Jonathan Ladd sensibly questions the premise that Hillary Clinton would act like a hawk as president, as opposed to talking a little like one now. As evidence that she would not, he cites the foreign policy continuity between the (Bill) Clinton and Obama administrations (of which she is of course a lynchpin), and the fact that the only hawkish action she's ever taken was her vote in October 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
I would complicate somewhat Ladd's contention that in her tenure as Obama's Secretary of State Clinton's "actions supported President Obama's less confrontational, less militaristic policies rather than the neoconservative policies advanced by the Bush administration." She supported the generals' plans for a surge in Afghanistan (the modifications were all Obama's own), urged the Libyan intervention, supported early intervention in support of "moderate" rebels in Syria, and claims that she always worked either to deny or reduce to a token Iran's "right to enrichment." That doesn't mean that she wasn't a loyal administration member, but it does indicate that her relative hawkishness is more than talk. I find her stance with regard to Iran particularly disturbing, in that it bespeaks not just "hawkishness" per se but also near-complete deference to Netanyahu and AIPAC -- a deference to which her Goldberg interview pays really stunning and disturbing tribute.
To switch gears, though, I'd like to offer collateral support to Ladd's contention that Clinton's Senate vote to authorize the use of military force in Iraq does not necessarily indicate a predisposition to use military force generally. Ladd concentrates on the strong political incentives to support the resolution. I'd add that Clinton cast her vote as a vote for diplomacy and a chance to avoid war. On several occasions following, she urged Bush not to rush to war. She was hardly a profile in courage in this regard: those urgings devolved into meek peeps as war approached in March 2003. But they do indicate that if she held the reins, she may have been content to force invasive inspections -- arguably a tool of the kind of "smart power" she claims to advocate.
I would complicate somewhat Ladd's contention that in her tenure as Obama's Secretary of State Clinton's "actions supported President Obama's less confrontational, less militaristic policies rather than the neoconservative policies advanced by the Bush administration." She supported the generals' plans for a surge in Afghanistan (the modifications were all Obama's own), urged the Libyan intervention, supported early intervention in support of "moderate" rebels in Syria, and claims that she always worked either to deny or reduce to a token Iran's "right to enrichment." That doesn't mean that she wasn't a loyal administration member, but it does indicate that her relative hawkishness is more than talk. I find her stance with regard to Iran particularly disturbing, in that it bespeaks not just "hawkishness" per se but also near-complete deference to Netanyahu and AIPAC -- a deference to which her Goldberg interview pays really stunning and disturbing tribute.
To switch gears, though, I'd like to offer collateral support to Ladd's contention that Clinton's Senate vote to authorize the use of military force in Iraq does not necessarily indicate a predisposition to use military force generally. Ladd concentrates on the strong political incentives to support the resolution. I'd add that Clinton cast her vote as a vote for diplomacy and a chance to avoid war. On several occasions following, she urged Bush not to rush to war. She was hardly a profile in courage in this regard: those urgings devolved into meek peeps as war approached in March 2003. But they do indicate that if she held the reins, she may have been content to force invasive inspections -- arguably a tool of the kind of "smart power" she claims to advocate.
