Dear Mrs. Clinton,

I wanted you to be the 44th President. Even when the numbers showed you couldn’t win the nomination, I supported your bid through the Indiana Primary.

You had more experience than Obama: more years in the Senate, more connections in Washington and a greater willingness to negotiate with those who stood in the way of your proposed reforms. Your proposal to insure every American was braver and more futuristic than Obama’s initiative to make it optional.

But I didn’t spend that Friday afternoon back in April calling potential Southern Indiana voters on your behalf because I thought you would be America’s best diplomat.

Let’s face it: You’re no Condoleezza Rice. Before she was tapped to be Secretary of State, Condi dedicated her life to studying foreign policy in academia and putting it into practice in various Republican administrations.

Nor are you Obama. He was welcomed in Europe. You seemingly embraced Bush’s cowboy diplomacy by claiming to have dodged sniper fire in Bosnia, yet even that war hero story didn’t pan out.

Hopefully, your tenure in the State Department will leave me – and the rest of the nation – in better graces with the rest of the world.

But success is no sure thing, as you face a litany of policy challenges, any of which might make the proverbial phone ring at 3 a.m.

First, the enduring conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has once again escalated from an irksome standoff to a battle that claims real lives and robs millions of people of their stability. And though the issue will undoubtedly have to be addressed, it’s uncertain what sort of a mediator you will be. At one point you called Palestinian statehood “very important.” Then you were caught in an awkward embrace of Yasser Arafat’s wife while the cameras were rolling, and you became an unrelenting supporter of Israel.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, Iran is reportedly likely to acquire a nuclear weapon within the first six months of your tenure. How will you address the situation? Will President Obama talk to Iranian leaders without preconditions as he desired to in some of your early debates, or will you counsel him to ignore them and use force to delay their nuclear program?

Pakistan is also on the verge of nuclear crisis. Though the Bush administration was friendly with strong-man Musharraff, who played a delicate game of keeping the nation peaceful, it’s not yet certain whether a new Pakistani president will be able to keep terrorists from snatching one of his nation’s nuclear missiles. But don’t count on de-arming them any time soon. Pakistan won’t want to relinquish its arsenal as long as neighbor and foe India maintains its own nuclear cache.

Sudan and the Eastern Congo are still mired in conflicts sparked from ethnic discord. Unfortunately, the Clinton record doesn’t have a history of staving off genocides in Africa.

Yet you haven’t been a failure abroad, and your expressed desire not to give up on peace is promising. The job you’re taking on will be more difficult than declaring that “women’s rights are human rights.” You’ll have to follow your words up with actions.

However, if you restore an American foreign policy that emphasizes consensus-building in place of nation-building, I – and many other of your supporters – will be happy after all.