Hillary Clinton: A Hawk in the Wings
Published on
Thursday, October 27, 2016
by
Foreign Policy In Focus
Hillary Clinton: A Hawk in the Wings
After a mere eight years in which diplomacy narrowly edged out militarism,
the foreign policy elite rallying around Clinton has forgotten the lessons
of the George W. Bush era.
by
John Feffer
Donald Trump is almost history. But the far more complex challenge of
Hillary Clintons foreign policy awaits. (Photo: Flickr/CSIS)
When Barack Obama was running for office in 2008, he was determined to
redirect U.S. military efforts away from the bad war in Iraq and toward
the good war in Afghanistan. This commitment to extricate the U.S.
military from the dismal aftermath of a botched exercise in regime change
earned Obama the exaggerated designation of peace candidate.
Jump ahead eight years and listen to how history rhymes. Today, the Obama
administration is reluctant to pour more resources into a failed regime
change effort in Syria and far more intent on confronting the Islamic State
in the battle for Mosul and, ultimately its capital of Raqqa. Once again,
the good war competes for attention with the bad war.
Meanwhile, the candidate that challenged Obama as too naïve and peace-loving
back in 2008 is poised to succeed him as president. Once again, she has
staked out a more hawkish position. And this time she has a large chunk of
the foreign policy elite behind her. As Greg Jaffe wrote last week in The
Washington Post:
In the rarefied world of the Washington foreign policy establishment,
President Obamas departure from the White House and the possible return
of a more conventional and hawkish Hillary Clinton is being met with quiet
relief.
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are
laying the groundwork for a more assertive American foreign policy, via a
flurry of reports shaped by officials who are likely to play senior roles in
a potential Clinton White House.
The foreign policy elite is mercurial and amnesiac. It wasnt that long ago
that this elite expressed not-so-quiet relief at George W. Bushs departure
from the White House and the return of a more conventional and dovish Barack
Obama. And what of the more assertive policy of Hillary Clinton? Now that
the truly apocalyptic threat of Donald Trump is receding, the lesser
catastrophes of a Clinton administration beckon: perhaps Libya II or an
expanded role in Yemen.
Still, as Jaffe points out, plenty of Obamas foreign policy advisors
continue to warn of the considerable risks of greater U.S. military
involvement in the region. And, as Josh Rogin suggested this week in his
Post column, even Clintons Middle East advisors are divided on this
question. So, as it turns out, the foreign policy establishment has not
quite established its position.
The headlines are full of the ongoing tragedy of Aleppo and the upcoming
showdown in Mosul. But then theres the battle that determines the battle.
Forget the inanities of Donald Trump for a few moments to consider whats
taking place behind the scenes. The latest skirmish over the future of U.S.
foreign policy in the Middle East is about to begin.
Is there still a chance to influence the trajectory of the hawk as she
leaves behind the corpses of her challengers and wings her way to the White
House?
No Good Solutions
Its remotely possible that the United States and its allies, if theyd
acted quickly and with maximum power, could have helped to dislodge Syrian
leader Bashar al-Assad during the Arab Spring by funding militias on the
ground and providing them with air support.
However, even if the Obama administration had embraced such a strategy,
which then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supported, Assad and his
allies might have fought back to achieve the same kind of stalemate that
prevails in Syria today. Or, if Assad had fallen, Syria might have descended
into the same kind of maelstrom that has enveloped Libya. The cautionary
example of Iraq, a truly poisonous gift from the George W. Bush
administration, no doubt helped to stay Obamas hand.
The options on offer today are no better than in 2012. The Obama
administration backed a CIA plan to arm several thousand moderate rebels
to fight their way to power in Syria, and the CIA wants to increase the flow
of weaponry. At best, these rebels have managed to achieve a punishing
stalemate. At worst, as one unidentified U.S. official told The Washington
Post, the units are not doing any better on the battlefield, theyre up
against a more formidable adversary, and theyre increasingly dominated by
extremists. Sending more weapons for a ground offensive wouldnt do much,
since the conflict is waged most effectively at the moment by air. Providing
more sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons to the rebels would risk opposition
from Turkey and escalation by Russia.
Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has proposed a no-fly zone in northern Syria
that would presumably create safe havens for Syrians fleeing the conflict
zones and facilitate humanitarian relief to those stuck in places like
Aleppo. For Americans weary of a conflict that has killed hundreds of
thousands of Syrians and turned millions into refugees, such a proposal has
a certain appeal. Finally the United States would be doing something robust
to increase the peace.
But such a zone, as Clinton herself has admitted, is no pacifist solution.
It would kill a lot of Syrians, she said back in 2013, and draw both the
United States and NATO more deeply into the military conflict. And then
theres the problem of World War III when U.S. planes start shooting down
Russian bombers. Ben Rhodes listed the Obama administrations reasons for
opposing such a zone:
If you had an area of geography in Syria where planes couldnt fly over it,
people would still be killing each other on the ground. ISIL doesnt have
planes, so that doesnt solve the ISIL problem. They would still be able to
massacre people on the ground. And we would have to devote an enormous
amount of our resources which are currently devoted to finding ISIL and
killing them wherever they are to maintaining this no-fly zone.
A third option would be to focus less on Assad in Syria and more on the
Islamic State (or ISIL), which has emerged as Obamas preferred strategy.
But that plan has its own problems. The administration has emphasized the
role of Iraqi forces in liberating their own city of Mosul. But the campaign
relies heavily on U.S. air strikes as well as the participation of half of
the 5,000 American troops that are still on the ground in Iraq. The
recapture of Mosul, even if successful, could drag on for many months, and
the Islamic State is not the kind of entity that sues for peace.
There will be no mission accomplished moment for the Obama administration
or its successor. Returning to its stateless mode if and when Raqqa falls,
ISIS could prove even more dangerous for the United States and its allies as
the terrorist outfit redirects its energies toward inflicting pain on its
distant tormenters.
Clinton and the Meatheads
The Obama administration, for all its use of military force over the last
eight years, at least has acknowledged the limited utility of that force.
The president has time and again said that military intervention should not
be the first tool deployed from the national security toolbox. Despite all
the just war realism he included in his Nobel Peace Prize speech, Obama
has pushed back against his more gung-ho advisors, including Hillary
Clinton, who have clung to the notion that the U.S. military can determine
facts on the ground.
Like Donald Trump, the foreign policy elite in Washington yearns to be
unshackled. After a mere eight years in which diplomacy narrowly edged out
militarism, this elite has forgotten the lessons of the George W. Bush era.
Historically, this is no surprise. John Kenneth Galbraith once said, The
foreign policy elite was always the worlds biggest collection of
meatheads. As an economist, Galbraith knew a meathead when he saw one. Such
meatheads are doomed to repeat the history that they didnt understand even
as they were living through it.
Its relatively easy to point out the flaws in the various options available
to the Obama administration in Syria and Iraq. In order to preserve the
better parts of the Obama legacy the nuclear deal with Iran, the elevation
of diplomacy, the willingness to lead from behind what can be done short
of cordoning off the entire Middle East and retreating into a fortress of
solitude?
First of all, the next administration should widen its engagement with Iran
beyond the narrow focus on nuclear issues. Any sustainable solution in Syria
and Iraq will require the involvement of Iran the posturing of the recent
Center for American Progress report on U.S. policy in the Middle East
notwithstanding. Pursuing economic and political engagement with Tehran must
include a place at the table for the Rouhani administration in negotiations
on Iraq and Syria. Its time to stop complaining about Iranian meddling
and instead take advantage of the countrys cross-border influence.
The United States also has to rebuild a working relationship with Russia.
Im no fan of Vladimir Putin, and Ive devoted several columns to what I
find objectionable in Russian policy in Ukraine, Syria, and elsewhere. But
if the United States could negotiate important agreements with the Soviet
Union during the Cold War, surely we can find a modus operandi with the
current residents of the Kremlin. Finding common ground in the Middle East
can have additional spillover benefits for arms control and perhaps even
reducing tensions in Eastern Europe.
Regime change in Syria is a mirage at the moment. Assad is not going
anywhere as long as he can count on the firm support of Russia and Iran.
