In Atlantic interview, former secretary and possible presidential candidate backs Netanyahu’s West Bank security demands, urges ‘overarching’ US strategy to battle Islamic extremism Times of Israel
Former US secretary of state and potential presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton issued a staunch defense of Israel over its conduct of the war against Hamas, placed full ultimate responsibility on Hamas for the deaths of children and other innocent people, and defended Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on maintaining security control in the West Bank in the next few years.
In an interview published Sunday by Jeffrey Goldberg for The Atlantic, she also urged an “overarching” US strategy to confront Islamic terrorism, equating this struggle to the one the US waged against communism.
She spoke of the “failure” that arose from the Obama administration’s decision not to aid the initial uprising against Syria’s President Bashar Assad, which created a vacuum now filled by jihadists.
And overall, she indicated that she considered President Barack Obama’s approach to foreign policy to be too cautious. Responding to Obama’s self-described foreign policy doctrine of: “Don’t do stupid shit,” Clinton, who served as his top diplomat for four years between 2009 and 2013, said: “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”
US President Barack Obama, center, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speak with ”60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft, left, at the White House on Friday (photo credit: AP/CBS)
Goldberg judged that Clinton indicated that she does intend to run for the presidency when, after he said to her that he felt the US, on balance, has done a good job of advancing the cause of freedom, she responded: “That’s how I feel! Maybe this is old-fashioned… I’m about to find out, in more ways than one.”
On the current conflict against Hamas in Gaza, Clinton said she was “not surprised that Hamas provoked another attack.”