Pakistan

Clinton says she thinks Pakistan's nuclear weapons are secure and protected. In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel on Monday, she said: "… the nuclear arsenal that Pakistan has, I believe is secure. I think that the government and the military have taken adequate steps to protect that."

I really hope Clinton is right, because the prospect of nukes getting into the hands of Islamist extremists is frightening. As Clinton herself acknowledged in the interview, "… the safe haven that al Qaeda has found in Pakistan is very troubling. They are still actively engaged with the elements of the Pakistani Taliban that are threatening the state of Pakistan."

If the state of Pakistan is indeed threatened, then it seems that doesn't bode well for the security of the nuclear arms.

In an interview with Al Jazeera today, reports the Politico's Laura Rozen, Secretary Clinton said she was the first American associated with any U.S. administration to call for the creation of a Palestinian state. She said,  "I was the first American associated with any admin to call for the establishment of a Palestinian state when I first did it 10 years ago. A lot of people thought that was very radical, now there is consensus we must get to a Palestinian state."

Clinton, seen above today in Marrakech, Morocco, at the Forum for the Future conference, is clearly trying to get back on track after her controversial remarks this weekend about West Bank settlements. The New America Foundation's Daniel Levy dissects the controversy in today's FP piece, "Unsettling Questions."

A few other tidbits of Clinton news:

•After attending the conference in Morocco, Clinton flew to Cairo today, and on the plane she served Lenôtre chocolate to the press. See the photo here.

•Japan apparently scheduled and then canceled a Friday meeting between Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and Clinton. The reason: infighting within the Democratic Party of Japan.

•Over at the AfPak Channel, a contributor states that Clinton was insensitive when, two days after a terrible terrorist attack in Pakistan, she told a group of Pakistanis, "Al Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002. I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to." As the New York Times put it, "The remarks upset her hosts, who have seen hundreds of soldiers and civilians killed as Pakistan has taken on a widening campaign against militant groups that have threatened the country from its tribal areas." Well, it certainly isn't the first time Clinton has been hard on Pakistan.

Photo: ABDELHAK SENNA/AFP/Getty Images

Secretary Clinton, above talking with Pakistanis in Islamabad today, will be on PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer tonight (check local listings for the exact time). She was interviewed in Islamabad today by the NewsHour's Margaret Warner. I've read the transcript, and Clinton says a lot of important things about her time in Pakistan this week and U.S. and Pakistani efforts to go after extremists. I'm not allowed to post the entire transcript, but here's how the interview begins:

Warner: Secretary Clinton, thanks for being with us. Now you've been to Pakistan many times but never as Secretary of State, never at such a volatile time.

Clinton: Right.

Warner: Was there anything unexpected that you found here? Something that you didn't imagine?

Clinton: Well, Margaret it, it wasn't that I found here anything unexpected. It was that I knew before I came that we had our work cut out for us, that there was a level of um, mistrust and misunderstanding uh that I wanted to tackle head-on. I have a great deal of admiration uh, for uh, the culture and the history and the struggle of the people of Pakistan. But what became clear in the time that I've been Secretary of State, is that there was an enormous number of questions about our motive, our intention, our actions that had been built up over the last 8 years. So I wanted to try to address those and go out and meet people and hear and listen and have a really, a good dialogue which I think we've had.

Secretary Clinton arrived in Pakistan today. Here's a photo summary of her day so far. (Also, posting will be light this week; I've been given some large projects that I have to prioritize.)

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton receives flowers from Pakistani girls upon her arrival at the Chaklala military air base in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on Oct. 28. Clinton kicked off talks in Pakistan on a day when a car bomb ripped through a crowded market in the northwest city of Peshawar, killing at least 90 people. Clinton, promising new investments while fending off bitter criticism of Washington's policies, arrived within hours of the blast.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani speaks with Clinton during a meeting in Islamabad. The United States will stand shoulder to shoulder with Pakistan in its fight against "brutal extremist groups," Clinton said after the day's massive bomb blast.

Clinton stands next to the Pakistani flag at the prime minister's house in Islamabad.

Pakistani demonstrators with Hizbul Tahreer shout anti-U.S. slogans during a protest in Lahore. The car bomb in Peshawar underscored the gravity of the extremist threat destabilizing nuclear-armed Pakistan. The explosion, which brought down buildings in Peshawar, coincided with Clinton's arrival in Pakistan to bolster the troubled U.S.-Pakistan alliance against the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Photos, top to bottom: STR/AFP/Getty Images, AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images, AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images, Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

A roundup of Clinton-related news:

•Former first lady Laura Bush expressed admiration for Secretary Clinton during a talk in Dallas on Monday:

Our [political] campaigns are so long and so brutal that the people who finally win are almost self-selected because they have emotional and physical stamina to run for office. As I watched Hillary Clinton during her run, I had and have a lot of admiration for her. It's tough every day. It's not just physical or emotional, but just the chance of saying one thing that gets blown up by the media."

