Ten months ago, the Obama administration's plan for foreign policy was clear: tackle the toughest problems right away and appoint high-level envoys to do it—George Mitchell for the Mideast, Richard Holbrooke for Afghanistan, and Dennis Ross for Iran. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would stay mostly above the fray, developing grand strategy for the use of "smart power." The thinking inside the new administration, according to a former State Department official, was that George W. Bush had botched things and the new team, guided by Obama's pro-engagement approach, could fix them.
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