Bernd Debusmann Jr :
AMONG THE many questions prompted by Hillary Clinton’s long-expected announcement that she will run for president is this: where does she stand on the key issues of the Middle East? Her record is mixed, a blend of indifference, contradictions and misjudgements.
As a Democratic senator, she voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and optimistically proclaimed, two years into the war, that “many parts of Iraq are functioning quite well.” As President Barack Obama’s Secretary of State, she described President Bashar Al Assad at the beginning of the Syrian uprising as a “reformer” and a “different kind of leader.” It took more than three months and 1,300 dead Syrian pro-democracy demonstrators for her to change that label to a leader “who has lost legitimacy.”
As the war dragged on and the death toll rose relentlessly (more than 220,000 now), she came out in favour of arming the moderate Syrian opposition but was overruled by Obama. Once she left office as Secretary of State, she criticised her former boss for having allowed the creation of a vacuum in Syria that was filled by the likes of Daesh and Jabhat Al-Nusrah.
On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Clinton has delivered mixed messages throughout her tenures as a Senator and Secretary of State.
In her memoir, ‘Hard Choices’, Clinton noted that, during a visit to the West Bank city of Jericho, she was confronted by the grim reality of “life under occupation for the Palestinians, who were denied the dignity and self-determination that Americans take for granted.” Despite her professed sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians, Clinton defended Israel’s 2014 operation in Gaza, which left more than 2,000 Palestinians dead and huge tracts of residential areas in ruins. For example, in the aftermath of an Israeli artillery strike that killed 19 people in a UN-operated school – whose precise location was relayed by the UN to the Israelis 17 times – Clinton placed the blame on the confusion of battle, and on Hamas.
“It’s impossible to know what happens in the fog of war,” she said, adding, “the ultimate responsibility has to rest on Hamas and the decisions it made.”
Her position on Palestinian statehood is far from clear-cut. In principle, she favours it, in line with the policy of several administrations.
But she is ambivalent on the all-important issue of occupied Jerusalem, saying a two-state solution would “leave Jerusalem to be worked on.” And she considers a Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations “a step in the wrong direction.”
Clinton’s thinking is clearly influenced by what she has called “a very good relationship” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is arguably the biggest impediment to peace with the Palestinians.
Many pundits in Washington predict that foreign policy will play a significant role the campaign for the 2016 presidential elections and Clinton will face criticism on several fronts, including the vote for the Iraq war which damaged her in the 2008 campaign.
Critics will also spotlight her role in the 2011 operation to topple Muammar Gaddafi. She supported the assault but later seemed unwilling to recognise the long-term security consequences of his demise. In an August 2014 interview with the Atlantic, Clinton made the bizarre claim that America “did stick around” in Libya after the fall of the dictator while at the same time blaming the Gulf States for Libya’s post-Gaddafi problems.
“Some of the Gulf countries had their particular favourites,” she said. “They certainly stuck around and backed their favourite militias.” She did not, however, mention that, as in Iraq, the US did not have a viable plan in mind for the aftermath of the dictator’s fall.
There are still unanswered questions on Clinton’s handling of the 2012 Benghazi attack that left Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead, after she allegedly ignored repeated warnings that an attack was imminent.
Clinton has also had a mixed record when it comes to America’s dealings with Iran, having alternated between sounding like a neoconservative in favour of tighter sanctions and “little or no enrichment for Iran” to a staunch defender of President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent Iran deal. Her positions have wavered back and forth.
If she were elected President, Clinton is not likely to stray far from the Obama administration’s Middle East policies – at times sensible, at times directionless – but if the past is an indicator of the future, she would be more of a hawk than Obama and thus more prone to interventions. Back to American misadventures?
(Bernd Debusmann Jr. is Senior Reporter with Khaleej Times.)
