back. We reaffirmed our bonds with close allies like South Korea, Japan, Australia, and we deepened our engagement with China and India.
Now, the Asia-Pacific currently has few robust institutions to foster effective cooperation and reduce the friction of competition, so we began building a more coherent regional architecture with the United States deeply involved.
On the economic front, we’ve expanded our relationship with APEC, which includes four of America’s top trading partners and receives 60 percent of our exports. We want to realize the benefits from greater economic integration. In order to do that, we have to be willing to play. To this end, we are working to ratify a free trade agreement with South Korea, we’re pursuing a regional agreement with the nations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and we know that that will help create new jobs and opportunities here at home.
We’ve also decided to engage with the East Asia Summit, encouraging its development into a foundational security and political institution. I will be representing the United States at this year’s East Asia Summit in Hanoi, leading up to presidential participation in 2011.
And in Southeast Asia, ASEAN actually encompasses more than 600 million people in its member nations. There is more U.S. business investment in the ASEAN nations than in China. So we have bolstered our relationship by signing the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, announcing our intention to open a mission and name an ambassador to ASEAN in Jakarta, and a commitment to holding annual U.S.-ASEAN summits.
Because we know the Asia-Pacific region will grow in importance and developing these institutions will establish habits of cooperation that will be vital to stability and prosperity.
Now, effective institutions are just as crucial at the global level. So our fifth step has been to reengage with the global institutions and to work to modernize them to meet the evolving challenges we face. We obviously need institutions that are flexible, inclusive, complementary, instead of just competing with each other over turf and jurisdiction. We need them to play productive roles that marshal our common efforts and enforce the system of rights and responsibilities.
Now, the UN remains the single most important global institution. We are constantly reminded of its value: the Security Council enacting sanctions against Iran and North Korea; peacekeepers patrolling the streets of Monrovia and Port-au-Prince; aid workers assisting flood victims in Pakistan and displaced people in Darfur; and, most recently, the UN General Assembly establishing a new entity called UN Women, which will promote gender equality and expand opportunity for women and girls, and tackle the violence and discrimination they face.
But we are also constantly reminded of its limitations. It is difficult, as many of you in this audience know, for the UN’s 192 member-states to achieve consensus on institutional reform, including and especially reforming the Security Council. We believe the United States has to play a role in reforming the UN, and we favor Security Council reform that enhances the UN’s overall performance and effectiveness and efficiency. And we equally and strongly support operational reforms that enable UN field missions to deploy more rapidly, with adequate numbers of well-equipped and well-trained troops and police, and with the quality of leadership and civilian expertise they require. We will not only embrace but we will advocate management reforms and savings that prevent waste, fraud, and abuse.
Now, the UN was never intended to tackle every challenge, nor should it. So we are working with other organizations. To respond to the global financial crisis, we elevated the G-20. We convened the first-ever Nuclear Security Summit. New or old, the effectiveness of institutions depends on the commitment of their members. And we have seen a level of commitment to these enterprises that we will continue to nurture.
Now, our efforts on climate change – and I see our special envoy, Todd Stern, here – offer an example of how we are working through multiple venues and mechanisms. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process allows all of us – developed and developing, north, south, east, and west – to work within a single venue to meet this shared challenge.
But we also launched the Major Economies Forum to focus on the biggest emitters, including ourselves. And when negotiations in Copenhagen reached an impasse, President Obama and I went into a meeting with China, India, South Africa, and Brazil to try to forge a compromise. And then with our colleagues from Europe and elsewhere, we fashioned a deal that, while far from perfect, saved the summit from failure and represents progress we can build on. Because for the first time, all major economies made national commitments to curb carbon emissions and report with transparency on their mitigation efforts.
So we know that there’s a lot to be done on substantive issues, and there must continue to be an emphasis on democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, so that they are cemented into the foundations of these institutions.
This is something that I take very seriously, because there’s no point in trying to build institutions for the 21st century that don’t act to counter repression and resist pressure on human rights, that extend fundamental freedoms over time to places where they have too long been denied.
And that is our sixth major step. We are upholding and defending the universal values that are enshrined in the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Because today, everywhere, these principles are under threat. In too many places, new democracies are struggling to grow strong roots. Authoritarian regimes are cracking down on civil society and pluralism. Some leaders see democracy as an inconvenience that gets in the way of the efficient exercise of national power.
So this world view must be confronted and challenged everywhere. Democracy needs defending. The struggle to make human rights a human reality needs champions.
And this work starts at home, where we have rejected the false choice between our security and our values. It continues around the world, where human rights are always on our diplomatic and development agendas, even with nations on whose cooperation we depend for a wide range of issues, such as Egypt, China, and Russia. We’re committed to defending these values on the digital frontiers of the 21st century. A lot has been said about our 21st century statecraft and our e-diplomacy, but we really believe that it’s an important additional tool for us to utilize.
And in Krakow this summer, I announced the creation of a new fund to support civil society and embattled NGOs around the world, a continuing focus of U.S. policy.
Now, how do all of these steps – deepening relations with allies and emerging powers, strengthening institutions and shared values – work together to advance our interests? Well, one need only look at the effort we’ve taken this past year to stop Iran’s provocative nuclear activities and its serial noncompliance with its international obligations. Now, there is a still a lot of work to be done, but we are approaching the Iranian challenge as an example of American leadership in action.
First, we began by making the United States a full partner and active participant in international diplomatic efforts regarding Iran. We had been on the sidelines, and frankly, that was not a very satisfying place to be. Through our continued willingness to engage Iran directly, we have re-energized the conversation with our allies and are removing all of those excuses for lack of progress.
Second, we have sought to frame the issue within the global nonproliferation regime in which the rules of the road are clearly defined for all parties. To lead by example, we have renewed our own disarmament efforts. Our deepened support for global institutions such as the IAEA underscores the authority of the international system. And Iran, on the other hand, continues to single itself out through its own actions, drawing even criticism for its refusal to permit IAEA inspectors to visit from Russia and China in the last days. Its intransigence represents a challenge to the rules that all countries must adhere to.
And third, we have strengthened our relationship with those countries whose help we need if diplomacy is to be successful. Through classic shoe-leather diplomacy, we’ve built a broad consensus that will welcome Iran back into the community of nations if it meets its obligations and will likewise hold Iran accountable if it continues its defiance.
This spring, the UN Security Council passed the strongest and most comprehensive set of sanctions. The European Union then followed with robust implementation of that resolution. Many other nations are implementing their own additional measures, including Australia, Canada, Norway, and most recently, Japan. So we believe Iran is beginning to feel the impact of these sanctions. But beyond what governments are doing, the international financial and commercial sectors are also starting to recognize the risks of doing business with Iran.
Sanctions and pressures, however, are not ends in themselves. They are the building blocks of leverage for a negotiated solution, to which we and our partners remain committed. The choice for Iran’s leaders is clear, and they have to decide whether they accept their obligations or increasing isolation and the costs that come with it, and we will see how Iran decides.
Now, our task going forward is to continue to develop this approach, to develop the tools that we need, and we have to strengthen civilian power. Now, when I was here last year, we were just at the beginning of making the case to Congress that we had to have more diplomats and more development experts. We had to have greater Foreign Service and Civil Service personnel. Congress has already then appropriated funds for more than 1,100 new Foreign and Civil Service officers. USAID has begun a series of reforms aimed at reestablishing it as the world’s premier development agency. Across the board, we need to rethink, reform, and recalibrate. And in a time of tight budgets, we not only have to assure our resources are spent wisely; we have to make the case to the American taxpayer and the members of Congress that this is an important investment. That’s why I launched the first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. We call it the QDDR, a wholesale review of State and USAID to recommend how we can better equip, fund, and organize ourselves. I’ll be talking more about that in the coming weeks as this review is completed and published.
But we recognize the scope of the efforts we’ve undertaken. I had a lot of wonderful advice from my predecessors. And one of the most common pieces of advice was: You can either try to manage the building or manage the world; you can’t try to do both. (Laughter.) We are trying to do both, which is an impossible task to start with.
But we’re not trying to do it alone. We are forging a closer partnership with the Defense Department. Bob Gates has been one of the strongest advocates of the position that we are taking, that I am expressing today. He constantly is encouraging the Congress to give us the funds that we asked for. But there’s a legitimate question, and some of you have raised it, I know in print and elsewhere: How can you try to manage or at least address and even try to solve all of these problems?
But our response in this day where there is nothing that doesn’t come to the forefront of public awareness: What do we give up on? What do we put on the backburner? Do we sideline development? Do we put some hot conflicts on hold? Do we quit trying to prevent other conflicts from unfreezing and heating up? Do we give up on democracy and human rights? I don’t think that’s what is either possible or desirable. And it is not what Americans do. But it does require a lot of strategic patience.
When our troops come home, as they are from Iraq and eventually from Afghanistan, we’ll still be involved in diplomatic and development efforts, trying to rid the world of nuclear dangers and turn back climate change, end poverty, quell the epidemic of HIV/AIDS, tackle hunger and disease. That’s the work not of a year or even of a presidency, but of a lifetime. And it is the work of generations.
