posted 08-11-2014 10:29 AM                  

The following is a very small portion of a long article. Too long to post the entire thing.

Hillary Clinton: 'Failure' to Help Syrian Rebels Led to the Rise of ISIS

The former secretary of state, and probable candidate for president, outlines her foreign-policy doctrine. She says this about President Obama's: "Great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle."

Jeffrey Goldberg Aug 10 2014, 12:01 AM ET

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

President Obama has long ridiculed the idea that the U.S., early in the Syrian civil war, could have shaped the forces fighting the Assad regime, thereby stopping al Qaeda-inspired groups—like the one rampaging across Syria and Iraq today—from seizing control of the rebellion. In an interview in February, the president told me that “when you have a professional army ... fighting against a farmer, a carpenter, an engineer who started out as protesters and suddenly now see themselves in the midst of a civil conflict—the notion that we could have, in a clean way that didn’t commit U.S. military forces, changed the equation on the ground there was never true.”

Well, his former secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, isn’t buying it. In an interview with me earlier this week, she used her sharpest language yet to describe the "failure" that resulted from the decision to keep the U.S. on the sidelines during the first phase of the Syrian uprising.

“The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,” Clinton said.

As she writes in her memoir of her State Department years, Hard Choices, she was an inside-the-administration advocate of doing more to help the Syrian rebellion. Now, her supporters argue, her position has been vindicated by recent events.

Professional Clinton-watchers (and there are battalions of them) have told me that it is only a matter of time before she makes a more forceful attempt to highlight her differences with the (unpopular) president she ran against, and then went on to serve. On a number of occasions during my interview with her, I got the sense that this effort is already underway. (And for what it's worth, I also think she may have told me that she’s running for president—see below for her not-entirely-ambiguous nod in that direction.)

posted 08-11-2014 10:32 AM                  

8:04 AM, Aug 11, 2014 • By DANIEL HALPER

White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes publicly responded to criticism from Hillary Clinton of Barack Obama's foreign policy back in June, just as Hillary's book tour was starting up. "On the broad thrust of our foreign policy, she was fully on board," Rhodes tells Politico.

It's worth remembering Rhodes's comments now that Hillary Clinton's recent interview has been published where she seems to be bashing elements of Obama's foreign policy.

As the Atlantic reported:

President Obama has long ridiculed the idea that the U.S., early in the Syrian civil war, could have shaped the forces fighting the Assad regime, thereby stopping al Qaeda-inspired groups—like the one rampaging across Syria and Iraq today—from seizing control of the rebellion. In an interview in February, the president told me that “when you have a professional army ... fighting against a farmer, a carpenter, an engineer who started out as protesters and suddenly now see themselves in the midst of a civil conflict—the notion that we could have, in a clean way that didn’t commit U.S. military forces, changed the equation on the ground there was never true.”

Well, his former secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, isn’t buying it. In an interview with me earlier this week, she used her sharpest language yet to describe the "failure" that resulted from the decision to keep the U.S. on the sidelines during the first phase of the Syrian uprising. ...

Of course, Clinton had many kind words for the “incredibly intelligent” and “thoughtful” Obama, and she expressed sympathy and understanding for the devilishly complicated challenges he faces. But she also suggested that she finds his approach to foreign policy overly cautious, and she made the case that America needs a leader who believes that the country, despite its various missteps, is an indispensable force for good. At one point, I mentioned the slogan President Obama recently coined to describe his foreign-policy doctrine: “Don’t do stupid **** ” (an expression often rendered as “Don’t do stupid stuff” in less-than-private encounters).

This is what Clinton said about Obama’s slogan: “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”

Rhodes told Politico that Clinton and Obama are close, and that they try not to surprise each other.

“We have been able to have a no-surprises culture, and that is rooted in the fact that we have very deep personal relationships,” said Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser. “She is going to do what she is going to do, and she is going to say what she is going to say, but generally the lines of communication are such that there are no surprises on the big issues that come up.” ...

The Clinton camp also shared a draft of her book with Rhodes before the publication.

“The goal wasn’t to give anyone a veto,” said one associate familiar with the book-writing process. “It was to have a no-surprises policy.”

posted 08-11-2014 03:38 PM                  

I'm able to shorten Mrs. Clinton's 'outline of foreign-policy doctrine',,,to:

posted 08-12-2014 11:21 AM                  

quote:

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Originally posted by bjprowler:
[B]Apparently, the old battle-axe wants to get an early start on blaming her predecessor [/B]

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** , but will it also be followed up with a "and it was also Bush's fault" statement as well?