Issues facing Clinton as secretary of state

Sen. Hillary Clinton's nomination for secretary of state in the Obama adminstration, as Reuters points out, "caps a year of dreams and disappointments for her often fervent supporters: Would the New York senator and former first lady be president? No. Would she be vice-president? Nope."

Though many of her suppporters surely hoped for more, the secretary of state job is no consolation prize. The challenges facing Clinton and the rest of the national security team are daunting, as President-Elect Obama summed up today:

"We are fighting two wars. Old conflicts remain unresolved, and newly assertive powers have put strains on the international system. The spread of nuclear weapons raises the peril that the world's deadliest technology could fall into dangerous hands. Our dependence on foreign oil empowers authoritarian governments and endangers our planet."

As the nation's chief diplomat, Clinton will be charged with repairing America's battered image in many parts of the world. She alluded to this in her remarks today, promising to "reach out to the world again." At the same time, Clinton must work to summon fresh American diplomatic leverage to confront a host of problems beyond the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a sign of how quickly landscapes can shift, the terror attacks in Mumbai threaten to undermine part of Obama's strategy in the war on terror. The U.S. has stepped up its military pursuit of al-Qaida in the tribal areas of Pakistan, something Obama has vowed to continue. He has also advocated a renewed regional approach, pushing diplomacy between India and Pakistan as a conduit to closer cooperation from Pakistan on the war on terror.

But as evidence mounts that a Pakistan-based militant group was involved in the Mumbai attack, any diplomacy between India and Pakistan for the moment will be aimed at keeping the two rivals from the brink of war. As Obama has frequently pointed out, there can only be one president at a time, and on this issue, there's not much his team can do but monitor the situation and be prepared to deal with it on January 21.

Clinton also inherits the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, a problem that has plagued four presidents since Jimmy Carter brokered the Camp David accords in 1978. President Clinton fell just short of a peace deal in 2000. President Bush couldn't get it done either, despite bringing the parties together a year ago, aiming to finalize a deal by the end of his term.

Obama stressed today that Clinton, with foreign experience as first lady and in the Senate, is someone "who will command respect in every capital; and who will clearly have the ability to advance our interests around the world." Clinton's experience no doubt is an asset, but reaction from the Arab world to her appointment indicates that on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, it could also be a liability. The L.A. Times notes:

The Arab world sees two Hillary Clintons: one, the first lady who famously got ahead of U.S. policy a decade ago by advocating Palestinian statehood and remains at least verbally wedded to the goal of a U.S.-brokered peace deal; the other, a politician with lingering presidential ambitions and a BlackBerry that holds too many pro-Israeli connections.

But as longtime State Department adviser on the Middle East Aaron David Miller notes later in the article, "It really doesn't matter ... She's no longer her own actor in this ... she'll need to be empowered by the president."

Indeed, for Clinton to be effective, her counterparts around the world will have to know that she's carrying a full mandate from the president. Much has been made about whether Obama's and Clinton's clashes on the campaign trail, especially with regard to Clinton's more hawkish stance on Iran, will complicate their relationship.

Obama dismissed those notions today, but the fact remains that he and Clinton still must figure out how to deal with Iran. Aside from continuing to enrich uranium, Iran's role in the Middle East is growing, as the country asserts influence in places like Iraq and Lebanon.

Obama and Clinton also face a nuclear-armed North Korea, icy relations with Russia's Vladimir Putin and Dimitri Medvedev, and the riddle of what role China's burgeoning economy will play in the global financial crisis -- just to name a few.

And they thought the vetting process was complicated.

--Robert Matthews