Clinton's American Opportunity Posted by Ari Melber

Hillary Clinton outlines her foreign policy platform in the new issue of Foreign Affairs, arguing that the next President must “reintroduce America to the world” with a new commitment to multilateral “security and opportunity.”  Clinton depicts January 2009 as a historic diplomatic opening: The U.S. can finally break with the unilateral “tragedy” of Bush foreign policy and provide the moral leadership desired by “our friends around the world.” 

Clinton assails President Bush for offering a series of “ideologically blinkered” false choices, such as force versus diplomacy and hard power versus soft.  This emphasis is reminiscent of John Edwards’ call for smart power in his Foreign Affairs essay (DA review here), especially when Clinton concludes that to reclaim America’s place in the world, “our policies must be smarter.”  Drawing a page from Ecclesiastes, Clinton even observes, "There is a time for force and a time for diplomacy."   Yet where Edwards applied smart power as an alternative to conceiving the battle against al Qaeda as a traditional (hard power) war, Clinton’s rhetoric stresses a more authentic war. 

In a section titled “Winning The Real War on Terror,” she ticks off an important but mostly familiar list of Democratic priorities.  The U.S. must reinforce its efforts in Afghanistan; tackle the heroin trade that finances our enemies; “redouble[]” efforts in Pakistan; rebuild alliances; invest in first responders; and improve international intelligence cooperation, since most of the terrorists the U.S. apprehended “were arrested in other countries.” 

If you just printed this terrorism section out and passed it around a group of Democratic wonks, they’d be hard pressed to say which of the top six candidates wrote it. The only line that slightly departs from current conventional wisdom, I think, is this Bermanesque observation:

We must understand not only [the terrorists’] methods but their motives: a rejection of modernity, women’s rights, and democracy, as well as a dangerous nostalgia for a mythical past.

One of the clearest and most earnest passages comes when Clinton concludes by advocating women’s rights as a foreign policy priority. “Human rights will never truly be realized as long as a majority of the world’s population is still treated as second-class citizens,” she declares, and then offers the suggestive observation that “women have been elected heads of state in countries on nearly every continent.” More importantly, a Clinton administration would spend diplomatic capital on the fight for equality:

Yet progress in key areas has lagged, as evidenced by the continuing spread of trafficking in women, the ongoing use of rape as an instrument of war, the political marginalization of women, and persistent gender gaps in employment and economic opportunity. U.S. leadership, including a commitment to incorporate the promotion of women's rights in our bilateral relationships and international aid programs, is essential not just to improving the lives of women but to strengthening the families, communities, and societies in which they live.

Unfortunately, very little time is spent on other human rights priorities.  Instead, Clinton lapses into the meta-political tick of talking about what we should be talking about.  To rebuild international trust, for example, “we will have to talk about Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.”  Neither are specifically mentioned again in the essay. (She does make two general references to torture and one to indefinite detention.) 

Finally, I should note that of course, the essay discusses Iraq and Iran, but it doesn’t break new ground, and those positions have been thoroughly covered elsewhere.  (The campaign’s national security director, Lee Feinstein, discussed the Iran portion in a Monday press briefing, for example, which drew most mainstream press coverage.)  That's probably the best part of the current campaign sparring over Middle East policy: You don't even need Foreign Affairs to hear the candidates' positions on the most important issues of the day.

Comments

[Dan Kervick]

We must understand not only [the terrorists’] methods but their motives: a rejection of modernity, women’s rights, and democracy, as well as a dangerous nostalgia for a mythical past.

In other words, "they hate our freedom" ... Is that it?

[Mike M.]

Dan Kervick nailed it. This has a lot less to do with abstractions than it does the actual conduct of the U.S. on the world stage. It's nice to think they're chasing some sort of mythical past and to take their rhetoric literally, but it's not useful.

[SteveB]

Last month, Clinton voted for a Senate resolution branding Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard as a terror group.

Clinton's national security director, Lee Feinstein...[said] Clinton voted for the resolution to strengthen diplomatic pressure on Iran's political leaders.

Excuse me, but isn't this the justification she gave for voting for the 2002 authorization to use military force against Iraq?

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