•Clinton spoke with CBS' Katie Couric yesterday.

•In a video message, Clinton says she wants you to help girls and women through www.Oprah.com/forallwomen.

•"Criminality of the greatest degree" is how Clinton has described the rapes and killings by government forces in Guinea.

•Clinton met yesterday in Washington with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Medmood Qureshi, above, to discuss U.S. aid to the Pakistani government and the Afghanistan situation. Clinton stressed that the $7.5 billion Kerry-Lugar bill, which provides nonmilitary aid to Pakistan for five years and was approved by U.S. Congress last week, will not infringe on Pakistan's sovereignty.

Photo: TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images

Secretary Clinton, seen above with Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Dipu Moni on Sept. 16, will be giving a speech Friday morning at the Brookings Institution. I've RSVPed to attend, so I'll report back what I can. The speech is supposed to outline the United States' goals for next week's U.N. General Assembly session. In today's press briefing, Clinton's spokesman said she would discuss nonproliferation, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, food security, and violence against women and girls.

Other Clinton news:

•Clinton says the United States will discuss nukes during talks with Iran on Oct. 1. Iran is saying that won't happen.

•Matt Latimer, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, says that Bush thought Clinton would end up as the Democratic presidential nominee. In GQ magazine, Latimer claims that Bush said the following about Clinton:

"Wait till her fat keister is sitting at this desk," he once said (except he didn't say "keister").

•Clinton is concerned about Venezuela's arms purchases.

•Is Clinton scheduling a visit to Pakistan for this fall?

•Clinton will lead a U.S. delegation at a conference on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the first time the United States has attended the biennial conference since 1999.

Photo: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images

Secretary Clinton testified yesterday (as seen above) in front of a Senate subcommittee that the United States is "being out-communicated by the Taliban and al Qaeda" and that it needs a "new strategic communication strategy" in order to "do a better job of getting the story of the values, ideals, the results of democracy out to people who are now being fed a steady diet of the [worst] kind of disinformation."

Al Qaeda's propagandists produce high-quality videos and elaborate Web sites, which has led U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates to often say, "We're being out-communicated by a guy in a cave."

Clinton didn't provide details about what any "new strategic communication strategy" would involve, but whatever it is, let's hope it follows sound media ethics. In the past, the United States secretly paid Iraqi newspapers to run articles written by U.S. troops. In 2006, the Defense Department's inspector general discovered that the Lincoln Group, a private contractor, had paid Iraqi media outlets to run articles without attribution that were favorable to the U.S. military.

It's doubtful, though, that Clinton would support such tactics. According to a 2008 Washington Post article, when then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld learned about the Lincoln Group's "anonymous pay-to-publish program," he told reporters, "Gee, that's not what we ought to be doing."

Clinton, the e-diplomat, has hinted a bit at what her communications strategy would involve. Tuesday, she mentioned reaching out directly to displaced Pakistanis on their cellphones.

In all fairness, FP -- the print edition -- runs multipage ads from various countries, which are clearly marked as "Special Advertising Supplement." The May/June issue has supplements from the Dominican Republic, Angola, and Cabinda (an Angolan province).

And speaking of Angola, Clinton has that country on her schedule today:

11:00 a.m. Bilateral with His Excellency Ansuncao Afonso dos Anjos, Minister of External Relations of the Republic of Angola.

11:45 a.m. Meeting with Joint Summit Working Group.

2:00 p.m. Bilateral with His Excellency Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, President of the United Republic of Tanzania.

4:15 p.m. Attend The President's bilateral with Excellency Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, President of the United Republic of Tanzania.

Photo: TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images

Secretary Clinton, the e-diplomat, is asking Americans to pick up their cellphones and text "swat" to 20222 to make a $5 donation that will provide medicine, tents, food, and clothing to the astounding 1.17 million internal refugees who have fled the current fighting in Pakistan (mainly in the Swat Valley). The aid will be provided through the United Nations' refugee agency.

Clinton made the appeal for donations while announcing that the United States will be providing $110 million in emergency aid to the refugees. Including the 555,000 Pakistanis who were displaced during fighting last August, Pakistan now has nearly 2 million internally displaced people.

You can see photos of what Pakistanis in the Swat Valley are going through in my March photo essay: "Pakistan's New Homeless."

Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images