The late, great diplomatic and national security practitioner and theoretician, Peter W. Rodman, author of "Presidential Command," a study of the presidential role in conducting U.S. foreign relations from presidents Harry S. Truman through George W. Bush, in the next-to-last paragraph of his book provided some trenchant analysis.

" ... [A] president," he said, "who is less a master of foreign policy when coming into office, or who chooses not to engage systematically, can count on having difficulties." He added, " ... [S]uch a president would also need to exercise special care in choosing Cabinet officers who can be counted on to hew faithfully to presidential desires."

So, does that shoe fit this administration?

President Barack Obama has now been in office some nine months with Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state, his Cabinet officer in charge of foreign affairs. How is it going? Can we tell?

It is certainly fair to say that Mr. Obama came to office with little or nothing in his background to suggest that he was "a master of foreign policy." He certainly came with good instincts, inspired in no small part by the fact that he had lived overseas in a Muslim country, Indonesia. His parentage and upbringing certainly served to inculcate attitudes in him that were likely to serve him well as American foreign policy leader and practitioner. His father was African. His mother was curious and tolerant.

Then there was the choice of Mrs. Clinton as his secretary of state. As a busy and active first spouse, she had come in contact with presidential conduct of foreign affairs close-at-hand for eight years. Although the two-for-the-price-of-one Clinton partnership got hyped, and in the end took on almost sinister connotations, her time in the White House plus her eight years as senator were good preparation for the post. Going back to the Peter Rodman quote, the only question might be how well she hews "faithfully to presidential desires."

Mrs. Clinton's high level of political competitiveness could still cause the president to wonder if she isn't sizing him up for some major policy debacle that would give her the party nomination in 2012.

Let's put aside that possibility, begging for the moment the question of whether a lack of effective coordination between the president and the secretary of state is playing a negative role in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Who is, in fact, doing what?

Mr. Obama is clearly the front man, singing lead. He has taken effective trips and made effective speeches in a number of parts of the world. Prime examples are his June Cairo speech to Muslims and his July Ghana speech to Africans. At the United Nations in New York and the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh in September he was in full cry, reorienting U.S. foreign policy and winning many leaders' hearts and minds. Even though Americans were scratching their heads, the award to Mr. Obama of the Nobel Peace Prize last week was a hearty tribute to what he has done already in changing the tone as well as, obviously, a clear statement of what the Norwegian sages expect of him down the line.

But, so far, what has Mrs. Clinton done? If one looks at both major and minor issues, the answer probably has to be: not much yet. What are the top foreign-affairs issues with which the United States is now dealing?

The first has to be getting out of Iraq without leaving the ruins smoking too conspicuously. Those most nervous about the situation are other Arabs in the region. Mrs. Clinton could be going around pressing the flesh and telling Arab leaders that we have to go, but that we'll still love them tomorrow. She hasn't been doing that.

The second one is Afghanistan and related Pakistan. This arena seems to be in the hands of special adviser Richard Holbrooke. Mr. Holbrooke might have been secretary of state if Mrs. Clinton had won the presidency. He has little or no background in South Asia, is tainted in some eyes by having accepted advantageous real estate financing from the notorious Countrywide Financial, and in any case was dealt a very bad hand by the linkage in his portfolio between Afghanistan and Pakistan, countries which don't like each other, while excluding India.

The Middle East was in effect taken away from Mrs. Clinton and assigned to former Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell so far has not been able to put a dent in either the Israelis or the divided Palestinians. Mr. Mitchell was also dealt a bad hand since he has not yet been in direct contact with either Hamas in Gaza or Hizballah in Lebanon. Both hold important cards to play in any Middle East peace settlement.

Mr. Holbrooke and Mr. Mitchell are special envoys, assigned important pieces of Mrs. Clinton's portfolio. They were, in effect, given the skunks to walk. If she were to take control of either of those issues and make a big success of solving the formidable problems they constitute, it might be she who ends up with a Nobel Peace Prize down the road, even though the committee's having awarded Mr. Obama the most-valuable-player award early in the season might make it difficult to hand out another one to someone in his administration later on.

Whatever one thinks of the special envoy mechanism, or of the secretary of state not having full control of the most important issues for which she is responsible, or of the president delegating foreign affairs to the secretary of state's team, the fact of the matter is that in these key areas there isn't much that is going right at the moment. Mrs. Clinton fiddling around in Northern Ireland for old time's sake definitely doesn't cut it in terms of applying her ample talents to the country's most difficult foreign affairs problems, and that is what is needed at this point.

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