The Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency, Donald Trump recently announced his foreign policies, which followed a strictly isolationist route, revealing Trump's determination to return to the traditional right-wing foreign policies in America before the 1970s. Such a turn in direction is not seen in Trump's policies alone, but can also be witnessed in policies by the Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders and the incumbent president, Barack Obama. One adviser from Bernie Sanders' campaign I recently met said that Trump's stance on foreign affairs is not much different from the thoughts of Sanders and Obama when we look at the big picture.
Among the strong presidential candidates of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, the only candidate arguing that the U.S. should opt for an interventionist foreign policy is Hillary Clinton, who once served as secretary of state under Obama. Despite Obama's orders, Clinton was passive in the nuclear negotiations with Iran and did not approve of having John Kerry, a senator at the time, serve as a secret envoy. Clinton pledged that she would not hesitate in taking military action if Iran breached the nuclear agreement. Even when deciding to have the U.S. military intervene in bringing down Muammar Gaddafi's regime in Libya in 2011, Clinton was more active than Robert Gates, the defense secretary at the time. As for the civil war in Syria, Clinton argued along with the Republican Party's hawkish senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham that they should set up a no-fly zone. It is no coincidence that the two diplomatic feats of the Obama administration, improved relations with Cuba and the nuclear agreement with Iran, were achieved after Clinton stepped down.
From this perspective, we can understand why the neo-conservative figures in the Republican Party who hate Trump are threatening to vote for Clinton. Robert Kagan, a Republican who provided the ideological foundation of the neo-conservatives under the George W. Bush administration declared early on that he would support Clinton if Trump became the presidential candidate of the Republican Party. Bill Kristol, the editor-in-chief of The Weekly Standard, a neocon magazine, said that he would not go to the polls in November if Trump were the candidate. One aide who worked for Ed Royce (Republican), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and also a hardline interventionist, packed up and moved to Clinton's camp.
How did Hillary Clinton become a hawk, recognized as such by herself and others? Some explain that her views on military intervention were formed after the Clintons were criticized for failing to prevent genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda because of their delayed intervention in the civil wars when Bill Clinton was president.
Feminist Gloria Steinem, in her autobiography, My Life on the Road, declared her support for Hillary Clinton and disclosed an anecdote. In 2002, after leaving the White House, Hillary Clinton watched the play, Necessary Targets written by Eve Ensler based on the testimonies of women who suffered from ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian civil war, and later took part in the panel for discussions. There Clinton had to reflect on the fact that the Clinton administration had taken too long in deciding to send their military before she could say that she sympathized with the women and their suffering.
Also, we can't ignore the fact that Clinton is among the mainstream of the mainstream in American politics, a model student of Washington raised to best reflect the interests of Jewish capital and the military-industrial complex. Since 1993, she has served as the first lady, a senator, and the secretary of state and has best studied the grammar of mainstream Washington. If Marco Rubio, another model student who fell behind in the Republican primaries, had survived, Clinton might not have been labeled "the most hardline hawk." Above all, the existence of Sanders, the Democratic competition, who refused to make a speech to please the Jewish lobbyists and who stressed that his decision to oppose the war in Iraq was right, all the more highlights Clinton's views.
As Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, a women-led peace movement, said, "Indeed, a Hillary Clinton presidency would shatter the glass ceiling for women in the United States. But it would also leave intact the old boys' military-industrial complex that's kept our nation in a perpetual state of war for decades."
Among the strong presidential candidates of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, the only candidate arguing that the U.S. should opt for an interventionist foreign policy is Hillary Clinton, who once served as secretary of state under Obama. Despite Obama's orders, Clinton was passive in the nuclear negotiations with Iran and did not approve of having John Kerry, a senator at the time, serve as a secret envoy. Clinton pledged that she would not hesitate in taking military action if Iran breached the nuclear agreement. Even when deciding to have the U.S. military intervene in bringing down Muammar Gaddafi's regime in Libya in 2011, Clinton was more active than Robert Gates, the defense secretary at the time. As for the civil war in Syria, Clinton argued along with the Republican Party's hawkish senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham that they should set up a no-fly zone. It is no coincidence that the two diplomatic feats of the Obama administration, improved relations with Cuba and the nuclear agreement with Iran, were achieved after Clinton stepped down.
From this perspective, we can understand why the neo-conservative figures in the Republican Party who hate Trump are threatening to vote for Clinton. Robert Kagan, a Republican who provided the ideological foundation of the neo-conservatives under the George W. Bush administration declared early on that he would support Clinton if Trump became the presidential candidate of the Republican Party. Bill Kristol, the editor-in-chief of The Weekly Standard, a neocon magazine, said that he would not go to the polls in November if Trump were the candidate. One aide who worked for Ed Royce (Republican), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and also a hardline interventionist, packed up and moved to Clinton's camp.
How did Hillary Clinton become a hawk, recognized as such by herself and others? Some explain that her views on military intervention were formed after the Clintons were criticized for failing to prevent genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda because of their delayed intervention in the civil wars when Bill Clinton was president.
Feminist Gloria Steinem, in her autobiography, My Life on the Road, declared her support for Hillary Clinton and disclosed an anecdote. In 2002, after leaving the White House, Hillary Clinton watched the play, Necessary Targets written by Eve Ensler based on the testimonies of women who suffered from ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian civil war, and later took part in the panel for discussions. There Clinton had to reflect on the fact that the Clinton administration had taken too long in deciding to send their military before she could say that she sympathized with the women and their suffering.
Also, we can't ignore the fact that Clinton is among the mainstream of the mainstream in American politics, a model student of Washington raised to best reflect the interests of Jewish capital and the military-industrial complex. Since 1993, she has served as the first lady, a senator, and the secretary of state and has best studied the grammar of mainstream Washington. If Marco Rubio, another model student who fell behind in the Republican primaries, had survived, Clinton might not have been labeled "the most hardline hawk." Above all, the existence of Sanders, the Democratic competition, who refused to make a speech to please the Jewish lobbyists and who stressed that his decision to oppose the war in Iraq was right, all the more highlights Clinton's views.
As Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, a women-led peace movement, said, "Indeed, a Hillary Clinton presidency would shatter the glass ceiling for women in the United States. But it would also leave intact the old boys' military-industrial complex that's kept our nation in a perpetual state of war for decades."
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