North Korea's Nuclear Test may be Obama's First Challenge

North Korea's detonation of a nuclear bomb in the mountains near the Chinese border may be the initial foreign test Vice President Joe Biden infamously foresaw earlier this year. Last March, New York Times Chief Washington Correspondent told the Commonwealth Club that an administration's first crisis may not portend disaster. Sanger noted the Bush Administration's successful responses to the China EP-3 controversy when an American fighter jet collided with a Chinese jet over Hainan Island, and the handling of the post-9/11 up until the invasion of Iraq.

Sanger believed that an international incident including North Korea would likely be early in President Obama's first term and an unfortunate leftover from the previous administration's foreign policy regarding the communist nation.

"North Korea, to my mind, was probably the single biggest failure of diplomacy of the Bush Administration -- not that they didn't try in the second term -- but if you look at the moments when the North Koreans got their nuclear fuel, it was January, February and March of 2003, just as we were heading to Kuwait and up into Iraq," said Sanger, "That was the moment they picked, in full view of our satellites. I suspect North Korea could end up, just because it wants the attention, to be one of the early crisis."

The size of the nuclear bomb is unclear, although seismic readings suggest a blast one-quarter the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II. To exacerbate international outrage over the test, it was reported that the North Koreans launched three short-range missiles, and some reports suggest the regime of Kim Jong Il is showing strength in the face of his waning health and uncertainty over who will succeed him.

Some experts are suggesting that the response to a nuclear test by North Korea seems to have hit the Obama Administration flat-footed.“As much as they understood this was going to be an issue, they weren’t ready for a nuclear test in May,” an expert on North Korea told the New York Times. “They’re in a situation now where they have to contain and manage a crisis.”

How the president handles the situation will likely give the Iranians -- who are also believed to be actively pursuing the development of nuclear weapons -- an indication of how the administration will play its cards, yet each scenario has it differences. While Iran is believed to be seeking nuclear protection from a strike by either Israel or the U.S., some believe that North Korea has always used the procurement of nuclear weapons, in simplistic terms, to draw the attention of the Western world. Wendy Sherman, a policymaker in the Clinton administration, said succinctly, “The North Korean leadership cares about internal matters, not external matters. They care about external matters only insofar as it helps ensure the survival of the regime.”

For some important background on North Korea's nuclear ambitions, watch this May 25, 2007, video from the Commonwealth Club speech by Gordon C. Chang, author of "Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World."

Tom Vilsack to Head Agriculture

Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack is reportedly President-Elect Barack Obama's pick to head the Department of Agriculture.

Vilsack (pictured above at his Feb. 13, 2007, speech to The Commonwealth Club of California) was, very briefly, a competitor of Obama's for the Democratic presidential nomination, but he withdrew early in the contest and threw his support behind New York's junior senator, Hillary Clinton. For those of you keeping score, that means Vilsack joins former candidates Clinton, Bill Richardson, and Joe Biden as Obama administration officials. Can Mike Gravel still get a position?

For Hillary, the Second Cut May Be the Deepest

An anonymous former adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton, speaking on the likelihood of her former boss's secretary of state ambitions, told the New York Times this weekend, “I can’t believe they would have her schlep out there with all this publicity unless they were real about it.”

It sounds logical until you consider that president-elect Barack Obama has an exit strategy in the name of Bill Clinton's potentially iffy post-presidential dealings around the world.

Alex Koppelman at the Salon's War Room blog writes that the Clinton's may be using their old, yet ineffective bullying tactics or riding a wave of inevitability into the State Department. That old wave did not quite reach the shores of the Potomac unfortunately

In the meantime, rumors and spin are swirling around whether Clinton is a shoo-in, somewhat interested or merely a trial balloon about to deflate.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that President Clinton is willing to cooperate in the vetting process of his financial dealing around the world and Bloomberg.com reported that Hillary may have to pay off $7.6 million owed to vendors from her failed presidential campaign before she could accept a place in Obama's administration.