America has made generational commitments to building the kind of world that we wanted to inhabit for many decades now. We cannot turn away from that responsibility. We are a nation that has always believed we have the power to shape our own destiny and to cut a new and better path, and frankly, to bring along people who were likeminded from around the world. So we will continue to do everything we can to exercise the best traditions of American leadership at home and abroad, to build that more peaceful and prosperous future for our children and for children everywhere.
Thank you. (Applause.) MR. HAASS: Well, thank you. And I will ask a slightly longer first question than I normally would while you fumble with that. SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much. (Laughter.) Very kind of you. MR. HAASS: The old stall tactic, filibuster, and you may recall that from a previous life. SECRETARY CLINTON: Yes, I do, but I never knew it would be so common. (Laughter.) MR. HAASS: Yes, it’s – Council on Foreign Relations, we’re trying to keep up. We’re trying to keep up. Touché.
Let me start where – you okay? SECRETARY CLINTON: Yeah. MR. HAASS: Let me start where you began – where you ended rather – which was with all these things we want to do, and you called for strategic patience in Afghanistan and so forth. Yet the United States is soon approaching a point where the scale or size of our debt will exceed our GDP. It’s a question of when more than if. Where does national security contribute to the solution to running deficits of $1.5 trillion a year, or do we continue to carry out a foreign and defense policy as if we were not seriously resource constrained? SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Richard, first, as I said, I think that our rising debt levels poses a national security threat, and it poses a national security threat in two ways. It undermines our capacity to act in our own interests and it does constrain us where constraint may be undesirable. And it also sends a message of weakness internationally. I mean, it is very troubling to me that we are losing the ability not only to chart our own destiny, but to have the leverage that comes from this enormously effective economic engine that has powered American values and interests over so many years.
So I don’t think we have a choice. It’s a question of how we decide to deal with this debt and deficit. I mean, it is – we don’t need to go back and sort of re-litigate how we got to where we are. But it is fair to say that we fought two wars without paying for them and we had tax cuts that were not paid for either, and that has been a very deadly combination to fiscal sanity and responsibility.
So the challenge is how we get out of it by making the right decisions, not the wrong decisions. There’s a lot of wrong things we could do that would further undermine our strength. I mean, it is going to be very difficult for those decisions. And I know there’s an election going on and I know that I am, by law, out of politics, but I will say that this is not just a decision for the Congress; it’s a decision for the country. And it’s not a Republican or a Democratic decision. And there are a lot of people who know more about what needs to be done and who, frankly, have a responsible view, whose voices are not being heard right now, and I think that is a great disservice to our nation. Whether one is a Republican or a Democrat, a conservative, a progressive, whatever you call yourself, there is no free lunch and we cannot pretend that there is without doing grave harm to our country and our future generations.
So when you specifically say, well, what about diplomacy, development and defense, we will have to take our share of the burden of meeting the fiscal targets that can drag us out of this deep hole we’re in, but we’ve got to be smart about it. And I think from both my perspective and Bob Gates’s perspective, and we talked about this a lot, Bob has made some very important recommendations that are not politically popular, but which come with a very well thought out policy. And what I’ve tried to do is to say, “Look, we’re going to try to be smarter, more effective.” In our QDDR, we’re recommending changes in personnel policies, in all kinds of approaches that will better utilize what we have. But we needed to get a little more robust in order to catch up to our responsibilities.
A quick final point on that. When our combat troops move out of Iraq, as they’ve been, that will save about $15 billion. That’s a net win for our Treasury, and it’s the policy that we have committed to along with the Iraqis. The Congress cuts my budget of the State Department and USAID for trying to pick up the pieces that we’re left with. We now have the responsibility for the police training mission, for opening up consulates that have to be secure. So even though our troops are coming down and we’re saving money, and what we’re asking for is considerably less than the $15 billion that we are saving by having the troops leave, the Congress cuts us.
And so we have to get a more sensible, comprehensive approach. And Bob and I have talked about trying to figure out how to present a national security budget. It’s a mistake to look at all of these items – foreign aid, diplomatic operations, defense – as stovepipes. Because what we know, especially from the threats that we have faced in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, is you have to be more integrated. So let’s start thinking from a budget perspective about how to be more integrated.
So there’s a lot that we can do on our side to help. But the bottom line is that the public and the Congress and the Administration have to make some very tough decisions, and I hope we make the right decisions. MR. HAASS: Let me just follow up on that because you broached the political issue, and let me do it in the following way. I don’t have a crystal ball any better than anyone else’s, but let’s assume some of the pundits are essentially right and Republicans pick up quite a few seats in the House – whether they have control or not, who knows, they pick up a few seats in the Senate – so government is more divided come the new Congress when it takes office early next year. What does that mean for you? What are the opportunities? What are the problems in that for being Secretary of State? SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I won’t answer that as a political question because I don’t want to cross my line here. But I will say that I have found a lot of support for what we’re trying to do on both sides of the aisle in both houses, and I think we will continue to have that. And I’m hoping that we can maybe reestablish something of a détente when it comes to foreign policy that cuts across any partisan divide.
Like, take the START treaty; we have unanimous support for that. Our two chief negotiators, Rose Gottemoeller, our Assistant Secretary, and Ellen Tauscher, our Under Secretary, are here and they did a terrific job. And we’ve had a very positive endorsement of it by former secretaries of State and Defense, of both parties, the Joint Chiefs have come out, everybody’s come out for it. And it’s a political issue. I wish it weren’t because most of these treaties pass 95 to nothing, 90 to 3. They have huge overwhelming majorities in the Senate.
But we know that we have political issues that we have to address, which we are, and talking to those who have some questions. But I hope at the end of the day, the Senate will say, “Something should just be beyond any kind of election or partisan calculation,” and that everybody will pull together and will get that START treaty done, which I know, from my own conversations with Eastern and Central Europeans and others, is seen as a really important symbol of our commitment to continue working with the Russians. MR. HAASS: Let’s ask one last question, then I’ll open it up to our members. You’re about, as you said, to head back to the Middle East for the resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian talks. The op-ed pages have been filled. I would say a majority of the pieces have been quite pessimistic. Why are the pessimists wrong? (Laughter.) SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think they’re wrong because I think that both sides and both leaders recognize that there may not ever be another chance. I think for most Israeli leaders that I have known and worked with and especially those coming from sort of the right of Israeli politics, which the prime minister does, it’s like Mario Cuomo’s famous line: “They campaign in poetry and they govern in prose.” And the prose is really challenging.
You look at where Israel is and the threats it faces demographically, technologically, ideologically, and the idea of striking a peace deal with a secular Palestinian Authority that is committed to its own people’s economic future makes a lot of sense if it can be worked out. From Abbas, he was probably the earliest and at times the only Palestinian leader who called for a two-state solution going back probably 20, 30 years, and for him, this is the culmination of a life’s commitment.
And I think that the Arab League Initiative, the peace initiative, put the Arab – most Arab and Muslim countries on record as saying that they could live with and welcome a two-state solution. Fifty-seven countries, including some we know didn’t mean it, but most have followed through in commitments to it, has changed the atmosphere. So I know how difficult it is, and I know the internal domestic political considerations that each leader has to contend with, but I think there is a certain momentum. We have some challenges in the early going that we have to get over, but I think that we have a real shot here. MR. HAASS: So I’ll open it up and what I’ll ask is people to identify themselves, wait for a microphone, and please limit yourself to one question and be as short as you can. Sir, I don’t know your name, but just – pick up. QUESTION: How are you, Secretary Clinton? My name is Travis Atkins. I’m an International Affairs Fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations focusing on Sudan this year. And my question is if – you mentioned Darfur once in your talk – if you could elaborate a little bit on our ramped up efforts in Sudan as we head towards the referendum there in January. SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, thank you. Thanks for asking and thanks for your work on Sudan. We have a very difficult set of challenges in Sudan. Some of you in this audience, those of you who were in government before like John Negroponte and others, you know this firsthand – the situation in Darfur is dangerous, difficult, not stable.
But the situation North-South is a ticking time bomb of enormous consequence. So we are ramping up our efforts to bring the parties together, North and South, the African Union, others to focus on this referendum which has not been given the attention it needs, both because the South is not quite capable of summoning the resources to do it, and the North has been preoccupied and is not inclined to do it because it’s pretty clear what the outcome will be. The African Union committee under Thabo Mbeki has been working on it.
So we are upping our diplomatic and development efforts. We have increased our presence in Juba, we have sent a – we’ve opened a – kind of a consulate and sent a consul general there, we are – Princeton Lyman, whom some of you know, is – sort of signed on to help as well with Scott Gration and his team. MR. HAASS: Until last week, a senior fellow here. SECRETARY CLINTON: That’s right, and Assistant Secretary Johnnie Carson. It’s really all hands on deck, so that we’re trying to convince the North and South and all the other interested parties who care about the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to weighing in to getting this done. The timeframe is very short. Pulling together this referendum is going to be difficult. We’re going to need a lot of help from NGOs, the Carter Center, and others who are willing to help implement the referendum.
