Punditman welcomes guest columnist Donna Saggia, who has written for counterpunch and CommonDreams.
Hillary Clinton is fond of saying that, if she knew in 2002 what she knows now, she would not have voted to give Bush the power to invade Iraq. To this day Clinton does not regret her vote, she only regrets “the way the president used the authority that Congress gave him.” Her campaign mantra, “The mistakes were made by this president, who misled this country and this Congress,” is an attempt to draw a veil of innocence over her vote and implicate all of us in the Iraq swindle.
Well, “all of us” really can’t continue to buy this argument. George Bush may have pulled the trigger, but Republicans and too many Democrats were holding the gun. Iraq was and continues to be a bipartisan war, and Hillary Clinton, until only recently, has been a vociferous cheerleader. Had events in Iraq taken a different turn, Clinton would be first in line to congratulate Bush on a job well done.
So, was Hillary “fooled” on Iraq? And what about her recent vote to give Bush an opening to attack Iran? Was she “fooled again”? If she indeed was misled by Bush, we’d expect her speeches to be filled with alternative strategies and policies, but they’re not. In fact, if we look at Clinton’s words and votes regarding the Middle East, it becomes clear what a foreign policy under “President Hillary Clinton” would look like – indistinguishable from Bush’s and bearing a strong resemblance to the neocon agenda.
The ABC’s of the neocon agenda
At first glance, the neocon agenda for the Middle East appears to be based on three transparent convictions:
The US has a duty to promote democracy around the world, using its unrivaled power if necessary. Since the Middle East is a region of despotic Muslims, democratic transformation must begin there. And, since Israel is the only democratic outpost in the region, we must protect Israel’s right to defend itself.
But if we read between the lines, where the neocon agenda really lies, we can break the code with a few simple substitutions:
A. for “promote democracy around the world” substitute establish free markets; for “unrivaled power” substitute preemptive military force;
B. for “despotic Muslims” substitute Islamic terrorists; for “democratic transformation” substitute regime change;
C. for “Israel’s right to defend itself” substitute the right to continue the military occupation of Palestine and bomb Lebanon, Syria, and Iran if necessary.
The deciphered neocon agenda thus reads:
The United States has the duty to establish free markets around the world, and to do so by preemptive military force if necessary. The Middle East is a hotbed of Islamic terrorism and needs to undergo regime change in order for free markets to survive. Israel’s aggressive use of military force was successful at containing Muslim terrorists for almost 40 years and is a shining example of how democracy can be spread throughout the entire region.
Hillary Clinton and the neocon agenda -- how to “negotiate” like a neocon
That the neocon agenda places Israel’s security in such a prominent position, and that Hillary Clinton is on board with that agenda, have been evident for many years. The neocon perspective sees Israel as a valiant little nation defending itself against a Muslim monolith. It’s the David versus Goliath myth, with a twist: neocons also see the US as vulnerable to that same Goliath. National Review's Larry Kudlow summed it up nicely: “Israel is doing the Lord’s work. They are defending their own homeland and very existence, but they are also defending America’s homeland as our frontline democratic ally in the Middle East.”
To the neocon mind, the fate of the US is tied to the survival of Israel.
Although the right-wing talking heads have been slow to see Hillary’s inner neocon, there are signs that some of the neocon elite are becoming very comfortable with her foreign policy positions. They see her foreign policy goals as being very consistent with their own, and Clinton’s vigilant defense of Israel’s security bears this out.
The last time Clinton had anything hopeful to say to the Palestinian people was in May 1998, when she told a group of Arab and Israeli youth that the eventual emergence of a Palestinian state was “very important for the broader goal of peace in the Middle East.” When Clinton was severely criticized by Jewish groups for her early support for a Palestinian state, she began to shift her support away from Palestinians and towards Israel, even commenting on what would later be a critical final status issue for peace negotiations, the division of Jerusalem, about which she stated in 1999: “I personally consider Jerusalem the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel.”
Since being elected as the Senator from New York in 2000, Clinton’s support for Israel has become entrenched to the point where now, as Clinton supporter Steve Rabinowitz recently stated, she “has personally proved herself to the Jewish community on Israel, on which she was once questioned.”
Hillary continued to “prove” herself by lashing out at the Palestinian leadership and adopting neocon talking points and strategies in her Middle East positions. After Bill Clinton’s July 2000 Camp David Summit failed to broker an accord to end the military occupation of Palestinian territory, the neocons had a field day blaming Arafat for “missing the opportunity” to negotiate a peace. In reality, the Summit is a neocon model for how to negotiate with your enemies when you really don’t want to negotiate.
