WASHINGTON, Jan 22: Hillary Clinton took charge on Thursday of US foreign policy proclaiming a “new era for America” based on robust diplomacy and a fresh unity of purpose.

“I believe with all my heart that this is a new era for America,” a beaming Clinton told a welcoming party of hundreds at the State Department following her Senate confirmation on Wednesday as the 67th secretary of state.

Clinton faces unfinished wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the troubled Middle East peace process, climate change, conflicts in Africa and efforts to revamp a tarnished US image.

“I think this is a time of such potential and possibility. I don’t get up in the morning just thinking about the threats and the dangers, as real as they are. I also think what we can do,” said Clinton.

State Department officials said she already began calling top diplomats and leaders overseas. One was to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, an Abbas spokesman said.

Clinton also sought to boost the role of the USAID which aims to use aid to advance foreign policy goals — something her predecessor Condoleezza Rice had been accused of neglecting.

“I will do all that I can, working with you, to make it abundantly clear that robust diplomacy and effective development are the best long-term tools for securing America’s future,” said Clinton, who supervises USAID.

“We want to send a clear and unequivocal message: This is a team, and you are members of that team,” said Clinton, 61, who narrowly lost to Obama in a bitter campaign to be the Democratic Party’s candidate for president.

Neither Clinton nor Obama can make progress on foreign policy “unless we make clear we are all on the American team,” she said.

“We are not any longer going to tolerate the kind of divisiveness that has paralysed and undermined our ability to get things done for America,” she said, alluding to troubles in the Bush administration.

Colin Powell, who served as secretary of state under Bush’s first term, was sidelined in policy-making by both vice president Dick Cheney and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

However, Clinton welcomed both ‘candour’ and ‘a good debate’ in shaping US foreign policy and said she would be a task master. “I’m going to be asking a lot of you. I want you to think outside the proverbial box.” —AFP