But the real problem is what happens when the inevitable happens and the referendum is passed and the South declares independence. So simultaneously, we’re trying to begin negotiations to work out some of those intractable problems. What happens to the oil revenues? And if you’re in the North and all of a sudden, you think a line’s going to be drawn and you’re going to lose 80 percent of the oil revenues, you’re not a very enthusiastic participant, what are the deals that can possibly be made that will limit the potential of violence? And even if we did everything perfectly and everyone else – the Norwegians, the Brits, everybody who is weighing in on this – did all that they could, the reality is that this is going to be a very hard decision for the North to accept.
And so we’ve got to figure out some ways to make it worth their while to peacefully accept an independent South and for the South to recognize that unless they want more years of warfare and no chance to build their own new state, they’ve got to make some accommodations with the North as well. So that’s what we’re looking for. If you have any ideas from your study, let us know. (Laughter.) MR. HAASS: We’ll turn to Carla Hills. QUESTION: Secretary Clinton, first of all, thank you for a really far-ranging, extraordinarily interesting talk. You mentioned strategies that are regional, and I’d like you to just say a word more about this hemisphere. You gave a wonderful speech at the border of Mexico where you asserted that we had responsibility for the drugs coming north and the guns going south. Talk a little bit about how we are implementing strategies to turn that around and also to gain friendships that would be helpful throughout Latin America. SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first, Carla, thank you for asking about this hemisphere, because it is very much on our minds and we face an increasing threat from a well-organized network drug trafficking threat that is, in some cases, morphing into or making common cause with what we would consider an insurgency in Mexico and in Central America.
And we are working very hard to assist the Mexicans in improving their law enforcement and their intelligence, their capacity to detain and prosecute those whom they arrest. I give President Calderon very high marks for his courage and his commitment. This is a really tough challenge. And these drug cartels are now showing more and more indices of insurgency; all of a sudden, car bombs show up which weren’t there before.
So it’s becoming – it’s looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago, where the narco-traffickers control certain parts of the country, not significant parts. And Colombia – it got to the point where more than a third of the country, nearly 40 percent of the country at one time or another was controlled by the insurgents, by FARC. But it’s going to take a combination of improved institutional capacity and better law enforcement and, where appropriate, military support for that law enforcement married to political will to be able to prevent this from spreading and to try to beat it back.
Mexico has capacity and they’re using that capacity, and they’ve been very willing to take advice. They’re wanting to do as much of it on their own as possible, but we stand ready to help them. But the small countries in Central America do not have that capacity, and the newly inaugurated president of Costa Rica, President Chinchilla, said, “We need help and we need a much more vigorous U.S. presence.”
So we are working to try to enhance what we have in Central America. We hear the same thing from our Caribbean friends, so we have an initiative, the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative. And our relationship is not all about drugs and violence and crime, but unfortunately, that often gets the headlines. We are also working on more economic programs, we’re working on Millennium Challenge grants, we’re working on a lot of other ways of bolstering economies and governments to improve rule of law. But this is on the top of everyone’s minds when they come to speak with us.
And I know that Plan Colombia was controversial. I was just in Colombia and there were problems and there were mistakes, but it worked. And it was bipartisan, started in the Clinton Administration, continued in the Bush Administration, and I think President Santos will try to do everything he can to remedy the problems of the past while continuing to make progress against the insurgency. And we need to figure out what are the equivalents for Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
And that’s not easy because these – you put your finger on it. Those drugs come up through Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, through Central America, Southern Mexico to the border, and we consume them. And those guns, legal and illegal, keep flooding along with all of the mayhem. It’s not only guns; it’s weapons, it’s arsenals of all kinds that come south. So I feel a real sense of responsibility to do everything we can, and again, we’re working hard to come up with approaches that will actually deliver. MR. HAASS: Speaking of guns, I’m going to be shot if I don’t ask a question that comes from one of our national members, and thanks to the iPad I have on my lap, I can ask it. Several have written in about the impact of the mosque debate in New York, about the threat to burn Qu’rans. How do – what’s your view on all this from the Department of State? How does this complicate your life? (Laughter.) SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I mean, we’re a country of what, 310 million-plus right now and – I mean, it’s regrettable that a pastor in Gainesville, Florida with a church of no more than 50 people can make this outrageous and distressful, disgraceful plan and get the world’s attention, but that’s the world we live in right now. I mean, it doesn’t, in any way, represent America or Americans or American Government or American religious or political leadership. And we are, as you’ve seen in the last few days, speaking out. General Petraeus made the very powerful point that as seemingly small a group of people doing this, the fact is that it will have potentially great harm for our troops. So we are hoping that the pastor decides not to do this. We’re hoping against hope that if he does, it won’t be covered — (laughter) — MR. HAASS: Bonne chance. SECRETARY CLINTON: — as an act of patriotism. But I think that it’s unfortunate. I mean, it’s not who we are, and we just have to constantly be demonstrating by our words and actions. And as I remind my friends around the world, in the environment in which we all now operate, anybody with an iPhone, anybody with a blog, can put something out there which is outrageous. I mean, we went through the cartoon controversy. We went through the Facebook controversy in Pakistan. Judith McHale, who is our Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, is on the front lines of pushing back on all of this all the time. And so we want to be judged by who we are as a nation, not by something that is so aberrational. And we’ll make that case as strongly as possible. MR. HAASS: Time for one more? SECRETARY CLINTON: Sure. MR. HAASS: Okay, let me first of all apologize for the 283 of you who’s questions will not – (laughter) – get answered. And let me also say that after the Secretary completes her next answer, if people would just remain seated while we get you out quickly and safely. SECRETARY CLINTON: Safely? Do you think they’re going to storm the stage? (Laughter.) MR. HAASS: This is the – SECRETARY CLINTON: I don’t know. I’m looking at this audience. There’s a – (laughter) – a few people I think that might. (Laughter.) QUESTION: Thanks, Richard. Barbara Slavin, an independent journalist. Madam Secretary, it’s a pleasure and I appreciate the responsibility on my shoulders. I have two very quick ones. MR. HAASS: (Off mike.) QUESTION: Very easy ones. SECRETARY CLINTON: Go ahead. QUESTION: Is it the role of the United States to support the Green Movement, the opposition in Iran? And if so, how should we be doing that?
And secondly, you’ve hardly mentioned North Korea. Is U.S. policy now just to let North Korea stew in its own juices until the next Kim takes over? Thank you. SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, with respect to the first question, it is definitely our policy to support freedom and human rights inside Iran, and we have done so by speaking out. We have done so by trying to equip Iranians with the tools, particularly the technology tools that they need, to be able to communicate with each other to make their views known. We have strongly condemned the actions of the Iranian Government and continue to do so.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that Iran is morphing into a military dictatorship with a sort of religious, ideological veneer. It is becoming the province of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and in concert with some of the clerical and political leadership. And I don’t think that’s what the Iranian Revolution for a Republic of Iran, an Islamic Republic of Iran was ever meant to become.
So I know there’s a great deal of ferment and activities inside Iran that we do try to support. At the same time, we don’t want to either endanger or undermine those very same people so that it becomes, once again, the U.S. doing something instead of the U.S. being supportive of what indigenous efforts are taking place.
We know that Iran is under tremendous pressure. Early returns from implementation of the sanctions are that they’re feeling the economic effects. We would hope that that would lead them to reconsider their positions, not only with respect to nuclear weapons, but, frankly, the export of terrorism. And it’s not only in the obvious places with Hezbollah and Hamas, but in trying to destabilize many countries in the region and beyond, where they have provided support and funding for terrorist activities as far away as Argentina.
So I think there is a very, very sad confluence of events occurring inside Iran that I think eventually – but I can’t put a time frame on it – the Iranian people themselves will respond to. And we want to be helpful, but we don’t want to get in the way of it. So that’s the balance that we try to strike.
Now, with respect to North Korea, we are continuing to send a very clear message to North Korea about what we expect and what the Six-Party process could offer if they are willing to return and discuss seriously denuclearization that is irreversible. We are in intense discussions about this with all the other Six-Party members and we’re watching the leadership process and don’t have any idea yet how it’s going to turn out. But the most important issue for us is trying to get our Six-Party friends, led by China, to work with us to try to convince whosever in leadership in North Korea that their future would be far better served by denuclearizing. And that remains our goal. MR. HAASS: As always, thank you so much for coming here, first of all, but also giving such a thorough and complete and serious and comprehensive talk about American foreign policy. And I know I speak for everyone that we wish you Godspeed and more in your work next week and beyond. Thank you so much. SECRETARY CLINTON: Thanks, Richard.
(Applause.)
The picture is from Secretary Clinton’s appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations last year. It was July 15 and, if I am not mistaken, it was her first week not wearing the Sling of State after breaking her elbow.
