Foreign Relations

WASHINGTON - It didn't take long for former Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to land a new job, and it's not on Wall Street, though it's in the same area code. The Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank in New York, said Wednesday that Geithner would become its newest senior fellow this month. He stepped down as Treasury secretary Jan. 25. President Obama has nominated White House Chief of Staff Jacob J. Lew to replace him. Geithner has followed this route before.

WASHINGTON - It didn't take long for former Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to land a new job, and it's not on Wall Street, though it's in the same area code. The Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank in New York, said Wednesday that Geithner would become its newest senior fellow this month. He stepped down as Treasury secretary Jan. 25. President Obama has nominated White House Chief of Staff Jacob J. Lew to replace him. Geithner has followed this route before.

Both Koreas soon will be governed by the progeny of Cold War strongmen. China is in the hands of the son of one of Mao Tse-tung's revolutionary comrades. The incoming prime minister of Japan is a long-standing hawk and the grandson of one of Japan's war cabinet leaders. The future is looking uninspiringly like the past in Northeast Asia. And although few (other than doomsday theorists) are predicting another war, the alignment of new leaders seems likely to cause some bumps in the year ahead.

Both Koreas soon will be governed by the progeny of Cold War strongmen. China is in the hands of the son of one of Mao Tse-tung's revolutionary comrades. The incoming prime minister of Japan is a long-standing hawk and the grandson of one of Japan's war cabinet leaders. The future is looking uninspiringly like the past in Northeast Asia. And although few (other than doomsday theorists) are predicting another war, the alignment of new leaders seems likely to cause some bumps in the year ahead.

Former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, who defied skeptics by lasting far longer in Japan's highest office than anyone expected--in part by turning his lack of natural charm into a public asset--died Sunday, six weeks after suffering a massive stroke and subsequent brain damage. He was 62 and had been in a coma. "Together with the Japanese people, I express my deepest condolences," Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori told reporters.

U.S. senators exhorted the Bush administration Tuesday to change how it deals with Iraq, arguing that officials must do more to internationalize the occupation and should consider moving up elections and the hand-over of sovereignty. At a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, members of both parties said the United States needed to consider bolder actions to build confidence among Iraqis, Americans and people of other nations.

Republican Sen. Richard G. Lugar on Saturday said the United States isn't doing enough to stave off terrorism and chided President Bush for failing to offer solid plans for Iraq's future. Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said "repairing and building alliances" is key to avoiding terrorism. He also said it's still unclear how much control the Iraqi people will have over their nation's security when power is transferred to them June 30.

In the Great Rolodex Reshuffle that takes place in this town after every election, one man's card has been moved to the front of the stack. It belongs to Sen. Richard G. Lugar, the 70-year-old Indiana Republican whose views are suddenly being sought by the White House and foreign emissaries. Lugar is due to take over next month as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, vowing to make it a more potent platform from which to advise, assist and nudge the Bush administration.

A high-level mission of U.S. senators Sunday called for patience in a military showdown to force Iraqi troops out of Kuwait, insisting that time is on the side of the American-dominated multinational forces. On the second leg of a Middle East tour, the 14-man Senate delegation led by Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.

Why Mongolia? What is it about this remote, lightly populated Central Asian land that tugs at the heart of the usually unsentimental Secretary of State James A. Baker III? Over the last 2 1/2 years, while often proclaiming the importance of American interests across the Pacific, the secretary of state has shown little, if any, eagerness for travel in Asia. He has, so far, made at least 25 visits to Europe since taking office, and only four to Asia (excluding the Middle East).

The mortar rounds coming from just across the border in Syria troubled Omar Timucin sufficiently that he advised his family to stay indoors for their own safety. Not long after, a projectile scored a direct hit on his home in this usually quiet Turkish border town, killing his wife, three of his daughters and his sister-in-law. "They were preparing dinner," a shattered Timucin said Wednesday in a mourning tent on the outskirts of Akcakale. The attack that took away his family a week ago, and which Turkish officials called a Syrian military shelling, sparked retaliatory Turkish artillery volleys into Syria as relations between the two neighboring states seemed to teeter on the edge of outright war. Turkish fighter jets roar overhead and news reports are filled with images of missile batteries, artillery units and troops converging on the border.

