We are starting to get a glimpse of what high profile issues Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is taking into her portfolio and under her wing to move forward on the global stage. We also have a clue as to one of the ways she might approach her enormous task.

The Issues Clinton is taking on:

Diplomacy – no surprise there. But the experienced peace makers she’s chosen to advise her and act as envoys represent  a 180 degree turn from the bellicose and oil-hungry Cheney who pined to invade Iraq and, while doing it, award billions of dollars of no bid contracts to his old company pals at Halliburton. This is the company which proceeded to do such things as trucking ice hundreds of miles from Kuwait, with an armed escort, including hovering helicopters, for protection, rather than build a generator and ice maker in the Green Zone. It will be a healthy change to see foreign policy guided by a desire for peace instead of power and profit. As The Boston Globe states in Diplomacy returns: “the appointments of  former senator George Mitchell and erstwhile diplomat Richard Holbrooke are encouraging signs. Mitchell has a deserved reputation for resoluteness, fairness, and unflappability. Some of the lessons he learned from his role in forging the 1998 Good Friday agreement that led to peace in Northern Ireland are applicable to the Mideast”.  So we can have some realistic hope for the MidEast under Clinton’s tenure.

Energy security and climate change

Clinton is on record saying energy security must be an important and integrated element of US foreign policy:

“These are issues on which I will personally engage, and they will consistently receive high-level attention at the [State] Department. I will work with our friends and partners around the world, who are facing the same challenges. I also intend to ensure that the department works vigorously through the interagency process on these issues,” Clinton responded to questions following her Jan. 13 confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

As concrete demonstration of that commitment, Clinton announced a new climate change envoy Monday. According to the Earth Times, Todd Stern will become the country’s chief climate negotiator with the international community, which is hoping to agree to a new climate treaty by the end of this year. Stern, who  served as a senior advisor to former president Bill Clinton and led the US delegation to the groundbreaking Kyoto talks in 1997, will also be involved in domestic US efforts to reduce pollution.

Next up?  The Economy

Wihout saying more publicly, Clinton has telegraped the message that she plans to address global economic issues in order to improve our interrelated economies, and to alleviate the various financial stresses at home.  It won’t be a moment too soon.

Bolstering Women’s Role In The Effort For Change

To accomplish these difficult goals and meet these daunting challenges, Clinton has many tools as her disposal including extremely accomplished and capable envoys.  But she also has something else.  She has the good will of many women in the U.S. and around the world. Women who are willing to listen to her and put their shoulder to the wheel in order to bring about sorely needed change.

At her confirmation hearing, Clinton pledged to focus more attention on women’s issues, especially in Afghanistan.  It has long been a Clinton policy, dating from the Clinton administration, to leverage the underutilized resource of women and their efforts to lift up a nation and bring peace and prosperity to a region. I participated in former President Bill Clinton’s initiative to bring economic empowerment to women in the America’s by such simple but effective policies as micro-lending to allow women to start businesses.  I believe the underpinning of this approach is that unrest, dispair and instability don’t exist in a vacuum. To bring peace, a region must have hope, the kind that comes with providing education and training which allow people to lift themselves up.

Our state department now recognizes that the progress of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan has fallen back because, in part, we have failed to address these kind of issues. Neighboring Pakistan increasingly may face thorny issues because of the hiding or harboring or unwillingness to address the issue of terrorists taking cover in it’s border regions and it’s ongoing disagreements with India, including the conflict over Kashmir. The fate of Afghanistan and Pakistan are intertwined in many ways, so it is interesting to note that, according to The Boston Globe, on Friday, Clinton met with a group of visiting female Afghan legal professionals.

The fourteen judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys were in Washington on a State Department training program on justice reform in Afghanistan. According to the State Department, Clinton praised the women’s “bravery and courage” for bringing reform to Afghanistan and reaffirmed President Obama’s commitment to stabilizing Afghanistan.

Clinton has long standing credibility and ties with women’s groups both in the United States and abroad, certainly ever since she declared in Bejing in September 5th, 1995, “women’s rights are human rights.” I believe she will use these human resources to help achieve America’s goals and the goals of women everywhere.  And we applaud her for it.

Women

Clinton starts working the phones to U.S. allies – CNN.com.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has phoned a slew of leaders since taking office on Thursday, reaching out to key allies in the Middle East, Asia and Europe as the Obama administration reviews foreign policies.

Clinton, who was sworn in Wednesday, has spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan’s King Abdullah and the foreign ministers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, according to acting State Department spokesman Robert Wood.

The calls were “introductory” and did not delve into the nuances of Middle East policy, despite a simmering crisis in Gaza and Thursday’s naming of former Sen. George Mitchell as a special envoy to the Middle East.

President Obama said Mitchell will help implement a cease-fire between Israelis and Hamas and support anti-smuggling efforts to prevent the latter from re-arming.

But he added, “Lasting peace requires more than a long cease-fire, and that’s why I will sustain an active commitment to seek two states living side by side in peace and security.”

By naming Mitchell as his personal envoy, Obama is sending a diplomatic heavyweight to the region.

“He’s neither pro-Israeli nor pro-Palestinian,” Martin S. Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, told The New York Times. “He’s, in a sense, neutral.”

Clinton also spoke with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and India’s foreign minister, Wood said. Watch a former secretary of state discuss Clinton »

On Friday, Clinton met with a group of visiting female Afghan legal professionals.

The fourteen judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys were in Washington on a State Department training program on justice reform in Afghanistan.

The State Department issued a statement about the meeting late Friday. It was not on Clinton’s public schedule, and Wood did not mention the meeting at his daily press briefing when he discussed the secretary’s second day in office.

According to the State Department, Clinton praised the women’s “bravery and courage” for bringing reform to Afghanistan and reaffirmed President Obama’s commitment to stabilizing Afghanistan.

At her confirmation hearing, Clinton also pledged to focus more attention on women’s issues, especially in Afghanistan.

On Thursday, Obama and Clinton named Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, as a special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Holbrooke negotiated the 1995 agreement at Dayton, Ohio, that ended the war in Bosnia.

Holbrooke called his latest mission “a very difficult assignment.”

“Nobody can say the war in Afghanistan has gone well, and yet, as we speak here today, American men and women and their coalition partners are fighting a very difficult struggle against a ruthless and determined enemy without any scruples at all,” he said after his appointment was announced.

Holbrooke said, “If our resources are mobilized and coordinated and pulled together, we can quadruple, quintuple, multiply by tenfold the effectiveness of our efforts there.”

Amid an administration review of North Korea, Clinton also spoke to the foreign ministers of Japan, South Korea, China and Australia — key allies working to disarm Pyongyang, the spokesman said.

She also spoke with the foreign ministers of India, Britain, France, Germany and the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, Wood said.

The administration is also reviewing policy toward Iran, with Obama promising more engagement. Wood said that Undersecretary William Burns would be seeking input from Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia, partners in the so-called “P5 plus one” group dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. Watch Obama discuss the need for greater diplomacy »

Sources said Dennis Ross, a Mideast peace envoy for previous administrations, will be an envoy in charge of engaging Iran, but it is unclear what role he’ll play.

All Abo

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