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Hillarysworld -> All things Hillary -> MVP of Obama's security team: Hillary 'the hammer" Rodham Clinton (Christian Science Monitor 5/27/10)
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TOPIC: MVP of Obama's security team: Hillary 'the hammer" Rodham Clinton (Christian Science Monitor 5/27/10)
Jen the Michigander


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MVP of Obama's security team: Hillary 'the hammer" Rodham Clinton (Christian Science Monitor 5/27/10)
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http://csmonitor.com/Commentary/Walter-Rodgers/2010/0527/MVP-of-Obama-s-security-team-Hillary-the-hammer-Rodham-Clinton

One of my friends is a classic Republican: He’s a businessman from a Southern “red state,” and a Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam who earned a Silver Star for heroism at Hué. To put it mildly, he’s never been a fan of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yet he recently called to acknowledge a conversion like Paul’s on the road to Damascus. He now kind of likes her.
“She’s out there doing things … she’s smarter than Bill. If she was [messing] up, the far right would be all over her and they’re not coming up with anything.”

He’s got a point. Hillary Clinton, the once-hated first lady, appears to have hit her stride as secretary of State. The right wing, even “talk radio,” deems her the “good” member of the Obama team.

Clinton has been intolerant of Tehran’s dissimulation. As the administration “hammer,” her message is steely: First, Iran must live up to its nuclear nonproliferation treaty obligations or it will find itself globally isolated. Second, if Tehran builds nuclear weapons, it will ignite a nuclear arms race in the Sunni Arab world with more than a few of the Sunni nukes likely to be pointed at Shiite Iran, a historic rival.

“Both the president and his secretary knew there was a good chance Obama’s initial outreach to Iran would fail,” says a Clinton aide who sat down with me recently for an interview on condition that he not be named. But it was part of a
long-term calculation.

As the aide explained: “Failure would set us up to pursue the ‘pressure track’ more effectively … if Iran didn’t respond affirmatively [on its nuclear program], then you can bring the hammer down on them with an international consensus you could not otherwise have created.”

Indeed, on May 18, a day after Brazil and Turkey announced a nuclear fuel deal with Iran, Clinton said she had secured the support of Russia and China for “strong” new sanctions against Iran.

Her battle-tested political savvy may be one reason today’s national security establishment – the State Department, the Pentagon, and the National Security Council – has shown less backstabbing, bureaucratic rivalry, or policy contradictions than I’ve seen in 45 years of watching Washington.

Sure, there is some difference in tone between this White House and Foggy Bottom, but totally similar views between the commander in chief and the secretary of State would smack of redundancy or lack of imagination. Where all people think alike, no one thinks very much.

Is she in the same league as James Baker, the most recent “great” secretary of State? Not yet, perhaps. But then the simpler bipolar world that Mr. Baker had to manage no longer exists. We no longer live even in a multipolar world. As Clinton put it recently, we now belong to a “multipartner world.” Still, she notes, there is no major global problem that can be solved without US involvement.

Ironically Clinton’s greatest diplomatic challenge now may be convincing Israel, an American ally, that Obama is no less a friend of the Jewish State than was her husband. It is not proving easy.

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freespirit


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Excellent article, Jen. Good point about the right finding little to criticize about Hillary. How things have changed.

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reddirtgirl


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freespirit wrote:

Excellent article, Jen. Good point about the right finding little to criticize about Hillary. How things have changed.



Yes, NO ONE is criticizing Hillary. Run Hillary RUN!!



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