Yes, hes a war criminal. But to prevent the further commission of war
crimes, sometimes its necessary to make a deal with the devil. His
punishment will come eventually just as it did for Slobodan Milosevic six
years after the Dayton Accords. In the meantime, Washington has to pursue a
diplomatic deal that stops punishing ordinary Syrians every day.
The Islamic State, however, is not a force that is subject to negotiations.
I dont foresee a non-military solution to the specific problem of the
would-be caliphates territorial ambitions. But the United States should not
head up this fight. ISIS wants nothing better than a epic confrontation with
America. Syrians and Iraqis must take the lead against IS, with Turkey,
Iran, and even the Gulf States playing crucial roles. In the best-case
scenario, admittedly a long shot, the terrorist faction inadvertently
reduces the conflict between the Shia and Sunni states that cooperate in its
annihilation.
The CIA plan, the no-fly zone, the military focus on the Islamic State
these are not long-term strategies. They are proposals that satisfy a
bipartisan foreign policy elite that bays for something to be done. The
true challenge for the next administration is to resist the call of the
meatheads.
But that wont happen without a counterforce that brings together a set of
NGOs working for peace in the region, some sympathetic politicians and
officials, and a group of foreign policy experts who have not fallen prey to
the amnesia that periodically descends upon the Beltway concerning the
destructive impact of U.S. military intervention.
Donald Trump is almost history. The far more complex challenge of Clintons
Middle East policy awaits.
© 2016 Foreign Policy In Focus
John Feffer
John Feffer is the co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute
for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. He is the author of several books and
numerous articles. His dystopian novel, Splinterlands, a Dispatch Books
original (with Haymarket Books), will be published on December 6th He has
been an Open Society Foundation Fellow and a PanTech fellow in Korean
Studies at Stanford University. He is a former associate editor of World
Policy Journal. He has worked as an international affairs representative in
Eastern Europe and East Asia for the American Friends Service Committee. His
website is: www.johnfeffer.com
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Hillary Clinton: A Hawk in the Wings
Published on
Thursday, October 27, 2016
by
Foreign Policy In Focus
Hillary Clinton: A Hawk in the Wings
After a mere eight years in which diplomacy narrowly edged out militarism,
the foreign policy elite rallying around Clinton has forgotten the lessons
of the George W. Bush era.
by
John Feffer
18 Comments
Donald Trump is almost history. But the far more complex challenge
of Hillary Clintons foreign policy awaits. (Photo: Flickr/CSIS)
When Barack Obama was running for office in 2008, he was determined
to redirect U.S. military efforts away from the bad war in Iraq and toward
the good war in Afghanistan. This commitment to extricate the U.S.
military from the dismal aftermath of a botched exercise in regime change
earned Obama the exaggerated designation of peace candidate.
Jump ahead eight years and listen to how history rhymes. Today, the
Obama administration is reluctant to pour more resources into a failed
regime change effort in Syria and far more intent on confronting the Islamic
State in the battle for Mosul and, ultimately its capital of Raqqa. Once
again, the good war competes for attention with the bad war.
Meanwhile, the candidate that challenged Obama as too naïve and
peace-loving back in 2008 is poised to succeed him as president. Once again,
she has staked out a more hawkish position. And this time she has a large
chunk of the foreign policy elite behind her. As Greg Jaffe wrote last week
in The Washington Post:
In the rarefied world of the Washington foreign policy
establishment, President Obamas departure from the White House and the
possible return of a more conventional and hawkish Hillary Clinton is
being met with quiet relief.
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are
laying the groundwork for a more assertive American foreign policy, via a
flurry of reports shaped by officials who are likely to play senior roles in
a potential Clinton White House.
The foreign policy elite is mercurial and amnesiac. It wasnt that long ago
that this elite expressed not-so-quiet relief at George W. Bushs departure
from the White House and the return of a more conventional and dovish Barack
Obama. And what of the more assertive policy of Hillary Clinton? Now that
the truly apocalyptic threat of Donald Trump is receding, the lesser
catastrophes of a Clinton administration beckon: perhaps Libya II or an
expanded role in Yemen.
