Arab world wary of Secretary of State' Hillary Clinton

New York, Nov.24 : Should New York Senator Hillary Clinton accept Barack Oba's offer of Secretary of State, she might just create a feeling of wariness in the Arab world because of her pro-Israel stance.

Clinton's foreign policy views will be scrutinized closely in the weeks ahead, but as her past statements on the Middle East illustrate, she has a considerable track record that provides evidence for several plausible explanations of how she might try to focus U.S. diplomacy.

Arabs, particularly Palestinians, are nervous that Obama seems prepared to give the job of top diplomat to a senator from New York who has spent eight years cultivating her pro-Israel constituency and is likely to continue in the same vein.,

According to the New York Daily News, Clinton is also on record as saying that the United States could "obliterate" Iran if it launched a nuclear attack on Israel.

She has also said that Washington should not negotiate with Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, unless it renounced terrorism.

Other diplomats and foreign policy experts say Clinton would bring to Foggy Bottom one of the leading voices in the Senate for a new U.S. commitment to more aggressive diplomacy.

They say she would push hard for a Middle East peace deal, in keeping with the activist approach taken by President Bill Clinton in the final years of his administration.

What Clinton believes will be somewhat beside the point come January 20: In her new post, she would be vying with other powerful figures -- including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. -- for the president's ear, and she would be responsible for implementing a foreign policy established in the end by Obama.

The biggest determinant for Clinton's success, according to former State Department officials, is the kind of working arrangement she is able to establish with Obama, with whom she had a testy relationship during the primaries that seemed to warm up during the general-election campaign.

Many foreign policy experts are privately baffled that Obama would deliver such a key job to someone from outside his close circle of supporters.

ANI