Christopher Hill: The Negotiator

In his long career, Hill has put together a useful tool kit for handling protracted negotiations (like those in North Korea) and the aftermath of ethnic and religious conflicts (in the 1990s, he worked with special envoy Richard Holbrooke in the Balkans). It may help too that Hill has a reputation for being approachable and unburdened by ideology. In Iraq, he will need all his diplomatic skills and then some. Iraqi officials like to say they want the same things as the U.S., though they don't like American lectures on how to get them. But Hill has already learned that, in reality, Baghdad's priorities can differ dramatically from Washington's.

One of his early goals, for example, was to coax Iraqi politicians into agreeing on a "hydrocarbon law": a framework both for sharing oil and gas revenues among Iraq's ethnic groups and for allowing easy foreign investment. But Arabs and Kurds are no closer than ever to an agreement on revenue-sharing, and pushing too hard could lead to armed conflict between them. Hill has had to back off. "I arrived here and realized that, actually, people aren't really working on the hydrocarbon law," he says. The risk is that without a new legal framework for the oil and gas industry, the foreign investment that Iraq desperately needs will not arrive, though the senior U.S. embassy official remains optimistic. Iraq is not as dangerous as it once was. "The security environment," says this official, "is at a point where [investors] can start to look at other issues that determine whether they'll come."

Whatever happens to the economy, many Iraqis will long blame the U.S. for the strife they have suffered since 2003. In previous postings, Hill has been known for tackling anti-American sentiment; while ambassador to South Korea, he made impromptu visits to the country's universities, where the U.S. is far from loved. But that sort of gesture is tough in Iraq; U.S. ambassadors must travel with a small army of guards. And even the highest security couldn't prevent an angry journalist from hurling his shoes at George W. Bush when the then President visited Baghdad in December.

Wisely, Hill knows he too won't always be warmly received. "I simply hope," he says, that "people will hear me out." As for flying footwear: "I can duck with the best of them." Let's hope that for Washington's new man in Baghdad, it doesn't get worse than that.