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Hillary fans, are you fine with her relative militarism, esp when she's more hawkish than Obama?
It's well documented that Hillary Clinton has been out of step with Democrats on foreign policy for a long time. Clinton has inoculated herself on domestic policy by moving to the left on key issues (Kesytone XL pipeline, TPP, Cadillac tax, same-sex marriage, immigration, capital gains taxes, Social Security, Wall Street regulation, student debt, etc.), but she's just as hawkish as she was 15 years ago. Vox has several excellent articles documenting how Hillary Clinton is further to the right of the average Democrat (both in Congress and the average Dem voter) when it comes to military force.
She also criticized President Obama's foreign policy doctrine by saying, "Great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle." Obama beat Hillary in 2008 in large part by running to her left on foreign policy and national security, and Hillary continues to be more hawkish and conservative than Obama, as detailed below.
Here's one great article, and an excerpt from there:
On foreign policy issues involving the use of American force abroad, it's actually Clinton, not Sanders, who's most out of step with the Democratic Party. And since the president has broad authority to conduct foreign policy without Congressional oversight, this matters quite a bit. "It's very clear that a President Clinton would bring far more hawkish instincts to bear on global problems than the current president — or, for that matter, your average Democratic voter," Zack Beauchamp wrote earlier this year.
This isn't just about Clinton's long-ago vote for the Iraq War. Throughout Clinton's service in the Obama administration, she consistently took a more hawkish line than the president. In 2009, she pushed hard for a surge of troops to Afghanistan, as Obama remained undecided for months. In 2011, she strongly advocated for action against Qaddafi's regime in Libya, and Obama eventually came to agree. In 2012, she wanted to arm the rebels against Assad's regime in Syria, but Obama turned down her entreaties. And earlier this month, she called for a no-fly-zone in Syria.
As for Sanders, while he voted against the Iraq War and wants cuts in defense spending, he isn't a total far-left peacenik on foreign policy. He voices sympathy with Israel's security concerns and warns of the dangers of ISIS — positions that have sometimes led to awkward confrontations with his more radical constituents. But unlike Clinton, he's an instinctive critic of most large-scale military interventions abroad, saying they are frequently expensive and counterproductive. "ISIS is a brutal, awful, dangerous army and they have got to be defeated," he said last year. And yet, he added, "this is not just an American problem," and called on Arab nations to take the lead in the fight.
This isn't just about Clinton's long-ago vote for the Iraq War. Throughout Clinton's service in the Obama administration, she consistently took a more hawkish line than the president. In 2009, she pushed hard for a surge of troops to Afghanistan, as Obama remained undecided for months. In 2011, she strongly advocated for action against Qaddafi's regime in Libya, and Obama eventually came to agree. In 2012, she wanted to arm the rebels against Assad's regime in Syria, but Obama turned down her entreaties. And earlier this month, she called for a no-fly-zone in Syria.
As for Sanders, while he voted against the Iraq War and wants cuts in defense spending, he isn't a total far-left peacenik on foreign policy. He voices sympathy with Israel's security concerns and warns of the dangers of ISIS — positions that have sometimes led to awkward confrontations with his more radical constituents. But unlike Clinton, he's an instinctive critic of most large-scale military interventions abroad, saying they are frequently expensive and counterproductive. "ISIS is a brutal, awful, dangerous army and they have got to be defeated," he said last year. And yet, he added, "this is not just an American problem," and called on Arab nations to take the lead in the fight.
Here's an excerpt from another excellent Vox article:
Barack Obama's 2008 primary victory over Clinton was multifaceted, but the difference between the two on the 2003 invasion of Iraq was critical and became the focal point for a broader argument about national security that proved to be a winning hand for Obama. In office, Obama has governed somewhat to the right of where he campaigned, while Clinton remains somewhat to the right of Obama. That leaves a clear opening to try to revive Obama's original strategy of running to Clinton's left on national security...
That foreign policy deserves to be a big deal for primary voters is a big deal for Hillary Clinton, because most signs are that her opinions on this subject are at odds with most Democrats.
