WASHINGTON — At the threshold of the world stage as America’s next top diplomat, Hillary Rodham Clinton is vowing to renew U.S. leadership through a “smart power” mix of diplomacy and defense.
     
In remarks prepared for delivery at her Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to be secretary of state also promised to push for more U.S. partnerships around the globe.
     
“America cannot solve the most pressing problems on our own, and the world cannot solve them without America,” she said. “I believe American leadership has been wanting, but is still wanted.”
     
Borrowing a phrase meant to signal a move away from the militarization of U.S. foreign policy, Clinton said, “We must use what has been called `smart power,’ the full range of tools at our disposal. With `smart power,’ diplomacy will be the vanguard of foreign policy.”
     
Clinton appeared set to sail smoothly through her hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, despite concerns among some lawmakers that the global fundraising of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, could pose ethical conflicts for her as President-elect Barack Obama’s secretary of state.
     
“There’s no stumbling block,” Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the committee, said in an interview Monday. The panel could vote on Clinton’s nomination as early as Thursday. If she is approved, as expected, she could be confirmed by the full Senate as early as Inauguration Day.
     
In her prepared remarks, Clinton appeared to take a swipe at the Bush administration, whose approach to foreign policy she has said was based too narrowly on ideology.
     
“Foreign policy must be based on a marriage of principles and pragmatism, not rigid ideology,” she said.