The Pakistani daily Dawn spoke of her "Iron fist in a velvet glove," as it described her taking on Pakistani officials over tense problems, including Afghanistan, the Taliban, China-Pakistan nuclear cooperation, Indo-Pakistani water disputes, and so on.
And that was just one stop on the trip. In South Korea, she sent one of the strongest messages this administration has issued to Pyongyang, and then walked right up to the edge of the DMZ, within inches of nervous North Korean soldiers.
On Afghanistan, no U.S. official can deal more openly and effectively with President Hamid Karzai. And speaking of Afghanistan, remember that Rolling Stone article that got Gen. Stanley McChrystal fired? The piece showed his aides tearing down just about every administration official, but added, "Only Hillary Clinton receives good reviews from McChrystal's inner circle."
In fact, Clinton, who was supposed to ignite the flames of conservatives' hatred, is becoming more popular every day across the political spectrum. Her hawkish foreign policy views gain her support on the right, and her well-known views on domestic policy keep the home fires burning on the left. The two fields intersect in one of the areas where she displays the greatest passion, her signature foreign- policy issue: the need to empower women in poor countries in order to transform the world.
