US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on
Thursday defended her legacy as the nation's top diplomat, pointing
to a renewal the United States' world standing over the past four
years, as she prepares to step down from her position.
"America is stronger at home and more respected in the world," she
told the Council on Foreign Relations in a farewell speech at the
think tank. "Our global leadership is on stronger footing than many
predicted."
Clinton is to step down as secretary of state Friday and Senator
John Kerry is to be sworn into the post.
She noted the 112 nations she has visited as secretary of state
and nearly 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometres) she has logged as
evidence of the need to engage a more complicated world, where
activists using Twitter in Egypt can enact change around the globe.
A new diplomatic architecture for the 21st century must engage on
more levels, in what she characterized as "more Frank Gehry than
formal Greek."
The US cannot focus on just a handful of world powers, she said,
pointing to visits to locales as far-flung as Togo and the State
Department's Twitter feeds in 11 languages.
She stressed that the US remains the one "indispensable nation"
despite the changing world and was uniquely positioned for the
diverse challenges of the coming decades.
"I'm confident that my successor and his successors and all who
serve in the position that I've been so privileged to hold will
continue to lead in this century, just as we did in the last:
smartly, tirelessly, courageously to make the world more peaceful,
more safe, more prosperous, more free," she said.