Still, as Jaffe points out, plenty of Obamas foreign policy advisors
continue to warn of the considerable risks of greater U.S. military
involvement in the region. And, as Josh Rogin suggested this week in his
Post column, even Clintons Middle East advisors are divided on this
question. So, as it turns out, the foreign policy establishment has not
quite established its position.
The headlines are full of the ongoing tragedy of Aleppo and the upcoming
showdown in Mosul. But then theres the battle that determines the battle.
Forget the inanities of Donald Trump for a few moments to consider whats
taking place behind the scenes. The latest skirmish over the future of U.S.
foreign policy in the Middle East is about to begin.
Is there still a chance to influence the trajectory of the hawk as she
leaves behind the corpses of her challengers and wings her way to the White
House?
http://commondreams.org/november-9http://commondreams.org/november-9
No Good Solutions
Its remotely possible that the United States and its allies, if theyd
acted quickly and with maximum power, could have helped to dislodge Syrian
leader Bashar al-Assad during the Arab Spring by funding militias on the
ground and providing them with air support.
However, even if the Obama administration had embraced such a strategy,
which then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supported, Assad and his
allies might have fought back to achieve the same kind of stalemate that
prevails in Syria today. Or, if Assad had fallen, Syria might have descended
into the same kind of maelstrom that has enveloped Libya. The cautionary
example of Iraq, a truly poisonous gift from the George W. Bush
administration, no doubt helped to stay Obamas hand.
The options on offer today are no better than in 2012. The Obama
administration backed a CIA plan to arm several thousand moderate rebels
to fight their way to power in Syria, and the CIA wants to increase the flow
of weaponry. At best, these rebels have managed to achieve a punishing
stalemate. At worst, as one unidentified U.S. official told The Washington
Post, the units are not doing any better on the battlefield, theyre up
against a more formidable adversary, and theyre increasingly dominated by
extremists. Sending more weapons for a ground offensive wouldnt do much,
since the conflict is waged most effectively at the moment by air. Providing
more sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons to the rebels would risk opposition
from Turkey and escalation by Russia.
Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has proposed a no-fly zone in northern Syria
that would presumably create safe havens for Syrians fleeing the conflict
zones and facilitate humanitarian relief to those stuck in places like
Aleppo. For Americans weary of a conflict that has killed hundreds of
thousands of Syrians and turned millions into refugees, such a proposal has
a certain appeal. Finally the United States would be doing something robust
to increase the peace.
But such a zone, as Clinton herself has admitted, is no pacifist solution.
It would kill a lot of Syrians, she said back in 2013, and draw both the
United States and NATO more deeply into the military conflict. And then
theres the problem of World War III when U.S. planes start shooting down
Russian bombers. Ben Rhodes listed the Obama administrations reasons for
opposing such a zone:
If you had an area of geography in Syria where planes couldnt fly over it,
people would still be killing each other on the ground. ISIL doesnt have
planes, so that doesnt solve the ISIL problem. They would still be able to
massacre people on the ground. And we would have to devote an enormous
amount of our resources which are currently devoted to finding ISIL and
killing them wherever they are to maintaining this no-fly zone.
A third option would be to focus less on Assad in Syria and more on the
Islamic State (or ISIL), which has emerged as Obamas preferred strategy.
But that plan has its own problems. The administration has emphasized the
role of Iraqi forces in liberating their own city of Mosul. But the campaign
relies heavily on U.S. air strikes as well as the participation of half of
the 5,000 American troops that are still on the ground in Iraq. The
recapture of Mosul, even if successful, could drag on for many months, and
the Islamic State is not the kind of entity that sues for peace.
There will be no mission accomplished moment for the Obama administration
or its successor. Returning to its stateless mode if and when Raqqa falls,
ISIS could prove even more dangerous for the United States and its allies as
the terrorist outfit redirects its energies toward inflicting pain on its
distant tormenters.
Clinton and the Meatheads
The Obama administration, for all its use of military force over the last
eight years, at least has acknowledged the limited utility of that force.
