By Hannes Artens

Recent developments prompt me to postpone the third part of my series on President Obama's global agenda until next week in order to instead invite you to speculate with me on what a Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would mean to the US and the world.

I'm dying to learn of your thoughts on this development because I completely fail to understand it, both President-elect Obama offering her the job, and Senator Hillary Clinton possibly accepting it (as of now we don't have a confirmation; the same day, Tuesday, The Guardian and CNN declared her having accepted, The New York Times reported on strong reservations on her side). Both doesn't make any sense to me, is outright illogical as it will sooner than later result in a ruinous competition and constant strife between the White House and Foggy Bottom, a lose-lose situation for Obama, Clinton, and ultimately for us all, who have set such high hopes on this fresh start.

Let me start with spending just a few words on what most journalists occupy themselves with these days: the vetting process or to be more precise, Bill Clinton's business ties proving potential conflicts of interest. Are you kidding me? This woman came within a whisker of becoming president, and now journalists question whether her husband's activities may damage the office of secretary of state? Not to be cynical here, but we're having a vice-president who was the former CEO of Halliburton and left us unclear all these years whether the foreign policy he conducted was for the benefit of the country (whatever that might have been) or for Halliburton to get as many reconstruction deals as possible in countries he ordered to be bombed back into the stone age. Half the current president's father's cabinet and the former president himself are or were special advisors or members of the board of the Carlyle Group. And then you're worried about the peanuts of Bill Clinton's speaking engagements and his $31 million from a Canadian businessman on behalf of the ultra-corrupt government of Kazakhstan?

No, Bill Clinton's post-presidential activities should be of limited concern, the political influence he'd have on his wife ("two for the price of one") the more. Barack Obama seems on the best way to forfeit the mandate of change he's been elected on even before he enters office. Given his appointments so far and the tops on his list for various departments, his presidency already looks more like Clinton III than Obama I - appointing Hillary Clinton Secretary of State would just cast this impression in stone. So much for all of us who hoped this to be the start of something new, something fresh, unjaded, unconventional, a presidency with the ability to think outside the box. Instead of "change we can believe in" it seems we're going to get "the soap opera we all know too well."

If George Bush's presidency will go down in American history as the worst, Bill Clinton's is the greatest missed opportunity. Given the man's unique political talents, the unchallenged supremacy the US enjoyed during the 90s, and the unprecedented era of overall peace he presided over, he achieved very little. Worse, his lack of vision, conservative world-view in economics and IR, and his heeding the wrong advisors (Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, Madeleine Albright, you name them) are key to many of the problems we're struggling with today.

There's no reason to believe his wife would have different, more progressive convictions. On the contrary, we got quite a nice idea of how she would handle Iran, Syria, and getting concessions from Israel on the campaign trail. Do we really believe her, after being briefed by Dennis Ross, to sit down with Tehran's representatives in unconditional talks - a key commitment Obama made during the campaign, one that, as a matter of fact, would have to be carried out by the secretary of state - after ridiculing him for this "naïve" views, declaring the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, and not ranking behind John McCain in martial rhetoric, and expect anything substantial to come from these talks? As David Harsanyi reminds us, "the prospective appointment [of Hillary] clashes with virtually every pronouncement Obama made regarding foreign policy in the past." Not for nothing The Weekly Standard, for whom she comes second in Democratic hawkishness, they call patriotism, to Joe Lieberman, has endorsed Hillary for secretary of state in a hymn of praise titled "The Great Right Hope." That's exactly the kind of America's face to the world we wished and worked for.

It's not that the Democratic Party would lack talent or able hands to ease the president's workload in order to give most of his attention to the economy, run day-to-day foreign policy and prepare the ground for the president to shine with done and sealed deals. There are worse choices than Bill Richardson, Richard Holbrooke, even John Kerry. Hillary Clinton certainly is one.

No doubt, the great parameters of US foreign policy would still be devised in the White House - for that matter the post of National Security Advisor is of far greater importance. But the secretary of state would have to carry them out, which is made considerably difficult if she doesn't agree with a single precept. "The promise of her being secretary of state," Anne-Marie Slaughter, the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, explains, "would be to unite those two world [view]s." No, three times no, I say, she would bring them to collision. The result will be Secretary Hillary either being sidelined, her undermining President Obama's prerogative, an endless squabble, or at worst a combination of all the above at times when the world looks for America's positive guidance and expects her to speak with one authoritative voice.

Thomas Friedman asks:

That backing is the most important requirement for a secretary of state to be effective. Frankly, Obama could appoint his dear mother-in-law as secretary of state, and if he let the world know she was his envoy, she would be more effective than any ex-ambassador who had no relationship with the president (...) My question is whether a President Obama and a Secretary of State Clinton, given all that has gone down between them and their staffs, can have that kind of relationship, particularly with Mrs. Clinton always thinking four to eight years ahead, and the possibility that she may run again for the presidency.

My answer is a resounding no. Not only because they don't share the same take on most foreign policy issues (at least that's what we still hope to be the case with Barack Obama), but also because of Hillary Clinton's "big, hungry, needy ego surrounded by a team that's hungrier and needier." Politer than David Ignatius I call it ambition. And that gets me to my central question I want to discuss with you, dear readers: cui bono?

Let's assume Hillary still dreams of running against Barack Obama in 2012 (those thinking of 2016 remind me of the economic wanna-be gurus who today predict the GDP for 2010). And then she thinks Foggy Bottom the perfect launch pad for a presidential bid? She only has a chance if President Obama belly-flops, and then she, as the most powerful member of his cabinet, will have to take part of the blame. Hardly a convincing narrative for a challenge. Ok, then let's assume Hillary's motives are altruistic and she wants to work for the greater common good of the country. By subordinating herself and her husband to Barack Obama's National Security Adviser, and by slavishly implementing what she's ordered to do by the Oval Office? Neither a position with much room for creativity and individual initiative, nor one imaginable given her big, hungry, … er ambitious personality. Whatever her motives, they'd be served better by the role of gray eminence in the Senate, without whose support nothing will get done, and who may even take over from the luck- and colorless Harry Reid.

Now, this might be exactly what Barack Obama wants to prevent from happening, based on the motto "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." At first sight, such a move would make sense, it would finally pacify and integrate the last rebels of the Hillary-camp, too. Yet only for a very short time. Sooner than later the above detailed differences will emerge and inevitably lead to an irreconcilable breach between the two. If after constant row and endless fights, the president has to sack her, hell will brake lose. At the worst, right before the midterm elections, which the Democratic Party would then enter divided, with a Grand Canyon-sized gulf running through its rank and file.

A gulf that doesn't exist now and wouldn't if Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were to reach a power sharing deal: he becoming the greatest reformer and she the greatest Senate Majority Leader since LBJ. A power sharing deal I expected them to already have agreed on in August until this week taught me otherwise.

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Hannes Artens is the author of The Writing on the Wall, the first anti-Iran-war novel.