"Dinner with Secretary Clinton: Afghanistan on the menu"

[laststeamtrain]

Dinner with Secretary Clinton: Afghanistan on the menu
Tue, 02/03/2009 - 5:56pm

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will host selected South Asia hands at a dinner tonight (Tuesday) on the topic of Afghanistan at the Secretary's official dining room on the eighth floor of Foggy Bottom, The Cable has learned. About 10 people were invited to the dinner, said one person informed about it (but not going), on condition of anonymity. "Some widely known experts, others less well-known but more likely to have jobs in the new team," the source said.

Clinton's Afghan dinner would appear to signal that the secretary of state intends to be a key player in setting the Obama administration's policy toward Afghanistan -- along with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, and national security advisor James L. Jones -- and it follows the appointment of former Amb. Richard Holbrooke as the State Department's South Asia envoy.

Sources told The Cable that among those invited are J. Alexander Thier, of the U.S. Institute of Peace, and Jonah Blank, a South Asia advisor with the Senate Foreign Relations committee. Neither would comment. Both advised the Obama campaign on South Asia issues. Blank recently accompanied Vice President Joseph Biden on a trip to the region (Biden, incidentally, had breakfast with Clinton this morning, according to his official schedule). Thier is the editor of a recent USIP report, "The Future of Afghanistan," and previously served as a member of an Afghanistan study group led by national security advisor Jones....
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/02/03/dinner_with_secretary_clinton_afghanistan_on_the_menu
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