What the Senator from New York brings to the table is global star power, a long-standing commitment to improving the status of women and children around the world and muscular promises of military action when U.S. interests are crossed.
Whether she can forge the sort of close relationship with a former rival that is crucial to giving the nation’s top diplomat the credibility to get things done is the question for Hillary Rodham Clinton, slated to be named secretary of State on Monday by President-elect Barack Obama.
James Lindsay, director of the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas-Austin says, “What matters most are two things: One, the secretary of State has to have the president’s ear. Two, the president has to have the secretary of State’s back.”
For his most prestigious Cabinet post Obama is choosing an independent-minded policymaker whose world view has been shaped by eight years as a globe-trotting first lady and eight years as a senator with time on the Armed Services Committee. On containing Iran’s nuclear program and protecting Israel she has rhetoric more hawkish than Obama’s and along with her hawkish views, she combines a focus on “soft” issues such as maternal health.
The terrorist attacks in Mumbai show just how tense matters are in the Indian subcontinent. Long held views and enmities have not healed with time. The fact is that she will be taking the lead on a crushing set of global challenges, including repercussions from last week’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, which threaten a conflagration on the nuclear-armed subcontinent.
The incoming secretary of State will deal with the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, efforts to turn around the war in Afghanistan, nuclear programs in such rogue nations as North Korea and Iran, the challenge from a resurgent Russia and growing concerns about global climate change, in collaboration with other administration officials.
The last time a president chose a major political rival to head the State Department, it was 1881, James Garfield was in office, and he chose James Blaine, but Obama’s pick is non-traditional on several fronts. It is a well known fact that Clinton’s grounding in women’s rights contrasts with her predecessors, most of whom had pursued careers in academia, the military or law steeped in U.S. relations with major world powers.
According to the Obama transition office, President elect Obama will unveil his national security team today. Clinton’s nomination was confirmed by two Democratic sources with firsthand knowledge of the decision. Nevertheless, the two Democratic sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak on the record.
Martin Indyk, a former assistant secretary of State and ambassador to Israel who is close to Clinton said that she is “a tough pragmatist who understands it’s a dangerous world out there, who understands it can be necessary at times to use force and at other times to be able to back your diplomacy with the threat of force. On the other hand, she has shown a very deep commitment to the causes of human rights, women’s rights in particular, and the pursuit of peace and resolution of conflict.”
She launched her campaign with a “listening tour” to hear from New York voters when Clinton decided to run for the Senate in 2000. She announced a similar “listening tour” through states with early primaries and caucuses when she began her presidential campaign in 2007.
If she chose to begin her tenure as secretary of State with a “listening tour” around the globe, especially to hear from allies in Europe and elsewhere who have complained about what they see as a penchant for unilateral action by the Bush administration, it would be no surprise.
She also has other ideas in her pocket.
Clinton met separately with then-Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai during a trip last year to Pakistan and Afghanistan, each of whom expressed suspicions of the other. It was then that she asked each president if it would be helpful for the United States to appoint a special envoy to work with leaders of the two countries, to which they responded affirmatively.
She called White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley to pitch the idea on her return to Washington, but to no avail. The White House did look into her suggestion but decided it wasn’t feasible because the administration, while also working on tensions between Musharraf and Karzai, was focused on a governmental transition in Pakistan and the need to name a new U.N. representative for Afghanistan said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
Clinton would be in a position to put her ideas into action as Secretary of State.
Hillary portrayed Obama as naive in his approach to rogue leaders around the world as they competed for the Democratic nomination.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama questioned her judgment in voting to authorize the Iraq war and cast her as unnecessarily bellicose toward Iran. The idea that Clinton’s work as first lady amounted to substantive experience was mocked by Obama and his top aides — including Susan Rice, set to be named United Nations ambassador.
Of course, now that the elections are over and since there is a need for Clinton and Obama to come together, associates of both describe their differences on foreign policy as overblown in the heat of battle. Clinton’s public campaigning for Obama during the general election and their private conversations in the four weeks since he won have helped mend fences and begin a budding partnership they said. Clinton is called “able, tough and brilliant” by Obama strategist David Axelrod
However, perhaps because of their differences or perhaps because of the historic nature of their battle for the presidential nomination, no person that Obama has considered for a top spot in his administration has generated as much chatter as the choice of the New York senator.
At TicosLand.com, we would be curious to see how the Secretary of State will view the partnership of Costa Rica with the United States. Just how important will Costa Rica be on Hillary Clinton’s plate considering how many other potentially explosive situations there are around the world?
Tags: Barack Obama, Costa Rica, hillary clinton, secretary of state
