Clinton faces world of challenges as top US diplomat

The feisty former first lady will face monumental challenges overseas, including the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the threat of terrorism, once again brought into sharp focus by the Mumbai attacks.

But perhaps the biggest task facing the 61-year-old, New York senator will be restoring the country’s tarnished reputation and ushering in a new era of U.S. diplomacy promised by president-elect Barack Obama.

After several sharp policy disagreements with her former rival during the bitter Democratic Party primaries, all eyes will be watching how the two work as a team as Clinton takes up the most prominent job in the cabinet.

She can already count on massive support overseas thanks to the image she built as first lady and the goodwill still felt around the world for her husband, former president Bill Clinton.

And following her defeat in the primaries, Clinton worked hard for Obama, urging her millions of loyal supporters to back his bid and elect the country’s first African-American president.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has said her nomination as Americas top diplomat "would be very well taken" abroad.

"She is a strong personality. She is an appropriate person, capable, with experience, well known. I think it would be very well taken by the majority of people," Solana said during a recent visit to Washington.

Obama’s formal nomination of Clinton at a Monday press conference in Chicago nearly a month after his historic election triumph cements a remarkable alliance after their acrimonious Democratic primary duel.

Clinton was said to have been initially reluctant to accept the post. But reports indicate that she won a guarantee of direct access to the president.
Fears that her nomination could falter because of her husband’s charitable foundation and lucrative speechmaking also appear to have been resolved after the former president reportedly agreed to hand over a list of donors and submit future engagements, speeches and sources of income to the State Department and White House.
As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton will have to live up to high expectations from a world which has enthusiastically embraced Obama’s promise of change weary of the eight-year administration of President George W. Bush.
It also caps a remarkable political career, catapulting her out of a relatively junior position in the Senate to become the face of U.S. diplomacy.
The challenges ahead are staggering, as Clinton herself has acknowledged.
"The next president will be the first to inherit two wars, a long-term campaign against global terrorist networks, and growing tension with Iran as it seeks to acquire nuclear weapons," Clinton wrote during her White House bid.
She also stressed in the specialist Foreign Affairs magazine the need for Arab-Israeli peace, and warned of the need to address "the looming long-term threats of climate change and a new wave of global health epidemics.
"To meet these challenges, we will have to replenish American power by getting out of Iraq, rebuilding our military, and developing a much broader arsenal of tools in the fight against terrorism," she argued.