Obama beat Clinton by running hard on foreign policy. Sanders needs to do the same.
Obama beat Clinton by running hard on foreign policy. Sanders needs to do the same
Matthew Yglesias
Vox
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.
Hillary Clinton is more hawkish than most Democrats
In mid-2009, then–Secretary of State Clinton was one of the key forces in the Obama administration advocating for a "surge" of new troops to Afghanistan. At the time, Gallup found that 62 percent of Democrats opposed sending more troops to the country.
In March 2011, she argued strongly for intervening to stop Muammar Qaddafi's slaughter of rebels in Libya. At the time, 57 percent of Democrats told Pew the US had no responsibility to stop the killing in Libya.
In 2012, Clinton and Gen. David Petraeus presented Obama with a plan for arming the Syrian rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad's regime. Only a tiny minority of Americans — 11 percent — supported the idea, according to a June 2013 NBC/Wall Street Journal.
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