Who was the best secretary of state and why - Research Paper Example

It is difficult to rate any one above others because of the diversity of problems faced and managed by these secretaries in the past. John Quincy Adams, William Seward John Hay, Henry Kissinger, Collin Powel and Medline Albright were some of the most famous American state secretaries in the past. However, in my opinion, current American state secretary Hillary Clinton seems to be the best secretaries of all time. This paper analyses the capabilities of Hillary Clinton as the secretary of state.

“There is a growing bipartisan consensus that Hillary Clinton is the best ever Secretary of State, US President Barack Obama has said. His decision to appoint Clinton as the Secretary of State was one of his better decisions” (Clinton best ever Secretary of State: Obama). Obama’s opinion about Mrs Clinton’s performance as secretary of state cannot be taken lightly. It should be noted that Hillary Clinton was the major rival for Obama when he competed for the Democratic Party candidature for president ship.

I rate Hillary Clinton as the best ever secretary of state because of the fact that no other state secretaries in American history were faced such challenging situations as Hillary did. It should be noted that terrorism and global recession are some of the most challenging situations for America at present. . As a secretary of state, it was the duty of Hillary to convince Arab world about the necessities of war on terror and she did succeed in doing so. Moreover, some kind of revolutions are taking place at Arab world now, especially in countries like Libya, Egypt, Tunisia etc.

Moreover, agitations already started in countries like Bahrain, Syria and Saudi Arabia. America has a significant role to play in the political developments in these countries. It should be noted that Libyan revolution was successful only because of NATO’s involvement. Same way, America has to decide whether to support or oppose the democratic movements in countries like Bahrain, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Bahrain and Saudi are some of the closest allies of America in the Middle East and therefore, it is difficult for America either to support or oppose agitations in these countries.

Hillary Clinton has a major role to play in shaping America’s policies towards these countries. Iran’s ambition to become a nuclear power was another challenging situation for Hillary. Iran is the country in Middle East which raises strong challenges to America’s interest in this region. Allowing Iran to become a nuclear power is not good for the interests of America and Hillary had a major role to play in preventing Iran from developing nuclear arsenal. At the time of writing this paper, Iran has threatened that they are going to close Hormuz gulf and disallow the passage of oil tankers through this region.

“Iran threatened to stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz if it became the target of an oil export embargo over its nuclear ambitions, a move that could trigger