“Shortly before announcing that Hugo Chávez died, Venezuela’s government resorted to one of the late president’s favorite ploys to try to unite his supporters: allege a conspiracy by the U.S. to destabilize the country,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Vice President Nicolás Maduro kicked out two U.S. military attachés for allegedly plotting against Venezuela and even suggested that Washington may have been behind Mr. Chávez’s cancer.”

Said Maduro: “Behind all of the plots are the enemies of the fatherland.”

“Maduro’s rhetoric is similar to the kinds of conspiracy theories that Mr. Chávez wove during his 14 years in power, and which Mr. Chávez seemed to have adopted from his political mentor, Fidel Castro, who has long rallied support among Cubans by portraying the U.S. as an implacable foe.”

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has died, CNN reports.

The announcement came hours after Vice President Nicolas Maduro met with the country’s top political and military leaders about Chavez’s worsening health condition and suggested someone may have deliberately infected Chavez with cancer.

Wall Street Journal: “Chavez led the country virtually as a one-man show for 14 years. Just months into his fourth term, his death plunges Venezuela into political uncertainty.”

Vali Nasr writes about his time working for Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009 and 2010, noting it “turned out to be a deeply disillusioning experience. The truth is that his administration made it extremely difficult for its own foreign-policy experts to be heard. Both Clinton and Holbrooke, two incredibly dedicated and talented people, had to fight to have their voices count on major foreign-policy initiatives.”

“Holbrooke never succeeded. Clinton did — but it was often a battle. It usually happened only when it finally became clear to a White House that jealously guarded all foreign policymaking — and then relied heavily on the military and intelligence agencies to guide its decisions — that these agencies’ solutions were no substitute for the type of patient, credible diplomacy that garners the respect and support of allies. Time and again, when things seemed to be falling apart, the administration finally turned to Clinton because it knew she was the only person who could save the situation.”

Lech Walesa, Poland’s communist-era democracy campaigner, said homosexuals shouldn’t demand more rights and gay legislators should sit “behind a wall” in Parliament, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Said Welesa: “They need to know they are a minority and adjust to smaller things instead of rising to the greatest heights, taking peak time, organizing the biggest provocations designed to spoil others or pick up people from the majority.”

He added that he refuses to accept public gay-rights marches that “coax my children and grandchildren.”

The Independent says Walesa “has risked shattering his legacy.”

Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, is a leading candidate to become President Obama’s nominee as U.S. ambassador to Japan, Bloomberg reports.

The president has signed off on Kennedy’s nomination, but her vetting for the post hasn’t been completed.

Reuters:
“Cuban President Raul Castro announced on Sunday he will step down from
power after his second term ends in 2018, and the new parliament named a
52-year-old rising star to become his first vice president and most
visible successor. … In a surprise move, the new parliament also named
Miguel Diaz-Canel as first vice president, meaning he would take over if
Castro cannot serve his full term. Diaz-Canel is a member of the
political bureau who rose through the Communist Party ranks in the
provinces to become the most visible possible successor to Castro.”

Here’s the bigger picture: “The new government will almost certainly be the
last headed up by the Castro brothers and their generation of leaders
who have ruled Cuba since they swept down from the mountains in the 1959
revolution.”

“I missed the meeting among Republicans where it was decided this would become an angry cause célèbre that should be pursued at all costs and with no holds barred.”

— Republican strategist Ed Rogers, in an interview with NPR, on the GOP’s obsession with the Benghazi embassy attack.

In the three weeks since John Kerry succeeded Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, “he’s already sent unmistakable signals of his independence with a more assertive, proactive and risk-taking stewardship of America’s foreign policy — with a more sustained focus on the Middle East and Europe than his predecessor,” Politico reports.

Kerry “views the job as the apex of his up-and-down 40-year political career and aspires to a more central policymaking role in the Obama administration than Clinton, who practiced what one official called ‘odometer diplomacy’ — a focus on globetrotting to bolster America’s relationships abroad coupled with attempts to cope with an array of pop-up crises.”