Secretary Clinton to Deliver Foreign Policy Speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on September 8
Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
September 3, 2010
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will deliver a foreign policy speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. on September 8 at 9:30 a.m. After her remarks, Council President Richard N. Haass will moderate a question and answer session with council members.
Foreign Policy Address at the Council on Foreign Relations
Speech
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
July 15, 2009
Thank you very much, Richard, and I am delighted to be here in these new headquarters. I have been often to, I guess, the mother ship in New York City, but it’s good to have an outpost of the Council right here down the street from the State Department. We get a lot of advice from the Council, so this will mean I won’t have as far to go to be told what we should be doing and how we should think about the future.
Richard just gave what could be described as a mini-version of my remarks in talking about the issues that confront us. But I look out at this audience filled with not only many friends and colleagues, but people who have served in prior administrations. And so there is never a time when the in-box is not full.
Shortly before I started at the State Department, a former Secretary of State called me with this advice: Don’t try to do too much. And it seemed like a wise admonition, if only it were possible. But the international agenda today is unforgiving: two wars, conflict in the Middle East, ongoing threats of violent extremism and nuclear proliferation, global recession, climate change, hunger and disease, and a widening gap between the rich and the poor. All of these challenges affect America’s security and prosperity, and they all threaten global stability and progress.
But they are not reason to despair about the future. The same forces that compound our problems – economic interdependence, open borders, and the speedy movement of information, capital, goods, services and people – are also part of the solution. And with more states facing common challenges, we have the chance, and a profound responsibility, to exercise American leadership to solve problems in concert with others. That is the heart of America’s mission in the world today.
Now, some see the rise of other nations and our economic troubles here at home as signs that American power has waned. Others simply don’t trust us to lead; they view America as an unaccountable power, too quick to impose its will at the expense of their interests and our principles. But they are wrong.
The question is not whether our nation can or should lead, but how it will lead in the 21st century. Rigid ideologies and old formulas don’t apply. We need a new mindset about how America will use its power to safeguard our nation, expand shared prosperity, and help more people in more places live up to their God-given potential.
President Obama has led us to think outside the usual boundaries. He has launched a new era of engagement based on common interests, shared values, and mutual respect. Going forward, capitalizing on America’s unique strengths, we must advance those interests through partnership, and promote universal values through the power of our example and the empowerment of people. In this way, we can forge the global consensus required to defeat the threats, manage the dangers, and seize the opportunities of the 21st century. America will always be a world leader as long as we remain true to our ideals and embrace strategies that match the times. So we will exercise American leadership to build partnerships and solve problems that no nation can solve on its own, and we will pursue policies to mobilize more partners and deliver results.
First, though, let me say that while the ideas that shape our foreign policy are critically important, this, for me, is not simply an intellectual exercise. For over 16 years, I’ve had the chance, the privilege, really, to represent our country overseas as First Lady, as a senator, and now as Secretary of State. I’ve seen the bellies of starving children, girls sold into human trafficking, men dying of treatable diseases, women denied the right to own property or vote, and young people without schooling or jobs gripped by a sense of futility about their futures.
I’ve also seen how hope, hard work, and ingenuity can overcome the longest of odds. And for almost 36 years, I have worked as an advocate for children, women and families here at home. I’ve traveled across our country listening to everyday concerns of our citizens. I’ve met parents struggling to keep their jobs, pay their mortgages, cover their children’s college tuitions, and afford healthcare.
And all that I have done and seen has convinced me that our foreign policy must produce results for people – the laid-off auto worker in Detroit whose future will depend on global economic recovery; the farmer or small business owner in the developing world whose lack of opportunity can drive political instability and economic stagnation; the families whose loved ones are risking their lives for our country in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere; children in every land who deserve a brighter future. These are the people – hundreds of millions of them here in America and billions around the world – whose lives and experiences, hopes and dreams, must inform the decisions we take and the actions that follow. And these are the people who inspire me and my colleagues and the work that we try to do every day.
In approaching our foreign policy priorities, we have to deal with the urgent, the important, and the long-term all at once. But even as we are forced to multi-task – a very gender-related term (laughter) – we must have priorities, which President Obama has outlined in speeches from Prague to Cairo, from Moscow to Accra. We want to reverse the spread of nuclear weapons, prevent their use, and build a world free of their threat. We want to isolate and defeat terrorists and counter violent extremists while reaching out to Muslims around the world. We want to encourage and facilitate the efforts of all parties to pursue and achieve a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. We want to seek global economic recovery and growth by strengthening our own economy, advancing a robust development agenda, expanding trade that is free and fair, and boosting investment that creates decent jobs. We want to combat climate change, increase energy security, and lay the foundation for a prosperous clean-energy future. We want to support and encourage democratic governments that protect the rights and deliver results for their people. And we intend to stand up for human rights everywhere.
Liberty, democracy, justice and opportunity underlie our priorities. Some accuse us of using these ideals to justify actions that contradict their very meaning. Others say we are too often condescending and imperialistic, seeking only to expand our power at the expense of others. And yes, these perceptions have fed anti-Americanism, but they do not reflect who we are. No doubt we lost some ground in recent years, but the damage is temporary. It’s kind of like my elbow – it’s getting better every day. (Laughter.) Whether in Latin America or Lebanon, Iran or Liberia, those who are inspired by democracy, who understand that democracy is about more than just elections – that it must also protect minority rights and press freedom, develop strong, competent and independent judiciaries, legislatures and executive agencies, and commit for democracy to deliver results – these are the people who will find that Americans are their friends, not adversaries. As President Obama made clear last week in Ghana, this Administration will stand for accountable and transparent governance, and support those who work to build democratic institutions wherever they live.
Our approach to foreign policy must reflect the world as it is, not as it used to be. It does not make sense to adapt a 19th century concert of powers, or a 20th century balance of power strategy. We cannot go back to Cold War containment or to unilateralism.
Today, we must acknowledge two inescapable facts that define our world: First, no nation can meet the world’s challenges alone. The issues are too complex. Too many players are competing for influence, from rising powers to corporations to criminal cartels; from NGOs to al-Qaida; from state-controlled media to individuals using Twitter.
Second, most nations worry about the same global threats, from non-proliferation to fighting disease to counterterrorism, but also face very real obstacles – for reasons of history, geography, ideology, and inertia. They face these obstacles and they stand in the way of turning commonality of interest into common action.
So these two facts demand a different global architecture – one in which states have clear incentives to cooperate and live up to their responsibilities, as well as strong disincentives to sit on the sidelines or sow discord and division.
So we will exercise American leadership to overcome what foreign policy experts at places like the Council call “collective action problems” and what I call obstacles to cooperation. For just as no nation can meet these challenges alone, no challenge can be met without America.
And here’s how we’ll do it: We’ll work through existing institutions and reform them. But we’ll go further. We’ll use our power to convene, our ability to connect countries around the world, and sound foreign policy strategies to create partnerships aimed at solving problems. We’ll go beyond states to create opportunities for non-state actors and individuals to contribute to solutions.
We believe this approach will advance our interests by uniting diverse partners around common concerns. It will make it more difficult for others to abdicate their responsibilities or abuse their power, but will offer a place at the table to any nation, group, or citizen willing to shoulder a fair share of the burden. In short, we will lead by inducing greater cooperation among a greater number of actors and reducing competition, tilting the balance away from a multi-polar world and toward a multi-partner world.
Now, we know this approach is not a panacea. We will remain clear-eyed about our purpose. Not everybody in the world wishes us well or shares our values and interests. And some will actively seek to undermine our efforts. In those cases, our partnerships can become power coalitions to constrain or deter those negative actions.
And to these foes and would-be foes, let me say our focus on diplomacy and development is not an alternative to our national security arsenal. Our willingness to talk is not a sign of weakness to be exploited. We will not hesitate to defend our friends, our interests, and above all, our people vigorously and when necessary with the world’s strongest military. This is not an option we seek nor is it a threat; it is a promise to all Americans.
Building the architecture of global cooperation requires us to devise the right policies and use the right tools. I speak often of smart power because it is so central to our thinking and our decision-making. It means the intelligent use of all means at our disposal, including our ability to convene and connect. It means our economic and military strength; our capacity for entrepreneurship and innovation; and the ability and credibility of our new President and his team. It also means the application of old-fashioned common sense in policymaking. It’s a blend of principle and pragmatism.
Smart power translates into specific policy approaches in five areas. First, we intend to update and create vehicles for cooperation with our partners; second, we will pursue principled engagement with those who disagree with us; third, we will elevate development as a core pillar of American power; fourth, we will integrate civilian and military action in conflict areas; and fifth, we will leverage key sources of American power, including our economic strength and the power of our example.