The president has time and again said that military intervention should not
be the first tool deployed from the national security toolbox. Despite all
the just war realism he included in his Nobel Peace Prize speech, Obama
has pushed back against his more gung-ho advisors, including Hillary
Clinton, who have clung to the notion that the U.S. military can determine
facts on the ground.
Like Donald Trump, the foreign policy elite in Washington yearns to be
unshackled. After a mere eight years in which diplomacy narrowly edged out
militarism, this elite has forgotten the lessons of the George W. Bush era.
Historically, this is no surprise. John Kenneth Galbraith once said, The
foreign policy elite was always the worlds biggest collection of
meatheads. As an economist, Galbraith knew a meathead when he saw one. Such
meatheads are doomed to repeat the history that they didnt understand even
as they were living through it.
Its relatively easy to point out the flaws in the various options available
to the Obama administration in Syria and Iraq. In order to preserve the
better parts of the Obama legacy the nuclear deal with Iran, the elevation
of diplomacy, the willingness to lead from behind what can be done short
of cordoning off the entire Middle East and retreating into a fortress of
solitude?
First of all, the next administration should widen its engagement with Iran
beyond the narrow focus on nuclear issues. Any sustainable solution in Syria
and Iraq will require the involvement of Iran the posturing of the recent
Center for American Progress report on U.S. policy in the Middle East
notwithstanding. Pursuing economic and political engagement with Tehran must
include a place at the table for the Rouhani administration in negotiations
on Iraq and Syria. Its time to stop complaining about Iranian meddling
and instead take advantage of the countrys cross-border influence.
The United States also has to rebuild a working relationship with Russia.
Im no fan of Vladimir Putin, and Ive devoted several columns to what I
find objectionable in Russian policy in Ukraine, Syria, and elsewhere. But
if the United States could negotiate important agreements with the Soviet
Union during the Cold War, surely we can find a modus operandi with the
current residents of the Kremlin. Finding common ground in the Middle East
can have additional spillover benefits for arms control and perhaps even
reducing tensions in Eastern Europe.
Regime change in Syria is a mirage at the moment. Assad is not going
anywhere as long as he can count on the firm support of Russia and Iran.
Yes, hes a war criminal. But to prevent the further commission of war
crimes, sometimes its necessary to make a deal with the devil. His
punishment will come eventually just as it did for Slobodan Milosevic six
years after the Dayton Accords. In the meantime, Washington has to pursue a
diplomatic deal that stops punishing ordinary Syrians every day.
The Islamic State, however, is not a force that is subject to negotiations.
I dont foresee a non-military solution to the specific problem of the
would-be caliphates territorial ambitions. But the United States should not
head up this fight. ISIS wants nothing better than a epic confrontation with
America. Syrians and Iraqis must take the lead against IS, with Turkey,
Iran, and even the Gulf States playing crucial roles. In the best-case
scenario, admittedly a long shot, the terrorist faction inadvertently
reduces the conflict between the Shia and Sunni states that cooperate in its
annihilation.
The CIA plan, the no-fly zone, the military focus on the Islamic State
these are not long-term strategies. They are proposals that satisfy a
bipartisan foreign policy elite that bays for something to be done. The
true challenge for the next administration is to resist the call of the
meatheads.
But that wont happen without a counterforce that brings together a set of
NGOs working for peace in the region, some sympathetic politicians and
officials, and a group of foreign policy experts who have not fallen prey to
the amnesia that periodically descends upon the Beltway concerning the
destructive impact of U.S. military intervention.
Donald Trump is almost history. The far more complex challenge of Clintons
Middle East policy awaits.
© 2016 Foreign Policy In Focus
/author/john-feffer
/author/john-feffer/author/john-feffer
John Feffer is the co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute
for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. He is the author of several books and
numerous articles. His dystopian novel, Splinterlands, a Dispatch Books
original (with Haymarket Books), will be published on December 6th He has
been an Open Society Foundation Fellow and a PanTech fellow in Korean
Studies at Stanford University. He is a former associate editor of World
Policy Journal. He has worked as an international affairs representative in
Eastern Europe and East Asia for the American Friends Service Committee. His
website is: www.johnfeffer.com