North Korea confirmed “that it had conducted its third, long-threatened nuclear test… posing a new challenge for the Obama administration in its effort to keep the country from becoming a full-fledged nuclear power,” the New York Times reports.

“The test drew a crescendo of international condemnation Tuesday, with President Obama calling it a ‘highly provocative act’ that demands ‘swift and credible action by the international community’ against North Korea. Russia, Britain, South Korea and the United Nations similarly quickly condemned the blast.”

Marc Ambinder notes five things to watch for after the North Korean test.

“Citing advanced years and infirmity, Pope Benedict XVI, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, stunned the Roman Catholic world on Monday by saying that he would resign on Feb. 28, less than eight years after he took office, the first pope to do so in six centuries,” the New York Times reports.

“While there had been questions about Benedict’s health and infirmity, the timing of his announcement — even by the Vatican’s official account — sent shock waves across the globe, even though Benedict had in the past endorsed the notion that an incapacitated pope could resign.”

Marc Ambinder: “Generally, when American political officials resign, a scandal is in the offing. But the former John Cardinal Ratzinger genuinely seems to be stepping down as Pontifex because he no longer believes he can do the job that he believes God has called him to do. There is something profound and endearing about someone elected (anointed?) to an incredibly powerful lifetime job deciding, with years still left, to walk away. That in and of itself is a powerful example to set for everyone.”

Former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who stepped down last month, is joining the Council on Foreign Relations as a distinguished fellow, the New York Times reports.

“As the saying goes, I have big heels to fill.”

— Secretary of State John Kerry, quoted by CBS News, thanking predecessor Hillary Clinton.

So Ahmadinejad wants to be first Iranian in space – wasn’t he just there last week? “Iran launches monkey into space” news.yahoo.com/iran-launches-…

— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) February 4, 2013

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) told the Boston Globe that President Obama offered him the job of secretary of state a week before United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice withdrew her name from consideration.

Said Kerry: “He called me, actually a week before Susan got out of the thing. He called me and said, ‘You’re my choice. I want you to do this.’ He asked me to keep it quiet. I did. I sat on it.”

The Senate overwhelmingly approved Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) as the next secretary of state, 94 to 3, the Washington Post reports.

He will formally take over from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday.

Tim Mathieson, the long-term partner of Australian prime minister Julia Gillard, “has landed himself in hot water over comments that men wanting to get their prostates checked should seek out small, female Asian doctors to perform the examination,” the Guardian reports.

Said Mathieson: “We can get a blood test for it, but the digital examination is the only
true way to get a correct reading on your prostate so make sure you go
and do that, and perhaps look for a small Asian female doctor is
probably the best way.”

One commentator observed that Gillard’s face “performed a remarkable transition – jolly, carefree smile to impenetrable stone on the turn of a phrase.”

The eyeglasses worn by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in recent days appear to be for treating double-vision, the New York Daily News reports.

“As she testified about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, the secretary of state appeared to have tiny vertical lines etched onto the left lens of her new brown specs… Experts told the Daily News that Clinton likely has a Fresnel prism placed on her glasses. The adhesive panel is used to treat double vision.”

A Clinton spokesman confirmed to Daily Intelligencer that Clinton will “be wearing these glasses instead of her contacts for a period of time because of lingering issues stemming from her concussion.”

NBC News:
“The political stakes will be high Wednesday morning when Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee about her role in the events leading up to the September
attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted
in the killing of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
The stakes will also be high for a Republican member of the committee,
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, whom some pundits see as a possible
presidential candidate in 2016. It will be a rare instance when one
potential White House hopeful gets an opportunity to interrogate a
potential rival from the opposing party. Clinton herself is thought to
be a strong contender for the Democratic nomination, should she chose to
throw her hat into the ring.”

Rick Klein: “It’s not the way she wanted to go out. After a two-decade career in the national political limelight — as first lady, as a senator, and now as secretary of state — Hillary Rodham Clinton’s final official act with a title in front of her name is likely to come today, as she testifies about a tragic embarrassment of an episode that left four Americans dead in Libya.”

Clinton testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations at 9:00 am ET and
the House Foreign Affairs Committee at 2:00 pm ET.