Former first lady Hillary Clinton will promise renewal of American leadership globally,
perceived to have declined with US troops bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, as she appears before a powerful Senate Committee to get clearance for her job as Secretary of State.
At the hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations committee on Tuesday, Clinton is also likely to map out the incoming administration's policies on the current crisis in
the Middle East and the tension between India and Pakistan in the aftermath of the Mumbai attack.
Media reports said that Clinton would put before the Committee President-elect Barack Obama's plans to re-establish the State Department as the lead agency in foreign policy and stress "smart power".
"She will outline the new President's belief that America must be smarter to be stronger," one of her close aides said. If confirmed, she would become the maiden former First Lady to occupy the position and would be responsible for shaping the foreign policy of the US for the next four years.
She would replace Condoleezza Rice in the outgoing Bush Administration. The nomination hearing by the 21-member Senate Foreign Relations Committee would be chaired by Senator John Kerry, the former Democratic Party presidential candidate who lost to George W Bush in 2004.
Clinton, who entered the Democratic Presidential primary race as a favourite but lost to Obama, takes over the US State Department while Washington is confronted with three major issues -- Middle-East crisis, rising tensions in South Asia and Iran clandestine nuclear ambitions, media reports said.
