As Hillary Clinton took the oath of office yesterday – her husband beaming in the background, though he has made it clear he won’t be picking the menus for state dinners – she felt mixed emotions.

On the one hand she was America’s first female president. On the other hand, she now had Responsibility, with a capital R. And her main responsibility was to defend America, a task vastly complicated by the fact that Iraq was once again in hostile hands, Iran had successfully tested a nuclear device, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak had been overthrown by the Muslim Brotherhood and Osama bin Laden had resurfaced in a breakaway province of Pakistan.

The bombing of the Shiite mosque had been interpreted by many Americans as proof they were losing in Iraq. A significant block of congressional Republicans, fearful of losing their grip on power, had pressured the Pentagon into accelerating its scheduled drawdown of troop levels. Iraqi politicians, mindful of what had happened after American troops departed South Vietnam, moved to save their own skins – starting with the surprise release of Saddam Hussein from custody into a thinly disguised form of “house arrest” in the Sunni triangle.

Throughout the Middle East, the message was clear: terror had won. In the United States, the Republicans lost control of Congress anyway in 2006 – in part because of a “culture of corruption,” in part because their efforts to weasel out of Iraq were seen for what they were, a confession of failure. The GOP candidate for president in 2008, John McCain, had been unable to assuage the doubts within the Republican base – and, at the age of 72, was visibly exhausted after only a month of campaigning.

All of which was enough to hand the White House to Hillary Clinton, though only by a 46-40 plurality (with 14 percent to the Greens and Libertarians). Though eager to proceed with HillaryCare at home, she first faced a gathering storm abroad.

After the moderates in Iraq had been rounded up and slaughtered, the theocrats of the Middle East turned to Israel. Finally, they calculated, the moment had arrived to revenge the losses of 1947, 1967 and 1973. After all, hadn’t this new President Clinton once publicly embraced Yasser Arafat?

Meanwhile, Europe’s leading politicians were, as usual, counseling appeasement, fearful that a strong stand against Islamic extremism would provoke more “intifadas” within their borders – or even a medium range nuclear missile from Tehran. Let the Jews defend themselves, European leaders were openly saying.

Even in the United States, Mrs. Clinton’s friends in Hollywood – the “Munich” crowd, as they came to be known – had done much to persuade Americans that Palestinian terror was the moral equivalent of the Israeli democracy’s efforts to defend itself. Islamic extremism uber alles!

In the end, of course, President Clinton knew she would have to defend Israel. But as she stepped to the podium to deliver her Inaugural Address – a passionate peroration on “the politics of meaning” – she pondered that it might have been smarter to back Bush’s war in Iraq more forthrightly when she was still in the Senate, rather than voting for it and then sniping from the sidelines about its conduct. And what if that darned Bill had nailed Osama with a missile when he had the chance?

Mr. Bray is a Detroit News columnist.