Our first approach is to build these stronger mechanisms of cooperation with our historic allies, with emerging powers, and with multilateral institutions, and to pursue that cooperation in, as I said, a pragmatic and principled way. We don’t see those as in opposition, but as complementary. We have started by reinvigorating our bedrock alliances, which did fray in recent years. In Europe, that means improved bilateral relationships, a more productive partnership with the European Union, and a revitalized NATO. I believe NATO is the greatest alliance in history. But it was built for the Cold War. The new NATO is a democratic community of nearly a billion people stretching from the Baltics in the East to Alaska in the West. We’re working to update its strategic concept so that it is as effective in this century as it was in the last. At the same time, we are working with our key treaty allies Japan and Korea, Australia, Thailand, and the Philippines and other partners to strengthen our bilateral relationships as well as trans-Pacific institutions. We are both a trans-Atlantic and a trans-Pacific nation.
We will also put special emphasis on encouraging major and emerging global powers – China, India,Russia and Brazil, as well as Turkey, Indonesia, and South Africa – to be full partners in tackling the global agenda. I want to underscore the importance of this task, and my personal commitment to it. These states are vital to achieving solutions to the shared problems and advancing our priorities – nonproliferation, counterterrorism, economic growth, climate change, among others. With these states, we will stand firm on our principles even as we seek common ground.
This week, I will travel to India, where External Affairs Minister Krishna and I will lay out a broad-based agenda that calls for a whole-of-government approach to our bilateral relationship. Later this month, Secretary Geithner and I will jointly lead our new strategic and economic dialogue with China. It will cover not just economic issues, but the range of strategic challenges we face together. In the fall, I will travel to Russia to advance the bi-national presidential commission that Foreign Minister Lavrov and I will co-chair.
The fact of these and other meetings does not guarantee results, but they set in motion processes and relationships that will widen our avenues of cooperation and narrow the areas of disagreement without illusion. We know that progress will not likely come quickly, or without bumps in the road, but we are determined to begin and stay on this path.
Now our global and regional institutions were built for a world that has been transformed, so they too must be transformed and reformed. As the President said following the recent G-8 meeting in Italy, we are seeking institutions that “combine the efficiency and capacity for action with inclusiveness.” From the UN to the World Bank, from the IMF to the G-8 and the G-20, from the OAS and the Summit of the Americas to ASEAN and APEC – all of these and other institutions have a role to play, but their continued vitality and relevance depend on their legitimacy and representativeness, and the ability of their members to act swiftly and responsibly when problems arise.
We also will reach out beyond governments, because we believe partnerships with people play a critical role in our 21st century statecraft. President Obama’s Cairo speech is a powerful example of communicating directly with people from the bottom up. And we are following up with a comprehensive agenda of educational exchanges, outreach, and entrepreneurial ventures. In every country I visit, I look for opportunities to bolster civil society and engage with citizens, whether at a town hall in Baghdad – a first in that country; or appearing on local popular television shows that reach a wide and young audience; or meeting with democracy activists, war widows, or students.
I have appointed special envoys to focus on a number of specific challenges, including the first Ambassador for Global Women’s Issues and an ambassador to build new public-private partnerships and to engage Diaspora communities in the United States to increase opportunities in their native lands. And we are working at the State Department to ensure that our government is using the most innovative technologies not only to speak and listen across borders, not only to keep technologies up and going, but to widen opportunities especially for those who are too often left on the margins. We’re taking these steps because reaching out directly to people will encourage them to embrace cooperation with us, making our partnerships with their governments and with them stronger and more durable.
We’ve also begun to adopt a more flexible and pragmatic posture with our partners. We won’t agree on every issue. Standing firm on our principles shouldn’t prevent us from working together where we can. So we will not tell our partners to take it or leave it, nor will we insist that they’re either with us or against us. In today’s world, that’s global malpractice. Our diplomacy regarding North Korea is a case in point. We have invested a significant amount of diplomatic resources to achieve Security Council consensus in response to North Korea’s provocative actions. I spoke numerous times to my counterparts in Japan, South Korea, Russia and China, drawing out their concerns, making our principles and redlines clear, and seeking a path forward. The short-term results were two unanimous Security Council resolutions with real teeth and consequences for North Korea, and then the follow-on active involvement of China, Russia, and India with us in persuading others to comply with the resolutions. The long-term result, we believe, will be a tougher joint effort toward the complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Cultivating these partnerships and their full range takes time and patience. It also takes persistence. That doesn’t mean procrastinating on urgent issues. Nor is it a justification for delaying efforts that may take years to bear fruit. In one of my favorite observations, Max Weber said, “Politics is the long and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and perspective.” Perspective dictates passion and patience. And of course, passion keeps us from not [sic] finding excuses to do nothing.
Now I’m well aware that time alone does not heal all wounds; consider the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. That’s why we wasted no time in starting an intensive effort on day one to realize the rights of Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace and security in two states, which is in America’s interests and the world’s. We’ve been working with the Israelis to deal with the issue of settlements, to ease the living conditions of Palestinians, and create circumstances that can lead to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. For the last few decades, American administrations have held consistent positions on the settlement issue. And while we expect action from Israel, we recognize that these decisions are politically challenging.
And we know that progress toward peace cannot be the responsibility of the United States – or Israel – alone. Ending the conflict requires action on all sides. The Palestinians have the responsibility to improve and extend the positive actions already taken on security; to act forcefully against incitement; and to refrain from any action that would make meaningful negotiations less likely.
And Arab states have a responsibility to support the Palestinian Authority with words and deeds, to take steps to improve relations with Israel, and to prepare their publics to embrace peace and accept Israel’s place in the region. The Saudi peace proposal, supported by more than twenty nations, was a positive step. But we believe that more is needed. So we are asking those who embrace the proposal to take meaningful steps now. Anwar Sadat and King Hussein crossed important thresholds, and their boldness and vision mobilized peace constituencies in Israel and paved the way for lasting agreements. By providing support to the Palestinians and offering an opening, however modest, to the Israelis, the Arab states could have the same impact. So I say to all sides: Sending messages of peace is not enough. You must also act against the cultures of hate, intolerance and disrespect that perpetuate conflict.
Our second policy approach is to lead with diplomacy, even in the cases of adversaries or nations with whom we disagree. We believe that doing so advances our interests and puts us in a better position to lead with our other partners. We cannot be afraid or unwilling to engage. Yet some suggest that this is a sign of naiveté or acquiescence to these countries’ repression of their own people. I believe that is wrong. As long as engagement might advance our interests and our values, it is unwise to take it off the table. Negotiations can provide insight into regimes’ calculations and the possibility – even if it seems remote – that a regime will eventually alter its behavior in exchange for the benefits of acceptance into the international community. Libya is one such example. Exhausting the option for dialogue is also more likely to make our partners more willing to exert pressure should persuasion fail.
With this in mind, I want to say a few words about Iran. We watched the energy of Iran’s election with great admiration, only to be appalled by the manner in which the government used violence to quell the voices of the Iranian people, and then tried to hide its actions by arresting foreign journalists and nationals, and expelling them, and cutting off access to technology. As we and our G-8 partners have made clear, these actions are deplorable and unacceptable.
We know very well what we inherited with Iran, because we deal with that inheritance every day. We know that refusing to deal with the Islamic Republic has not succeeded in altering the Iranian march toward a nuclear weapon, reducing Iranian support for terror, or improving Iran’s treatment of its citizens.
Neither the President nor I have any illusions that dialogue with the Islamic Republic will guarantee success of any kind, and the prospects have certainly shifted in the weeks following the election. But we also understand the importance of offering to engage Iran and giving its leaders a clear choice: whether to join the international community as a responsible member or to continue down a path to further isolation.
Direct talks provide the best vehicle for presenting and explaining that choice. That is why we offered Iran’s leaders an unmistakable opportunity: Iran does not have a right to nuclear military capacity, and we’re determined to prevent that. But it does have a right to civil nuclear power if it reestablishes the confidence of the international community that it will use its programs exclusively for peaceful purposes.
Iran can become a constructive actor in the region if it stops threatening its neighbors and supporting terrorism. It can assume a responsible position in the international community if it fulfills its obligations on human rights. The choice is clear. We remain ready to engage with Iran, but the time for action is now. The opportunity will not remain open indefinitely.
Our third policy approach, and a personal priority for me as Secretary, is to elevate and integrate development as a core pillar of American power. We advance our security, our prosperity, and our values by improving the material conditions of people’s lives around the world. These efforts also lay the groundwork for greater global cooperation, by building the capacity of new partners and tackling shared problems from the ground up.
A central purpose of the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review that I announced last week is to explore how to effectively design, fund, and implement development and foreign assistance as part of a broader foreign policy. Let’s face it. We have devoted a smaller percentage of our government budget to development than almost any other advanced country. And too little of what we have spent has contributed to genuine and lasting progress. Too much of the money has never reached its intended target, but stayed here in America to pay salaries or fund overhead in contracts. I am committed to more partnerships with NGOs, but I want more of our tax dollars to be used effectively and to deliver tangible results.
As we seek more agile, effective, and creative partnerships for development, we will focus on country-driven solutions, such as those we are launching with Haiti on recovery and sustainable development, and with African states on global hunger. These initiatives must not be designed to help countries scrape by – they are a tool to help countries stand on their own.