Throughout Obama's first term she served as secretary of state and, according to most accounts, was on the hawkish wing of his administration. This generally involved taking stances that are unpopular with rank-and-file Democrats...
More broadly, most Democrats say the United States spends "too much" on the military, a stance that would be out of step with Clinton's general view that the Obama administration has been too dovish...
But Clinton's vote wasn't a one-off. Both before and after Iraq, she has taken a rosier view of unilateral American military force than the average Democrat...
Syria could be especially fruitful ground for this. Clinton has doubly broken with Obama on that country's civil war, agreeing with Republicans that Obama's reluctance to arm Syrian rebels years ago was a mistake and joining Republicans in a call to establish a "no-fly zone" over Syria. Clinton's break with him on this point prompted him to quip back, "There is a difference between running for president and being president," suggesting that if Sanders were to offer the vigorous defense of his administration's policies that Clinton will not, he could move some important party actors to his side...
But while she has disavowed her Iraq vote, she's only intensified her commitment to a generally hawkish outlook. Emphasizing these issues during a live debate would take Sanders out of his comfort zone, but it would also force Clinton to address topics where she hasn't tailored her message to the Democratic primary electorate and where her convictions and instincts are simply out of step with the party base.
That foreign policy deserves to be a big deal for primary voters is a big deal for Hillary Clinton, because most signs are that her opinions on this subject are at odds with most Democrats.
Throughout Obama's first term she served as secretary of state and, according to most accounts, was on the hawkish wing of his administration. This generally involved taking stances that are unpopular with rank-and-file Democrats...
More broadly, most Democrats say the United States spends "too much" on the military, a stance that would be out of step with Clinton's general view that the Obama administration has been too dovish...
But Clinton's vote wasn't a one-off. Both before and after Iraq, she has taken a rosier view of unilateral American military force than the average Democrat...
Syria could be especially fruitful ground for this. Clinton has doubly broken with Obama on that country's civil war, agreeing with Republicans that Obama's reluctance to arm Syrian rebels years ago was a mistake and joining Republicans in a call to establish a "no-fly zone" over Syria. Clinton's break with him on this point prompted him to quip back, "There is a difference between running for president and being president," suggesting that if Sanders were to offer the vigorous defense of his administration's policies that Clinton will not, he could move some important party actors to his side...
But while she has disavowed her Iraq vote, she's only intensified her commitment to a generally hawkish outlook. Emphasizing these issues during a live debate would take Sanders out of his comfort zone, but it would also force Clinton to address topics where she hasn't tailored her message to the Democratic primary electorate and where her convictions and instincts are simply out of step with the party base.
Another excellent article outlining Hilary's hawkishness for a Democrat:
As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton was reportedly one of the most hawkish members of President Obama's cabinet, pushing for the 2009 troop surge in Afghanistan and US intervention in Libya. She has also been a vocal proponent of the same drone war that has led to the deaths of 2,400 civilians. In her recent memoir, Hard Choices, she bragged about having presided over the imposition of "crippling sanctions" on the Iranian economy during her tenure as secretary of state. These crippling sanctions are a form of collective punishment and have benefited the wealthy only, while making life miserable for everyone else. In an interview with Atlantic columnist Jeffrey Goldberg in August 2014, she further outlined her views on Iran, staking out a maximalist position on Iranian nuclear enrichment, which effectively opens the door to military intervention. She also suggested that the United States should have done more to intervene in Syria, by, in her words, creating a "credible fighting force," while the lack of said force led to the rise of ISIS. In addition, she vociferously defended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of the assault on Gaza. Not surprisingly, her bellicose rhetoric has received praise from neocon luminary Robert Kagan. Senator Clinton's vote in favor of the Iraq war, a vote for which it took her more than a decade to express regret, was clearly not a temporary lapse in judgment.
Hillary Clinton also gave a pretty militaristic and hawkish speech about Iran and Israel at the Brookings Institute, as documented in this Time article
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