The Summit failed, but not for the reasons the neocons thought. It failed partly due to Clinton’s one-sided diplomacy, but mainly due to the tactical sabotage that passed as “negotiations.” Apart from the details of the final status issues, which leaned heavily in favor of the Israelis, the major stumbling block – and one that continues to undermine every negotiation the US or Israel are involved in – was Israel’s tactic of imposing “unacceptable preconditions”: Israel demanded that the Palestinians dismantle the militias as a precondition to Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories. In other words, the Israelis would agree to end the occupation only after the Palestinians ended their resistance to the occupation. Arafat, of course, refused and was blamed for sinking the summit.
The neocon lesson from the Camp David summit was simple: never agree to talk to your enemies without first establishing unacceptable preconditions, and only negotiate peace based on threats and fear. This model is evident in Bush’s foreign policy approach to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, where first Powell and then Rice either ignored offers to talk or set such absurd preconditions that talks were impossible. It’s also evident in the Israeli refusal to talk to Hamas or seriously negotiate with Palestinian leaders without deal-killing preconditions.
One indication that Hillary has learned this lesson well is found in her own recently released campaign statement, in which Richard Holbrooke, former UN ambassador in Bill Clinton's administration, states:
“As she has said many times, Senator Clinton believes we need to engage in vigorous diplomacy after the cowboy approach of the Bush years. She has said she would initiate serious, responsible dialogue with nations with whom we don’t agree in order to further the national security interest of the United States. But she is right not to risk the prestige of the presidency by unconditionally committing to meet with leaders of adversarial nations.” [My emphasis.]
Clinton and neocon/AIPAC talking points
Since her earlier tactical error in supporting a Palestinian state, Clinton has been working hard to cultivate Jewish support, and it’s really paying off. The Jewish Daily Forward recently reported that she is going to get the lion’s share of donations from the Jewish community for her 2008 presidential campaign. Unfortunately, that support comes at a price – total commitment to Israeli government positions regarding Israel’s security – and Clinton seems eager to pay it. She is a regular at AIPAC functions and her speeches invariably weave together the mutuality of US and Israeli security. Her speech at the 2005 AIPAC conference shows how in synch she is with the neocon belief about a democratic Israel and the mutuality of US and Israeli security:
Now, Israel is not only, however, a friend and ally for us, it is a beacon of what democracy can and should mean…. So if people in the Middle East are not sure what democracy means, let them look to Israel, which has been and remains a true, faithful democracy.”
But we know that the goal, the important, essential goal of a democratizing Middle East is complex, and it is not without risks….So there is no doubt that America has started down a path [the Iraq war, author], with blood and treasure, to try to create the condition for democracy and freedom in the Middle East -- which has consequences for the entire region, for our security, and certainly for Israel's.
Clinton and the separation wall
One of the least reported consequences of the Israeli military occupation is the separation wall that Israel began building in 2002, ostensibly for security reasons. The major grievance Palestinians have with the wall is that much of it is built on Palestinian land, violating the 1967 borders that were supposed to become the boundary of the eventual Palestinian state. On a three-day visit to Israel in the fall of 2005, the Clintons toured the separation wall.
The wall is mainly concrete, but some sections include electrified fencing, two-meter-deep trenches, electronic ground/fence sensors, thermal imaging and video cameras, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), sniper towers, and razor wire. As of May 2004, construction of the wall had already uprooted an estimated 102,320 Palestinian olive and citrus trees, demolished 75 acres of greenhouses and 23 miles of irrigation pipes, and confiscated 3,705 acres of land from Palestinians.
In 2004, just a year before Clinton’s visit to the wall, the International Court of Justice ruled that the wall was a violation of international law. At that time, Clinton, along with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), stood in front of UN headquarters with the Israeli ambassador and denounced the International Court of Justice ruling. “It makes no sense for the United Nations to vehemently oppose a fence which is a non-violent response to terrorism rather than opposing terrorism itself,” Clinton said.
In 2004, the World Council of Churches demanded that Israel halt and reverse construction on the barrier and strongly condemned it as a violation of human rights. Amnesty International condemned the wall as a violation of international humanitarian law, and Human Rights Watch has protested Israel’s confiscation of land to build the wall. The Red Cross declared the wall to be in violation of the Geneva Convention and, in 2004, the International Committee of the Red Cross stated that the Israeli barrier “causes serious humanitarian and legal problems” and goes “far beyond what is permissible for an occupying power.”
So, it’s safe to say that, by the time Hillary and Bill Clinton visited the wall in November 2005, its devastating impact on the Palestinian people was clear, as was its illegal and immoral standing in the eyes of most of the world. Yet, Clinton’s reaction to the wall, as reported in Haaretz, was no different than her initial reaction a year before. Clinton stated that she “supports the separation fence Israel is building along the edges of the West Bank, and that the onus is on the Palestinian Authority to fight terrorism.” Haaretz also quoted Clinton saying, “This is not against the Palestinian people. This is against the terrorists. The Palestinian people have to help to prevent terrorism. They have to change the attitudes about terrorism.”