Angry youths on Sunday overturned cars and smashed shop windows in anti-Japanese protests across China stemming from a long-standing dispute over uninhabited islands claimed by both countries. Not to be outdone in nationalist fervor, 150 Japanese activists tried to land on the islands in the East China Sea by boat Sunday to commemorate World War II deaths. When that failed, 10 of them swam to one of the rocky islands and tried to plant a Japanese flag. The demonstrations in China were the largest since 2010, when a Chinese fishing captain whose boat collided with a Japanese coast guard vessel was arrested, leading to a protracted standoff.

When the White House sent a last-minute invitation for Asif Ali Zardari to attend the two-day NATO summit, they were taking a highly public gamble. Would sharing the spotlight with President Obama and other global leaders induce the Pakistani president to allow vital supplies to reach alliance troops fighting in Afghanistan? But long before the summit ended Monday, the answer was clear: No deal. Zardari's refusal to reopen the supply routes left a diplomatic blot on a summit that NATO sought to cast as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

International aid groups say they're under siege in Pakistan, demonized by hard-line Islamists, viewed as spies by suspicious Pakistanis and, now, increasingly sidelined by the government. The groups report that in the last year, they began to feel unwanted in the country, and in some cases persecuted. Nongovernmental organization visa requests languished or were outright rejected. New travel restrictions hampered aid workers' movement. Some workers were arrested and harassed. Western aid officials believe that the Pakistani government's suspicions about the groups rose dramatically last year after the U.S. commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May in the military city of Abbottabad.

U.S.-China trade tensions are starting to heat up, an especially ominous development as global export growth is slowing and both countries face a significant political showdown at home next year. China fired the latest salvo this week by imposing duties as high as 22% on imports of large cars and sport utility vehicles from the U.S. for the next two years. Beijing alleged dumping and improper U.S. government subsidies, the same charges that Washington has made about Chinese exports of solar panels to the U.S. The practical effect of the Chinese tariffs is minor: U.S. shipments of motor vehicles to China last year totaled just $3.5 billion -- nearly 4% of American exports to China and less than 0.3% of all U.S. exports.

President Obama told his Chinese counterpart in a private meeting Saturday that the American public and business community are growing increasingly "frustrated" with China's economic policies, stepping up his bid to force changes that might in turn boost job growth in the U.S. With complaints about China's currency policy spilling into the Republican presidential contest and onto the floor of the Senate, Obama told Chinese President Hu Jintao that...

Not so long ago, it would have seemed the stuff of a spy thriller. Here was Benjamin S. Lambeth, a Cold Warrior by profession, climbing into the cockpit of the erstwhile Evil Empire's most sophisticated jet fighter. The 46-year-old Lambeth--ex-CIA, Harvard Ph.D. and veteran RAND Corp. expert on Soviet military affairs--would be the first American to fly the MIG-29, a ride the folks at the Pentagon want to hear all about. But that's glasnost for you.

Once, they were seen as some of the cleverest Cold Warriors, applying their high-powered brains to follow the time-worn advice to know thy enemy. Now the Soviet Union's scholars of U.S. ways, known here as Americanists and especially active during this week's feverish hours of summitry, are busier than ever--but no longer on propaganda fodder.

The embattled regime in Yemen has boosted its cooperation with U.S. intelligence and counter-terrorism efforts in recent months as it tries to push back Al Qaeda militants and other insurgents who have captured towns and other territory in the impoverished nation, according to U.S. Defense officials. The U.S. officials said Al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, may have "overreached" by deploying its fighters to overwhelm local security forces in the southern province of Abyan.

Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and top Pakistani officials on Monday agreed that Washington and Islamabad would work together against "high-value targets," a move to ease intensely strained relations following this month's killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. commandos. Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivered a stern message that Washington would not tolerate Pakistan providing sanctuary to Al Qaeda and allied militant groups that target Western interests.