Is Clinton in danger of becoming another symbolic SECSTATE?

Newsweek cover story celebrates Clinton's toughening up of Obama administration positions, but I find the piece uninspiring.

Clinton, we are told by Leslie Gelb,  "doesn't pretend to be, nor is she, a strategist.  She doesn't bring that to a table."  NSC adviser General Jones says she has "strategic vision," but we don't hear any in the piece.  To date, we live on her early speech about having lots of partners in the world.

Officials admit the first year was all brand-rebuilding.  Hirsch says, correctly, that "Clinton's and Obama's various policies do not yet add up to anything like a doctrine on America's place in the world."  In reply, Clinton bristles that "trying to have a very clear approach to actually dealing with those problems" (inherited from Bush-Cheney) and simultaneously trying promote American leadership "is about as big an idea as you can get."

So Clinton brags about not being able to focus on any one issue because her agenda is "enormous."

Sorry, but this sounds like the second coming of Condi Rice--always the chasing of events instead of triggering them.  And the "bad cop" bit comes off like a redux of Colin Powell's stint:  the great influencer and balancer who actually never gets her way.  But, oh boy, is she is admired for her "strength"!  

One NSC official puts it this way (anonymously, of course):

She has no real strategic vision.  But she'll get done what she has to do.  She's the good little Methodist girl.  In the end she'll have her list of the nine or 10 things she has to do and check them off one by one.

So what are we left with in this administration?  The Gates-Clinton axis that balances Obama's idealism and helps him unwind Iraq and Afghanistan, Jones keeping the training running at NSC, etc.

We've seen the magic of rebranding, but now we get this sense of caretaking, unwinding, and responding to the "enormous" agenda, at the top of which sits this dream of a world without nukes.

When Clinton let slip, early in the administration, about extending a nuclear umbrella over the Mideast, I thought, maybe she'll be the real foreign policy leader of note, somebody who thinks structurally.   But she drew back after catching flack for that, and so we're left with Obama's mushy nuclear vision and nobody--to date--even coming close to articulating anything substantial or even new.

But yeah, the crossing-off of items on the list continues  . . ..

Comments

[Ted O'Connor]

"Good little Methodist girl." Ouch, that hurts. Ms. Clinton is in a classic "Dammed if you do-dammed if you don't" position. If she is seen as promoting any strategy that is identified as one of her own making, then she would be criticized as being "pushy" and "grandstanding." She would also be suspected of "running for president." When she follows the President's orders she is dismissed as an "errand girl." She certainly carries more weight (no pun intended) than Condi Rice who seemed to be the Tinkerbelle of diplomacy. It is pretty difficult to have a grand strategy when you are in Afghanistan one minute and Haiti the next. I am not a Clinton fan...just trying to be fair.

Still getting used to the new site. Tom...that photo of you is mug book scary.