Clinton and the bombing of Lebanon
Clinton’s hammering at the security issue to constantly justify Israel’s actions has produced some ridiculous contortions in her speeches. On July 12, 2006, Israel bombed Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure and killed over 1000 civilians, including four unarmed UN peacekeepers – supposedly in response to the border crossing and kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah. However, according to the business magazine Forbes (July 12, 2006), the French news service AFP (July 12, 2006), the Asia Times (July 15, 2006) and the Lebanese police, the Israeli soldiers were captured within Lebanon in the area of Ai’tu Al-Chaarb, a Lebanese village a few kilometers from the Israeli border. That would make Israel’s bombing of Lebanon a war crime. The bombing lasted almost two months because the US refused to call for a halt, while most of the world looked on, appalled at Israel’s “disproportionate” use of force.
According to sociologist James Petras, “The Jewish networks and lobbies were able to secure 98% support from Congress for a resolution supporting Israel’s invasion of Lebanon” and the Lobby “pressured and threatened the White House” to prolong the bombing.
On July 13, 2006, a day after the Israeli attack, Hillary Clinton issued a statement condemning Hezbollah and Hamas: “The unprovoked attacks on innocent Israelis and the killing and abduction of Israeli soldiers by the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah are dramatic escalations of violence against Israel. The United States must stand by Israel as she defends herself.”
Five days later, Clinton addressed an AIPAC crowd of several thousand in New York, calling for solidarity and support for Israel. Responding to worldwide criticism of Israel’s disproportionate response to the border skirmish, Clinton said she supported “whatever steps are necessary” to defend Israel against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria. Deliberately distorting events and playing to the paranoia and frenzy of the crowd, Clinton screamed, “I want us here in New York to imagine, if extremist terrorists were launching rocket attacks across the Mexican or Canadian border, would we stand by or would we defend America against these attacks from extremists?”
Beyond semantic contortions, Clinton’s allegiance to Israel often forces her into blatant hypocritical positions. Just last month, when Israel bombed Syria, did Clinton demand a Senate resolution condemning this blatant act of aggression? Hardly. Instead, the neocons cheered and Clinton endorsed the attack. At the Democratic debates at Dartmouth College she stated: “We don't have as much information as we wish we did. But what we think we know is that with North Korean help, both financial and technical and material, the Syrians apparently were putting together, and perhaps over some period of years, a nuclear facility, and the Israelis took it out. I strongly support that…. I think it is fair to say what happened in Syria, so far as we know, I support.”
Clinton and Iraq
Perhaps no other issue has given Clinton more of a headache on the campaign trail than her 2002 vote to give George Bush the power to attack Iraq. Her entire defense of that vote rests on the claim that she was misled by Bush into believing that Iraq had WMD and was an imminent threat – the “Hillary fooled” argument.
But Andrew Cockburn has convincingly demonstrated that, not only did Hillary Clinton know Saddam had no WMD, but her husband’s political maneuvering during his presidency had suppressed that fact and gave birth to the WMD myth that Bush and the neocons later used to sell the pre-emptive strike on Iraq.
Cockburn explains that, back in 1997, the Clinton administration deliberately sabotaged UN weapons inspections in Iraq. The inspectors had been investigating Saddam’s weapons for six years and were about to declare Iraq in compliance with Security Council Resolution 687 (which required Iraq to destroy all WMD) and recommend lifting sanctions. Feeling the neocon pressure, Clinton had Secretary of State Madeleine Albright deliver a major policy speech at Georgetown University on March 26, 1997, in which she stated: "We do not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted." Sanctions would remain unless or until Saddam was driven from power.
Bill Clinton’s switch of focus from compliance to regime change neatly removed any incentive for Saddam to work with the UN inspectors, and in 1998, all the inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq. Clinton then launched nearly 400 cruise missile strikes and flew 650 air attacks against Iraq. His strategy proved successful, from a neocon perspective: Iraq remained under sanctions; Saddam grew progressively weaker; and the neocon dream of a US empire dominating the Middle East came closer to realization.
Now, fast forward to 2002 and Hillary Clinton’s vote to give Bush authority to bomb Iraq. In “Hillary's War,” Jeff Gerth and Don Van Vatta Jr. offer some interesting insights into Clinton’s distortion of the facts about Saddam that helped to sell the war.
On October 10, 2002 – the day before the war powers vote – Hillary Clinton argued before the Senate that Iraq was an imminent threat to the US. Many politicians delivered pro-war speeches on that day, but Clinton went far beyond other pro-war Democrats, warning that, “Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability and his nuclear program,” and arguing that Saddam gave “aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members.”