Politico, though, reports that Hillary may not actually want the job and the New York Times published an even more peculiar article pointing toward Clinton withdrawing her name from consideration.

It was unclear if Sen. Clinton’s stated hesitation was part of a bargaining tactic as the Obama team weighs whether to appoint her secretary of state, a genuine moment of indecision or, perhaps, a signal that she was preparing to withdraw from consideration.

Both articles contain remarks about Clinton being "torn" between the cabinet position and finishing her work in the Senate. A bit of political posturing may well be going on between the Clintons and president-elect Obama, which leads to the question of who is next in line?

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) was an early rumor. While his name has not dropped from the rumor mill, it also has not gain much momentum.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has gained a modicum of attention in the last week after taking a meeting with Obama last Friday. During the Democratic primaries, many pundits joked both Richardson and vice president-elect Joe Biden were running – not for president, but for secretary of state.

When Richardson visited the Commonwealth Club of California in June of 2007 to talk about his presidential campaign, he gave some insights into how he would handle foreign affairs. Calling himself a "little rough around the edges," Richardson said that "the essence of governing is diplomacy. It's talking. It's dialogue. It's mediation. It's not, first, seeking a military solution." (See video above.)

Nearly taking a page out of Biden's strategy of splitting Iraq into three separate countries, Richardson said he would use diplomacy to urge the Iraqis to form a coalition government that would split oil revenues. "I would tell them we are going to divide your country into three entities – not three states," Richardson said.

Mimicking Obama's plan to approach hostile nations in the Middle East, Richardson said he would try to find "common ground" with Iran and Syria, while proposing an all-Muslim peace-keeping force in Iraq.

As a former Ambassador to the United Nations under President Clinton, Richardson said he recognizes the usefulness of the U.N., but does not favor using it in issues pertaining to Israel. "I believe there are times when you shouldn't use the U.N. – [for example,] the Israeli-Palestinian issue – they just basically get in the way because Israel is outnumbered," said Richardson.

The prospect of Richardson as secretary of state has some backers and a few detractors, without mentioning the possibility of greatly expanding the rift caused between Richardson and the Clintons over his support for Obama in the primaries.

Robert Guttman, blogging at The Huffington Post, likes Richardson; though he would seem to like anybody but Clinton at State. Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, though, has some really harsh words for Richardson. (Watch the video here.)

Eagleburger slammed Richardson Tuesday on MSNBC, "I don't want to beat everybody to death, but I have very little respect for his intelligence and his knowledge of foreign affairs."

How might Richardson perform as secretary of state? Maybe a bit more aggressive than you might imagine. Click here and here.

Meg Whitman: Could She Save the Finance System?

Reacting to the ongoing struggle between Wall Street, Main Street, and the federal government, Republican presidential candidate John McCain recently mentioned that he would consider appointing investor extraordinaire Warren Buffett and former eBay president Meg Whitman to senior financial posts in his administration, if he is elected.

Whitman spoke to The Commonwealth Club on September 23, 2008, and in the video above you can get a sense of what her priorities and approaches might be if she were to be appointed Treasury secretary or some other economic post.

A side note, to all voters who watched last night's vice presidential debate in St. Louis between Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and Democratic Sen. Joe Biden: Meg Whitman was on McCain's short list for vice presidential candidates. How would she have performed in the debate if she had been chosen? Only she knows, but you can get an idea from her speech in the above video.

Whitman's speech was part of Orrick's A-ha Speaker Series at The Commonwealth Club, generously underwritten by Orrick.

Ralph Nader: Obama Banned Me from Debates

Just two days before Republican Sarah Palin squares off against Democrat Joe Biden -- and only days after the tops of the tickets had their own debate -- five-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader spoke to The Commonwealth Club of California's Inforum about his own exclusion from the presidential debates.

Nader blamed Sen. Barack Obama for excluding him from the debates, saying that the Illinois senator refused to participate in the debates if Nader was present. Though Nader has a negligible presence in the presidential polls, he warned that the failure to include him in the debates was a significant reason why the issues Nader champions are not being exposed to the voting public.