Our development agenda will also focus on women as drivers of economic growth and social stability. Women have long comprised the majority of the world’s unhealthy, unschooled, and underfed. They are also the bulk of the world’s poor. The global recession has had a disproportionate effect on women and girls, which in turn has repercussions for families, communities, and even regions. Until women around the world are accorded their rights – and afforded the opportunities of education, health care, and gainful employment – global progress and prosperity will have its own glass ceiling.
Our fourth approach is to ensure that our civilian and military efforts operate in a coordinated and complementary fashion where we are engaged in conflict. This is the core of our strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq, where we are integrating our efforts with international partners.
In Afghanistan and Pakistan, our goal is to disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately defeat al-Qaida and its extremist allies, and to prevent their return to either country. Yet Americans often ask, why do we ask our young men and women to risk their lives in Afghanistan when al-Qaida’s leadership is in neighboring Pakistan? And that question deserves a good answer: We and our allies fight in Afghanistan because the Taliban protects al-Qaida and depends on it for support, sometimes coordinating activities. In other words, to eliminate al-Qaida, we must also fight the Taliban.
Now, we understand that not all those who fight with the Taliban support al-Qaida, or believe in the extremist policies the Taliban pursued when in power. And today we and our Afghan allies stand ready to welcome anyone supporting the Taliban who renounces al-Qaida, lays down their arms, and is willing to participate in the free and open society that is enshrined in the Afghan Constitution.
To achieve our goals, President Obama is sending an additional 17,000 troops and 4,000 military trainers to Afghanistan. Equally important, we are sending hundreds of direct hire American civilians to lead a new effort to strengthen the Afghan Government, help rebuild the once-vibrant agricultural sector, create jobs, encourage the rule of law, expand opportunities for women, and train the Afghan police. No one should doubt our commitment to Afghanistan and its people. But it is the Afghan people themselves who will determine their own future.
As we proceed, we must not forget that success in Afghanistan also requires close cooperation from neighboring Pakistan, which I will visit this fall. Pakistan is itself under intense pressure from extremist groups. Trilateral cooperation among Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States has built confidence and yielded progress on a number of policy fronts. Our national security, as well as the future of Afghanistan, depends on a stable, democratic, and economically viable Pakistan. And we applaud the new Pakistani determination to deal with the militants who threaten their democracy and our shared security.
In Iraq, we are bolstering our diplomacy and development programs while we implement a responsible withdrawal of our troops. Last month our combat troops successfully redeployed from towns and cities. Our principal focus is now shifting from security issues to civilian efforts that promote Iraqi capacity – supporting the work of the Iraqi ministries and aiding in their efforts to achieve national unity. And we are developing a long-term economic and political relationship with Iraq as outlined by the US-Iraq Strategic Framework Agreement. This Agreement forms the basis of our future cooperation with Iraq and the Iraqi people, and I look forward to discussing it and its implementation with Prime Minister Maliki when he comes to Washington next week.
Our fifth approach is to shore up traditional sources of our influence, including economic strength and the power of our example. We renewed our own values by prohibiting torture and beginning to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. And we have been straightforward about our own measure of responsibility for problems like drug trafficking in Mexico and global climate change. When I acknowledged the obvious about our role in Mexico’s current conflict with narco-traffickers, some were critical. But they’re missing the point. Our capacity to take responsibility, and our willingness to change, to do the right thing, are themselves hallmarks of our greatness as a nation and strategic assets that can help us forge coalitions in the service of our interests.
That is certainly true when it comes to key priorities like nonproliferation and climate change. President Obama is committed to the vision of a world without nuclear weapons and a series of concrete steps to reduce the threat and spread of these weapons, including working with the Senate to ratify the follow-on START agreement and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, taking on greater responsibility within the Non Proliferation Treaty Framework and convening the world’s leaders here in Washington next year for a nuclear summit. Now we must urge others to take practical steps to advance our shared nonproliferation agenda.
Our Administration is also committed to deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, with a plan that will dramatically change the way we produce, consume and conserve energy, and in the process spark an explosion of new investment, and millions of jobs. Now we must urge every other nation to meet its obligations and seize the opportunities of a clean energy future.
We are restoring our economy at home to enhance our strength and capacity abroad, especially at this time of economic turmoil. Now, this is not a traditional priority for a Secretary of State, but I vigorously support American recovery and growth as a pillar of our global leadership. And I am committed to restoring a significant role for the State Department within a whole-of-government approach to international economic policy-making. We will work to ensure that our economic statecraft – trade and investment, debt forgiveness, loan guarantees, technical assistance, decent work practices – support our foreign policy objectives. When coupled with a sound development effort, our economic outreach can give us a better form of globalization, reducing the bitter opposition of recent years and lifting millions more out of poverty.
And finally, I am determined to ensure that the men and women of our Foreign and Civil Service have the resources they need to implement our priorities effectively and safely. That’s why I appointed for the first time a Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources. It’s why we worked so hard to secure additional funding for State and USAID. It’s why we have put ourselves on a path to double foreign assistance over the next few years. And it’s why we are implementing a plan to dramatically increase the number of diplomats and development experts.
Just as we would never deny ammunition to American troops headed into battle, we cannot send our civilian personnel into the field underequipped. If we don’t invest in diplomacy and development, we will end up paying a lot more for conflicts and their consequences. As Secretary Gates has said, diplomacy is an indispensable instrument of national security, as it has been since Franklin, Jefferson and Adams won foreign support for Washington’s army.
Now all of this adds up to a very ambitious agenda. But the world does not afford us the luxury of choosing or waiting. As I said at the outset, we must tackle the urgent, the important and the long-term all at once.
We are both witness to and makers of significant change. We cannot and should not be passive observers. We are determined to channel the currents of change toward a world free of violent extremism, nuclear weapons, global warming, poverty, and abuses of human rights, and above all, a world in which more people in more places can live up to their God-given potential.
The architecture of cooperation we seek to build will advance all these goals, using our power not to dominate or divide but to solve problems. It is the architecture of progress for America and all nations.
More than 230 years ago, Thomas Paine said, “We have it within our power to start the world over again.” Today, in a new and very different era, we are called upon to use that power. I believe we have the right strategy, the right priorities, the right policies, we have the right President, and we have the American people, diverse, committed, and open to the future.
Now all we have to do is deliver. Thank you all very much. (Applause.)
Foreign Policy Address at the Council on Foreign Relations – Question-and-Answer Session
Speech
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
July 15, 2009
MR. HAASS: Well, thank you for delivering a truly comprehensive talk that was broad and deep. So really, thank you for that, and for doing it here.
I’m going to go straight to our membership and let them ask some questions. I ask them only to wait for a microphone, and to keep their questions as brief as they can be, so we can get as many in as possible. And just let us know your name and your affiliation when we do call on you.
I see zillions of – this is the part of the meeting where I alienate 70 percent of our membership. I may let you call on people before – SECRETARY CLINTON: Oh, no, no. That’s your job, Richard. (Laughter.) MR. HAASS: Odeh Aberdene. QUESTION: Madame Secretary, in 1999, I saw you in Gaza with President Clinton altering the PLO charter. There was a great deal of hope. Do you think by 2010 – by the end of 2010, we will have a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians? And can you say something about Syria? SECRETARY CLINTON: I well remember that occasion in Gaza and the hope that was generated. And I still carry that hope very much with me, both personally and on behalf of the position I now hold. And it’s one of the reasons why I urged the President to appoint a skilled negotiator as a special envoy, and George Mitchell gratefully accepted. And we have been working literally non-stop to set up the conditions for such negotiations.
But as I said in my speech, we don’t think it is just the responsibility of the Israelis, nor even just of the Palestinians. We expect the entire region, particularly the Arab states, to assist us by stepping up and making clear that they are truly going to support the two-state solution.
We intend to pursue our efforts as vigorously as we possibly can. I’m not going to make any predictions, but I can only tell you that our commitment is deep and durable. And I don’t get easily discouraged, and I don’t want anybody else to, because this is a very difficult undertaking, especially because of the ten years between where we were in Gaza in ’99 and where we are today in 2009. But I have actually been heartened by what I’ve seen in the last six months.
With respect to Syria, we have made it very clear to the Syrians, including with the offer to return an ambassador, that we do want an engagement, but we expect it to be reciprocal, and there are certain actions that we would like to see the Syrians take as we begin to explore this with them. I think Syria is a critical player in whatever we do in the Middle East. I’m hoping that the Syrian calculation of where they should be positionally with respect to their relationship with Iran and their support for extremist and terrorist activities will be changing so that we can pursue a two-way engagement that will benefit both us and the larger region. MR. HAASS: You mentioned in your speech the potential role of the Palestinian Authority in that context. You did not mention specifically Hamas. Do you see any conceivable situation in which Hamas could play a role in the peace process? SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, right now, we are firmly committed to the Quartet principles. And we have made it clear, both publicly and privately, through all kinds of pronouncements, that we would expect Hamas to recognize Israel and renounce violence and agree to abide by prior agreements. And we’ve been very pleased that the Quartet members – the EU, Russia, the UN – have stood very firm with us on that.