Both of these statements were false, contradicted not only by the National Intelligence Estimate report, which was available to every senator (whether they read it or not) but also by the intelligence from Bill Clinton’s administration that Saddam no longer had WMD. Hillary certainly was privy to that intelligence, yet she still voted for war.
And she continues to support the war, notwithstanding her lame attempts to convince us otherwise. While her war position has wiggled over the years, it has never firmly supported a full troop withdrawal. In a revealing moment, Clinton recently joined three other Democratic candidates in refusing to state that they would guarantee to pull all US combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013.
The neocon influences that got us into this war are keeping us there, working side-by-side with pressure from the Israeli government. Reporting on an AIPAC meeting held in March 2007, Ray McGovern states:
Those taking part in last month's meeting of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington heard stern warnings from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni that America not show "weakness" on Iraq -- warnings that a U.S. troop withdrawal would make the neighborhood far more dangerous for Israel.
Once again, Israel’s security – the focal point of the neocon agenda – steers American foreign policy. In this light, it can be argued that Clinton’s claim that she was mislead by Bush about Iraq, though ingenuous, is more politically acceptable than the alternative – that she is and has been promoting the neocon agenda.
Clinton and Iran
While “Hillary fooled” can now be laid to rest, we still have to deal with “Hillary fooled again.” Will someone be asking Clinton why, if she has learned her lesson from the Iraq war vote, she recently voted to make it easier for Bush to bomb Iran?
This September, the US Senate passed the Kyl-Lieberman sense of the Senate amendment that designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a “foreign terrorist organization.” This is the first time a military arm of a sovereign nation has been so designated, and the repercussions could be grave.
Sen. Jim Webb (D-Virginia), who opposed the amendment, cautioned that the amendment could be used to declare war on Iran, since the Revolutionary Guard is part of the Iranian government – if the Guard attacks us, it would mean that Iran is attacking us. Webb argued that the amendment would, for all practical purposes, mandate the military option against Iran: “It could be read as tantamount to a declaration of war. What do we do with terrorist organizations? If they are involved against us, we attack them….At worst, it could be read as a backdoor method of gaining Congressional validation for military action, without one hearing and without serious debate.” Thus, the Kyl-Lieberman amendment is the Iranian twin of the Iraq War Resolution. The amendment passed 76-22, which is almost identical to the 77-23 Iraq war vote. Hillary Clinton (and 29 other slow-learning Democrats) voted for it.
Hillary has always been antagonistic towards Iran, calling it one of Israel's greatest threats, demanding that sanctions be imposed, and threatening that no option can be taken off the table when dealing with Iran. She has consistently parroted the distorted reporting that the Iranian president has denied the holocaust and calls for Israel and the United States to be wiped off the map. When Ahmadinejad recently spoke at Columbia University, Clinton supported the AIPAC-organized Stop Iran Now Rally, repeating again the accusations against Ahmadinejad – who actually has little power in the Iranian political system – as a basis for a bellicose and aggressive policy towards Iran.
Ironically, Hillary’s views on Iran contradict those expressed by her husband just two years ago. At a 2005 meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Bill Clinton stated: “Iran today is, in a sense, the only country where progressive ideas enjoy a vast constituency. It is there that the ideas that I subscribe to are defended by a majority.”
But the neocon and Israeli pressure to bomb Iran – and their influence on Clinton and other Democrats – cannot be underestimated. In a recent interview with Seymour Hersh, Jon Wiener asked, “Who wants to bomb Iran?” Hersh replied:
Ironically there is a lot of pressure coming from Democrats. Hillary Clinton, Obama, and Edwards have all said we cannot have a nuclear-armed Iran. Clearly the pressure from Democrats is a reflection of - we might as well say it - Israeli and Jewish input….a lot of money comes to the Democratic campaigns’ from Jewish contributors.
The question that begs to be asked is, If elected, will Clinton continue the neocon agenda under the cover of a legitimately-elected Democratic president? If so, Clinton’s foreign policy will be as much a failure as is Bush’s. Her neocon bias will preclude any “honest broker” approach to Middle East problems, and her presumption to negotiate only with unacceptable preconditions will mean many more decades of stalemate and bloodshed.
There are some who dismiss Clinton’s neocon policies as simply “pandering” to AIPAC for votes and contributions. They believe that, once elected, Clinton will shed her bias and negotiate from a more balanced position. This is hopeful, but naïve thinking. Hillary Clinton has spent the last seven years building up a constituency that now determines her foreign policy approach. If elected, she’ll need to “stay the neocon course” through her first term in order to get the votes and contributions for a second term. In her second term she’ll have to reward her supporters. Liberal pundits often refer to Hillary as “Bush-lite,” but they’re wrong. Honestly, there’s nothing “lite” about her.
Donna Saggia is a freelance writer living in St. Paul, Minnesota. She can be reached at: donnasaggia@msn.com
