Clinton Charts a Tricky Course in Airing Policy Views
August 11, 2014
by Janet Hook
Hillary Clinton is walking a political tightrope as she fleshes out her foreign-policy views in advance of a likely 2016 presidential campaign, putting distance between herself and President Barack Obama without personally criticizing her former boss.
With Iraq and the rest of the Middle East in turmoil, the former secretary of state has been increasingly blunt in pointing to behind-the-scenes differences within the Obama cabinet on Middle East policies that are now in the forefront.
These differences were stated with new force in a recent interview with the Atlantic magazine at a particularly sensitive moment, as Mr. Obama announced airstrikes to protect U.S. personnel and a religious minority against the advance of Islamic militants in northern Iraq.
In the interview, which was conducted before the strikes began but published Sunday, Mrs. Clinton said the administration’s “failure” to do more to aid Syrian rebels early in the uprising—as she had favored—contributed to the rise of militants such as the group that calls itself the Islamic State, which is sweeping through Syria and Iraq.
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