"It's an amazing national security team that Obama appears to have selected. It's, kind of, like Goldilocks and the three bears," said journalist Bob Woodward on CBS "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

"You've got "too cool," which might be -- or at least "appropriately cool" General Jones as the national security adviser; Gates is, kind of, just right, in the middle; and Hillary Clinton, hot."

Clinton is said to have been initially reluctant to accept the post. But reports indicate that she won a guarantee of direct access to the president.

Fears that her nomination could falter because of her husband's charitable foundation and lucrative speechmaking appear to have been resolved under a deal between the former president and the Obama team.

As secretary of state, she will face high expectations from a world weary of the eight years of President George W. Bush's policies, especially as concerns the conduct of the "war on terror," and which has enthusiastically embraced Obama's promise of change.

It will also cap a remarkable political career, catapulting her out of a relatively junior position in the Senate to become the face of US diplomacy.

The challenges ahead are staggering, as Clinton herself has acknowledged.

"The next president will be the first to inherit two wars, a long-term campaign against global terrorist networks, and growing tension with Iran as it seeks to acquire nuclear weapons," Clinton wrote during her White House bid.

"The United States will face a resurgent Russia whose future orientation is uncertain and a rapidly growing China that must be integrated into the international system," she wrote in the Foreign Affairs magazine last year.

She has also stressed the need for Arab-Israeli peace, and warned of the need to address "the looming long-term threats of climate change and a new wave of global health epidemics.

"To meet these challenges, we will have to replenish American power by getting out of Iraq, rebuilding our military, and developing a much broader arsenal of tools in the fight against terrorism," she argued.

AFP