And in the efforts to try to work out a unity government between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, the Palestinian Authority has also stood firmly because, of course, they are committed to a two-state solution, something that Hamas has not yet committed to. So at this stage, what we want to do is to get the negotiations going between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority.
And as I said with respect to the Taliban, those who are willing to lay down arms, renounce al-Qaida, be willing to participate in a society that is free and open, they are welcome. And I think that’s true for people in other organizations who may realize that rejectionism and resistance hasn’t really given them or their children the kind of future that they would hope for. And so I’m very committed to working to encourage as many people as possible to be part of the two-state solution, but there are certain entry requirements that have to be paid. MR. HAASS: Trudy. QUESTION: Trudy Rubin, the Philadelphia Inquirer. SECRETARY CLINTON: How are you, Trudy? QUESTION: Madame Secretary, I wonder if you could elaborate a little on the Administration’s willingness to engage with Iran at this point?
First, could you tell us has there been any response from Ayatollah Khamenei or the Iranian Government to the letter that was sent in May? And if the Iranians should show interest in engagement, what if they stonewall? How long could this go on if there was absolutely no give? And finally, could you clarify, after Vice President’s Biden’s remarks, has there been any green, yellow, or red light given to Israel about an attack on Iran? SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, those are three easy questions, Trudy. (Laughter.)
With respect to Iran, I’m going to stay within the boundaries of what I said in my speech. We are well aware that the situation after the election puts a different complexion on both the Iranian Government – we really don’t know what their intentions might be at this point in time. We’re very troubled by the repressive actions that they took in the aftermath of their elections, as well as what are most likely a certain amount of electoral irregularities.
But as I said, we have no path that has opened up right now. But we have made it clear that there is a choice for the Iranian Government to make. And we will wait to see how they decide, whether that choice is worth pursuing. If they were to choose to pursue it, we’ve made it very clear that this is not an open-ended engagement. This is not a door that stays open no matter what happens. And I think that until there is some decision on their part, we really won’t know what to expect.
With respect to the Vice President’s remarks, I think that the President and the White House clarified those the next day. MR. HAASS: We’ve now had a two-part question and a three-part question. Can we please limit future questions to one part? (Laughter.)
Ambassador Schaffer? QUESTION: Thank you, and it’s nice to see you, Madame Secretary. SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you. QUESTION: I last saw you in Colombo when you were First Lady. SECRETARY CLINTON: I remember that. QUESTION: You’re about to go to India, and I wanted to ask you about what you expect to get out of the trip. Presumably, a lot of it will be on the bilateral side. But I wanted to ask if you could focus a little bit on the foreign policy and global part of your agenda. Are there issues where you see a real prospect of working together with India? Are there others that are tougher? And what do you see as the entry point there? SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Ambassador, we are delighted that our two countries will be engaging in a very broad, comprehensive dialogue. It’s the most wide-ranging that I think has ever been put on the table between India and the United States. It has six pillars to it, one of which, of course, is foreign policy, strategic challenges, along with other matters, like health and education and agriculture and the economy.
So I don’t want to prejudge, but it is clear that everything is on the table to discuss. We believe India has a tremendous opportunity and a growing responsibility, which they acknowledge, to play not just a regional role, but a global one as well. How they choose to define that, we will explore in depth during the course of our discussions. But obviously, there are a number of areas where we would welcome Indian leadership and involvement that are difficult.
There’s nothing easy about nonproliferation. Anybody who ever read Strobe Talbott’s book, Engaging India, knows that it’s a very difficult issue. But we want to look at new ways for global and regional regimes on weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear. We’re very interested in the role that India sees for itself in the immediate area. You mentioned Sri Lanka. What are the military and particularly naval implications of decisions that India is making going forward? The economic actions that India is taking – they weathered the beginning of the recession better than many places – what are they going to do keep generating growth, lifting people out of poverty? The Congress party made a number of important campaign promises to their poor, particularly the rural poor.
When I’m there, I will visit the first LEED certified building in India to talk about climate change and clean energy. We know that India and China have understandable questions about what role they should be expected to play in any kind of new global climate change regime. Our Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern will be with me. And it is our hope that we can, through dialogue, come up with some win-win approaches. And this LEED-certified building is a perfect example of what India would be capable of doing.
I will also be visiting an agricultural facility because India is really hoping to continue to expand agricultural productivity, but then they have to create an infrastructure so that the crops get to a market. We have to have farm-to-market roads. You have to have storage and refrigeration facilities. So I think that this is an extremely rich area. I’ve just touched the surface of it. So I’m excited. I’m very much looking forward to my meetings with the prime minister and certainly with Minister Krishna and others in India, and we’re going to do everything we can to broaden and deepen our engagement. MR. HAASS: You mentioned Ambassador – Senator Mitchell and Todd Stern. I want to make sure that – are there any members of your staff who want to ask a question here? SECRETARY CLINTON: They’d better not.
(Laughter.) MR. HAASS: I don’t want to deny them – in case the morning staff meeting wasn’t sufficiently long. I wanted to – let’s – in the back, all the way – I see in the third to last row or so, but I can’t see that far who it is. I see one or two hands up there. QUESTION: Jonathan Broder from Congressional Quarterly. Madame Secretary, there have been reports that in the discussions between George Mitchell and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, that a certain number of settlements – or houses in the settlements that have already begun, the construction has begun on them already, that there has – was some agreement to allow the construction on these houses to go forward. Can you confirm that? SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I’m certainly not going to step on the negotiations in any way. I think that any decisions that are made will be announced officially. And it’s only fair to the Israeli Government, as well as to our own, that we wait until decisions have been made. MR. HAASS: Hattie Babbitt. SECRETARY CLINTON: Hi, Hattie. QUESTION: Hi. I wanted to ask you to talk a little bit more about the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. It’s – I understand from your speech on Saturday – modeled in – a little bit after the Defense QDR, but in many ways more complicated because of the numbers of departments and agencies that have a stake or are stakeholders in the process. And could you talk more about how you envision that happening? SECRETARY CLINTON: Thanks, Hattie. I served on the Armed Services Committee for six years. And the Quadrennial Defense Review, it seemed to me, was a very important discipline and tool for the Defense Department. It forced the Defense Department to take a hard look at itself, put forward priorities and the means to achieve them. And I thought it was one of the many reasons why Defense had increasingly taken a paramount position in our foreign policy. So among the many steps we’re taking, I decided we would do the first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, because I think it requires us to think hard about what it is we’re trying to achieve, to be as specific as possible, to match our mission with the resources we need, to justify what we believe we are doing and to demonstrate results.
Especially in a global economic downturn, I feel a real responsibility to be able to explain to people who are not currently employed or hanging on by their fingernails, why am I asking for more money for something called diplomacy and development? I’m not asking for the money to build tanks or airplanes. I’m asking to send people to represent the United States, to engage in important negotiations, to be early warning signals. I’m asking to send experts into the field who can work with other nations, achieve sustainable results for the investment we make, lift the standard of living, which we believe then helps to sow the seeds of stability and, hopefully, democracy. And we have to make that case.
So we have embarked upon this. I think it is extremely complicated. I have no illusions about that. It is also, as Hattie said, something where we have to coordinate with a number of other agencies. Defense does work that you could call diplomacy and development. Treasury and the multilateral financial institutions are certainly engaged, at least in development. You’ve got USDA. You’ve got the U.S. Trade Rep. You can go down the list. And we want to try to explain the whole-of-government approach. And so in addition to what we will be doing internally, we will be working with the White House to bring together all the other stakeholders in diplomacy and development.
Now, it won’t surprise you to learn that I am also deep into discussions both with the Pentagon and with the Congress about bringing back some of the authorities and some of the money that went with them that has been used by the military for diplomacy and development. And the migration of those authorities and those resources is one of the many reasons why the State Department and USAID have had a challenging – a more challenging time than usual in the last years.
So this is both a policy tool as well as an attempt to explain and justify what it is we believe we can accomplish. And I want it institutionalized. I think Howard Berman may put it into legislation, so it’s not just a one-shot deal, it’s not just because I’m Secretary of State, but it will require the same level of rigor and analysis every four years by State and USAID. MR. HAASS: I’m going to do serious – all the way in the back there. I can’t see who it is. The gentleman – yes, sir. QUESTION: This is Stephen Flanagan from CSIS. MR. HAASS: Oh, Stephen. QUESTION: Madame Secretary, I had a question about your – the question of the dividends that are being – receiving – the Administration is receiving from its recommitment to alliances and alliance relationships. Many of our NATO allies definitely welcomed the shift in strategy and the recommitment to alliance relationships generally that the Administration put forward, but frankly, the response at Strasbourg-Kehl was little bit tepid, both on the military and the civil side. Now, President Obama characterized that as a down payment and that there would be more forthcoming, but yet we also still hear some allies hiding behind the complaint that, well, we haven’t yet seen the full development of the civil side of the Administration’s strategy.
