Obama's Foreign Policy: Toughness and Modesty (GERMANY)

If there is one thing that the key players in Democratic and Republican foreign policy have in common, it is the rings under the eyes of the respective secretaries of state. Madeleine Albright wore them like badges of honor, and so did Condoleezza Rice. With the transfer of the State Department's official Air Force Boeing 757, the rings are now Hillary Clinton's.

After only a month in office, Clinton already looks exhausted. She has just returned from Japan and China, and now she is on her way to Geneva to meet with the Russian foreign minister. But her current trip takes her to the Middle East first, where, as she says flatly, "I'm looking for results."

Before her departure from Washington, Clinton is scheduled to give a talk on human rights. The US government's annual report on human rights, all 100 pages of it, is sitting on her desk. It contains a plethora of demands, wishes and potential appeals to the Chinese and Russians, and to the Pakistanis, Somalis, Syrians and a whole list of the world's human rights rogues.

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