The trouble is that she comes with all the baggage of the failed Clinton era
By Adrian Hamilton
The Independent
"For those who hoped that Barack Obama would change the world and America's role in it, the reports of his likely candidates for the top foreign policy jobs must come as an awful disappointment. Robert Gates continuing as Defense Secretary, General James Jones as National Security Adviser and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State – these are not names to conjure up the promise of change or renewal.
Nor, to be fair, are they meant to be. Liberal revolution is not the game that this President-elect is pursuing, particularly in foreign affairs. That was always the mistake made by Obama's many supporters in the world at large.....
.....Circumstances have changed and the balance of power altered out of all recognition since Bush came to power and Clinton left it.
The trouble with Hillary is that she comes with all the baggage of that Clinton era – the reach to express US predominance in the post-Cold War, the reshaping of Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union, the re-ordering of alliances in Asia in favour of India against Pakistan and China against its neighbours and the attempt to reach a Middle East peace balanced in favour of Israel. None of them really worked and none of them are relevant to today's conditions. And yet not only is Hillary Clinton still locked in the Clinton past and the backward-looking Clinton advisers such as Dennis Ross on the Middle East and Madeleine Albright on Europe and Russia but also Obama himself who leaned their way once the primaries were over.
The only element that Hillary Clinton added in her time as New York Senator was a progressively more and more openly pro-Zionist stance, while the major swerve in Obama's foreign policy statements during the presidential election was to become more overt in his support of the Israeli government. That is the way American politics work, of course. Obama is nothing if he is not a politician who knows (as FDR did) the penalties of pulling against public opinion, be it on Georgia, Iran, Afghanistan or Jerusalem........"
By Adrian Hamilton
The Independent
"For those who hoped that Barack Obama would change the world and America's role in it, the reports of his likely candidates for the top foreign policy jobs must come as an awful disappointment. Robert Gates continuing as Defense Secretary, General James Jones as National Security Adviser and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State – these are not names to conjure up the promise of change or renewal.
Nor, to be fair, are they meant to be. Liberal revolution is not the game that this President-elect is pursuing, particularly in foreign affairs. That was always the mistake made by Obama's many supporters in the world at large.....
.....Circumstances have changed and the balance of power altered out of all recognition since Bush came to power and Clinton left it.
The trouble with Hillary is that she comes with all the baggage of that Clinton era – the reach to express US predominance in the post-Cold War, the reshaping of Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union, the re-ordering of alliances in Asia in favour of India against Pakistan and China against its neighbours and the attempt to reach a Middle East peace balanced in favour of Israel. None of them really worked and none of them are relevant to today's conditions. And yet not only is Hillary Clinton still locked in the Clinton past and the backward-looking Clinton advisers such as Dennis Ross on the Middle East and Madeleine Albright on Europe and Russia but also Obama himself who leaned their way once the primaries were over.
The only element that Hillary Clinton added in her time as New York Senator was a progressively more and more openly pro-Zionist stance, while the major swerve in Obama's foreign policy statements during the presidential election was to become more overt in his support of the Israeli government. That is the way American politics work, of course. Obama is nothing if he is not a politician who knows (as FDR did) the penalties of pulling against public opinion, be it on Georgia, Iran, Afghanistan or Jerusalem........"
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