So I wanted to ask you: Where do you see – do you see the second and third payments coming from our allies? And also, if you could give us a brief sense of where you are. You mentioned the recommitment of additional personnel to Afghanistan, civil personnel on the U.S. side. What about some of our allies and other partners in the world? SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I agree that it was a down payment. And I guess I was more impressed by what we got than perhaps some were, because I know how difficult it was to make the convincing case to allies who felt like they had been either shut out of the process or had a feeling that their contributions were not adequately appreciated. So we had a lot of catch-up work to do, and it was part of our overall strategic review. Richard Holbrooke is here, and he has put together an interagency team as well as an international team. We have intense ongoing discussions with our ISAF allies and with others who want to play a part in promoting the strategy that the President put forth.
Now, it’s challenging because of the global economic crisis that everybody faces. It’s also difficult, as it is in our own country, to understand – well, wait a minute, you’ve been there for nearly eight years and now you’re adding more troops and you’re asking for more funding and you’re going to send more civilians? So, I mean, we have to answer these questions in our own country. And you saw where Prime Minister Brown in Great Britain – they lost eight soldiers. And the government went out and began talking about why it was important to stand with the United States and others in Afghanistan, and got, from what I could glean, a more positive response than people anticipated. Because you have to be willing to try to assuage the fears and anxieties and paint a picture of where you’re going.
Now, on the civilian side, this has been one of the areas that Jack Lew, my Deputy for Resources and Management, working with Ambassador Holbrooke and his team and USAID and everybody involved – we’ve actually been heartened by the numbers of people who have volunteered to go. But we’ve limited the areas that the United States is going to focus on. For example, you heard me say agriculture. Seventy percent of the people of Afghanistan live in rural areas. Afghanistan used to be, in some descriptions, a garden of Central Asia and South Asia. And because of the Soviet invasion and the resistance to that and then the warlords, I mean, now it is so eroded and dry and – the whole agricultural base has to be reinvigorated. So we’re really focused on that. We’re not promising to be all things to all people. And in fact, we’re working with our allies so that they will focus on areas that we are not able to any longer.
So look, this is very complicated. And the whole idea is to be able to clear and hold, which is what our Marines are doing in the south right now, and to provide security for people and to begin to see life return to markets and other means of common activity, and then to go in and work with local people: on their police force, which we will be focusing on; on agriculture; and obviously, since I’m Secretary of State, on women and women’s roles and opportunities.
And I’m not here to say, we know exactly everything to do and every one of our allies is going to come through, but I am encouraged by those who feel the political pressure or the economic pressure to shift from military resources to civilian and development resources. And I think we’ve put together something which has a direct relationship to the strategy that we’re now following. MR. HAASS: Professor Lieber. QUESTION: Bob Lieber, Georgetown. After the easy questions, let me ask you one a tad more challenging. The previous presidents, from Jimmy Carter through Ronald Reagan through Bill Clinton, have sought to reach out to Iran and been rebuffed. Frankly, every president has had that experience. Iran, for 20 years, has been cheating on its obligations under various treaties. If Iran fails to respond positively to these initiatives, and if our friends and allies and others, including Russia and China, are unprepared to countenance really significant sanctions, what happens then? President Obama, either during the campaign or shortly after, said that the U.S. would not be willing to see Iran with a nuclear weapon. And therefore, I have to ask the question: If these other efforts don’t work, is the Administration prepared to live with a nuclear Iran or not? SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, as I said in my speech, as you rightly quoted the president, we have consistently stated that we do not accept a nuclear-armed Iran. We think it is a great threat to the region and beyond.
But as you might guess, I’m not going to negotiate with Iran sitting here. And in most negotiations I’ve ever been a part of, either as a lawyer or as a senator or in any other capacity, I think if you have a clear set of objectives and you begin the process, you have a better idea of what might or might not be possible. We have no illusions about this. I believe, though, that the absence of the United States for much of the last eight years in these negotiations was a mistake. I think we outsourced our policy to Iran and, frankly, it didn’t work very well. That’s how I see it. I want to be in the middle of it, to be able to make our own judgments, to figure out what we know and don’t know, and then to be in a stronger position with respect to other nations.
I think part of the attractiveness of engagement, direct engagement, is not only to make our own judgments, but also to demonstrate to others that we’ve done so, and to make clear what kind of reaction we’ve gotten, which I think lays the groundwork for concerted action. And certainly, in just the last six months in our efforts in talking with other partners, I’ve noticed a turn in attitude by some, a recognition that it’s not just the United States that should be concerned about what Iran is doing, but that there are implications for others who are much closer than we are to Iran.
So I think that, as I said in the speech, our policy is one that we believe makes the most sense for our interests, and we intend to pursue it but we obviously have exits along the way depending upon the consequences of the discussions. MR. HAASS: We probably have time for about one last question. Stan Roth. SECRETARY CLINTON: Hi, Stan. QUESTION: Hi, good to see you. SECRETARY CLINTON: Good to see you. QUESTION: I just wanted to ask you to expand on – SECRETARY CLINTON: Oh, here comes the microphone. QUESTION: Stanley Roth with The Boeing Company. I wanted to ask you to expand on one of the points you made towards the end of your speech, the State Department’s whole-of-government approach to economic issues. Particularly as you work on the economic recovery of the U.S., the role for trade, beyond just the reference you made to free trade agreements, where would you like to see us end up on the trade side? But also, exports obviously are going to be part of the recovery plan. What role do you see for yourself and the State Department in terms of commercial advocacy? It’s sometimes tough, the environment faced by American business overseas. SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, commercial advocacy is part of our list of responsibilities, as you know, and it’s one that I take very seriously. But I’d like to just take a step back and look at the broader picture of the State Department’s role in economic aspects of foreign policy.
From my perspective, trade is a foreign policy tool as well as an economic one. And we’re in the midst of looking hard at our trade policy, trying to determine how we can be more effective in making the case to the Congress and the American people about trade, but also making it clear to the rest of the world that we’re a trading nation and we want to be.
But we’re at a point where the economic implications of foreign policy are now very heavily seen as part of the intersection of nations. I mean, the G-20 is assuming greater and greater importance. I mean, you remember it started in 1998 as a result of the Asian financial crisis, and it has stayed as a player because it serves a very useful purpose. You have people at the table who, before, were not welcome or were not even thought of in the same breath as the United States or Great Britain or someone else.
So I think that the role of the economic agenda of the State Department needs to be strengthened. We work closely with Treasury. We work closely with the National Economic Council. But I’ll give you a quick example: David Lipton, who works with Larry Summers in the White House, just went to Pakistan for us to do an assessment of Pakistan’s capacity to meet the IMF requirements and what it needed and how it was doing. Well, was that an economic analysis? Was that a strategic, security, political – ? I would argue it’s all of that. So why would we say, oh, well, no, we’re not going to be part of the economic mix, when it’s critical as to how we’re dealing with other countries? Part of the reason that I worked to have our dialogue with China be inclusive and comprehensive is because strategic and economic concerns cannot be divorced.
So on all of these issues, the State Department has to play a role on the economic front. And we’re working very collegially with everybody. I mean, obviously, you have different perspectives, different jurisdiction. We know all of that. But there is a recognition inside this Administration that it’s an all-hands-on-deck, whole-of-government time. Everybody’s being required to get up and do your part and redefine what it is and expand it so that you can be the most effective player possible. So I think this is just part of our responsibility now. QUESTION: So after six months, what has most struck you about this? Here you are; what’s surprised you the most? SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I’m really impressed by the quality of the people I work with at both the State Department and USAID, just the level of passion and intense commitment, the willingness to work long and all hours; you know that from your own experience. The excitement of being part of the new Administration, which has meant so much to so many people around the world and has certainly caused people to rethink who we are as Americans and maybe give us a break, cut us some slack as we get organized and get going.
I still think it’s hard to justify not having our full government in place six months after we started. That’s something that we’ve got to do something about, I think. (Applause.) I mean, we are trying to get our political leaders in place to work with our very dedicated Foreign Service and Civil Service employees, but we’re still not there yet. And I had no idea when I was in the Senate asking a million questions of every nominee – (laughter) – how really shortsighted that was. (Laughter.)
It’s amazing; the other thing I didn’t realize is that when all else failed, if there was a problem that had a foreign policy implication, write a letter when you’re in the Congress – Ellen Tauscher, who is our new Under Secretary for Arms Control and Nonproliferation – so I probably, in my eight years, wrote hundreds of letters, and now I have to read them. (Laughter.) And it just depends upon which side of the table you’re sitting.
But it’s been a real privilege and an honor, and I think we’re making a difference, and obviously, we’re going to work as hard as we can to translate that into the results that the American people deserve. MR. HAASS: Everybody here wishes you a successful and safe trip, as you know, to India and Thailand, and it’s been a privilege and an honor, to quote your words back at you, for us to have you here today. Thank you. SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you, Richard. Thank you. Thank you so much. (Applause.)
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