Juan Cole: Clinton on the ME is similar to Obama, but more interventionist
I'm sure he realizes that any Republican would be several orders of magnitude worse. I think it's particularly important that she is supporting Obama's negotiations with Iran.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/29600-focus-president-hillary-clintons-middle-east-policy-interventions-wars-more-of-same
Clinton supported Israel’s attack on defenseless Gaza last summer, which left about 2000 Palestinians dead and wiped entire civilian neighborhoods off the map. She blamed Hamas entirely for the conflict.
On the other hand, Sec. Clinton does see the Palestinians as occupied, writing in “Hard Choices”: ““When we left the city and visited Jericho, in the West Bank, I got my first glimpse of life under occupation for Palestinians, who were denied the dignity and self-determination that Americans take for granted.”
In the bizarro world of inside-the-Beltway American politics, this rather mild protest of a major human rights violation was treated as controversial.
As Secretary of State, Sec. Clinton was eager to give substantial and immediate aid to the Syrian rebels in the civil war there, but Obama blocked this plan, not wanting another Middle East intervention.
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In short, it seems to me that Sec. Clinton’s Middle East foreign policy would be very similar to that of President Obama, but more interventionist. She differs with Israel, as all presidents have since 1967, over its occupation of the West Bank. But she is closer to the government of Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu than is Obama, as seen in this CNNN transcript. She would have given more money and weapons early on to the Free Syrian Army. She would argue this step would have forestalled the take-over by Daesh/ ISIL. But it is also possible that the weapons and trained fighters would just have been scooped up by Daesh/ ISIL. She was one of those who argued for going into Libya. (NB: I also favored the UN no-fly zone over Libya). Of course, she also voted for Bush’s disastrous and illegal Iraq invasion and occupation, which, it seems to me, still says something about her political style.
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