John Kerry, the dealmaker-in-chief [View all]

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http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/01/03/john-kerry-dealmaker-chief/H8MUWF94iHfmdYdr0VNYGP/story.html

WHEN SENATOR John Kerry is confirmed as secretary of state later this month, he will encounter a number of complex tests as America’s top diplomat. The first is his challenging inbox, which includes the Afghanistan war, Iranian and North Korean nuclear threats, an increasingly violent Middle East, the lingering euro debt crisis, and China’s challenge to American power in Asia. It may well be the most daunting agenda a secretary of state has faced in a generation.

Kerry will also inherit a bruised State Department reeling from the Benghazi attacks and the tough Accountability Review Board judgment of “systemic failures” in diplomatic security. Facing further cuts in an already depleted State Department budget, Kerry will need to move fast to rebuild morale in the foreign service.

Kerry has a third challenge — to fill the shoes of Hillary Clinton, who is universally regarded as a highly effective secretary of state and Gallup’s most admired female leader of 2012. Clinton deserves all the accolades she has received. Enormously popular with the rank and file at State, she has broadened our diplomatic engagement by emphasizing women, development, and social issues, and brought energy, leadership, and compassion to our foreign policy.

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Kerry’s conservative critics accuse him of being too much of a realist, too willing to negotiate with rulers like Syria’s Bashar Assad. But that misses the point about the core role we ask each secretary of state to play — to promote liberty and human rights for sure, but also to deal with the world as it is, even if that means meeting unsavory characters from time to time in defense of American interests.

Kerry can’t lead every negotiation. But, at some point in 2013, he will have to decide whether to take ownership of the effort to end Syria’s civil war, stop Iran’s nuclear weapons drive, wind down the Afghan war, and respond to Chinese troublemaking in the South and East China Seas. He understands diplomacy and has the unique experience of decades of foreign policy leadership in the Senate. He will need that and more as he begins the toughest job of his impressive career.