Her situation is not unlike that of Hubert Humphrey, running as LBJ’s vice president in 1968 and having to gingerly discuss a Vietnam War that was not going well without openly breaking with the White House.
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In last weekend’s Democrat debate – the one in which the candidates repeated the warning that “climate change is the greatest threat to national security” – Hillary Clinton weighed in on the Islamic State.
The goal, she continued, must be to “smash the would-be caliphate” with a “more effective coalition air campaign, with more allied planes, more strikes and a broader target set”.
Presaging how Republicans plan to take on Clinton, an aide to presidential candidate and Ohio Governor John Kasich said it is hard to take Clinton seriously on the issue because conditions in Iraq and Syria worsened when she was Obama’s first-term secretary of state.
Hillary Clinton drew a sharp contrast with Bernie Sanders on health care and taxes on Tuesday, telling a fired-up audience at a local community college that as president, she would not raise taxes on the middle class. “I don’t think they saw that as something appropriate to do, to mask her coziness and her closeness to Wall Street and all of the architects of the crash of 2008”.
Republicans are hoping to tie her to Obama’s perceived failures, particularly on foreign policy.
Still, Clinton’s hiring of Burrell adds to the view that she isn’t taking South Carolina’s black vote for granted.
Alas, it offered far more rhetoric than substance. “So our efforts should be focused on ISIS”, which she described as the “common enemy”.
Her plan was the first clear major policy break from President as Clinton said that while the fight against ISIS and radical jihadism is a “worldwide fight”, the United States “must lead it”.
Yes, she called for more airstrikes, a no-fly zone over Syria and boots on the ground.
The former secretary of state was unsparing in criticizing US allies Turkey and Saudia Arabia, along with Qatar and other Gulf Arab states, for facilitating extremism or looking the other way.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. This would require immediate deployment of the special operations force President Barack Obama has already authorised and prepare to beef up the ground troops, she said.
Some experts said her approach would amount to more than an intensification of current efforts. As Time summarized, she called “for sending more US special forces to Syria, imposing a no-fly zone in northern Syria and possibly arming Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq”.
Clinton also said the USA should “retool and ramp up” efforts to support and equip Syrian opposition forces on the ground there.
Before the Paris attacks, Clinton had said the United States should vastly expand its Syrian refugee program to bring in 65,000 annually. “Islam is not our adversary”, she said. “Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism”, she said.
“The obsession in some quarters with a clash of civilization, or repeating the specific words “radical Islamic terrorism” isn’t just a distraction, it gives these criminals, these murderers, more standing than they deserve”, she said in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Clinton also urged Congress to “swiftly” pass an updated authorization to use military force against the militants.
“We can help them and we should, but we cannot substitute for them”, she said. In Politico on Thursday, Marco Rubio laid out the steps he’d take, which include reversing defense sequestration.
New York Mayor Bill De Blasio, who just recently endorsed Clinton’s candidacy, sat in the front row, joined by Vernon Jordan, a longtime adviser to the Clintons, and Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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During the Q&A that followed, Clinton added that “we should not have religious tests” to decide which refugees can come into the country. Maybe sometime in the future when we feel we have a better control over ISIS, maybe we’ve clipped their wings a little bit.
