Send the Envoy

More importantly, the use of envoys can corrode the standing of the secretary of state. That possibility certainly exists in the current case, where several of the trickiest issues on Clinton's agenda have been subcontracted so early to such prominent individuals. Holbrooke's lines of authority are as straight as a bowl of spaghetti: his responsibilities extend far beyond State, and he reports to the president through the secretary of state (or, as he carefully calls her, his "immediate boss"). Like most successful diplomats, Holbrooke is drawn to power like an iron filing to a magnet, and he knows that ultimate power resides not on the seventh floor of the State Department but in the Oval Office. Clinton will have to assert her authority over the envoys -- and prevent the outbreak of turf wars among them, a problem that has bedeviled other practitioners of envoy diplomacy, including Roosevelt.

There are also factors working in the opposite direction, however. Clinton is not known to be a retiring character. She has the clout that comes with an independent power base and has long relationships with both Mitchell and Holbrooke. Obama has been notably respectful of Clinton's prerogatives since his election, and it would make no sense for him to allow his envoys to go around her. Furthermore, even if the presence of the envoys were to restrict Clinton's role on a handful of high-profile issues, that would still leave her to cover, well, the rest of the world -- including rising competitors, old alliances requiring tune-ups, and global shifts of power. That's more than enough for a legacy.

For the president, one key to using envoys effectively while preserving the dignity of both the department and the secretary of state is discipline. Special envoys should be used sparingly, on big issues, when the usual machinery is not up to the task and the right candidate is available. Obama should resist the temptation to appoint envoys as a way of elevating second-order issues to public prominence or appeasing domestic constituencies. President Clinton devalued the currency of special envoys by appointing too many of them. By the time he left the White House, there were more than 50 flapping around, including, for example, Jesse Jackson, the special envoy for the promotion of democracy in Africa -- hardly a notable Clinton foreign policy priority.

Interest groups will now start pressing Obama to appoint envoys for all their pet issues. But if Obama is as canny and deliberate as he appears to be, he will not waste special envoys on ordinary problems.

Perhaps we should not fret too much about these kinds of institutional arrangements. As one of Obama's appointees once told me: "An envoy is not an answer; it's an instrument. The important question is: What's the policy?" On Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Middle East peace process, Iran, climate change, and many other issues, that question remains. But when Obama answers it, he will find that special envoys can be very powerful instruments of his policy.