in the War Room: Hillary Clinton Lays the Gloves on Obama on His Failed Middle East Foreign Policy

By Franklin Otorofani

“Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”—Hillary Rodham Clinton on Obama

Democratic presidential hopeful and President Obama’s former Secretary of State in his first term, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, has had enough of Obama’s chicken hearted, weak-kneed disastrous foreign policy the effects of which now threaten to upend her presidential ambitions and therefore her chances of gaining access to the coveted White House come November, 2016, presidential election.

Ever since she left her former position voluntarily as US Secretary of State overseeing US foreign policy formulation and implementation during the first term of the Obama administration, Clinton had been quite supportive of the Obama administration and defended it to the hilt in the Benghazi scandal both in public statements and testy congressional hearings at a time most Democratic Congressmen and women up for re-election November this year are tactfully distancing themselves from their unpopular leader and president whose public approval ratings are now racing to the bottom and about to hit the ground floor, as consistently indicated by virtually all the public opinion polls in recent times.

Call it loyalty, if you like, but Hillary’s dogged support for the failed foreign policies of the Obama administration, which everyone, including Democrats themselves, have openly acknowledged, was such a surprise to political watchers, including yours truly. It made many of us to wonder whether she was out to curry some political favors from Obama in her presumed presidential foray, which may or may not be the case.

That said, her position then was understandable given the fact that she was part and parcel of the administration and presumably participated in the formulation and implementation of those policies. It makes little difference whether she disagreed with those policies or not, under the doctrine of collective responsibility. The only option opened to her under such circumstances was to resign, which to her credit, she did.  Yet she continued to defend some of those policies even though she was already out of office, which gave the impression, at least, that she may not have resigned out of policy disagreement but to prepare herself for the 2016 presidential election of which she is the obvious choice and currently front runner in the Democratic Party.

If actually she had resigned her position because of policy disagreement with the administration, her voluntary resignation should have granted her ample immunity to distance herself from those policies before now. After all her husband, the political powerhouse, President Bill Clinton, and the darling of the Democrats,  does not shy away at all from criticizing Obama whenever the need arises and he did that openly and trenchantly about the disastrous rollout of Obamacare back in 2013.

Hillary was cautious and held back perhaps not to be seen publicly as being anti-Obama as it’s been rumored in the press that Obama is cold to her presidential ambition and has other candidate in mind, Senator Elizabeth Warren from the state of Massachussetts, who has been doing the usual rounds around the country pumping hands, making speeches and firing up the Democratic base.

Well, it’s plausible, too, that as a good and loyal party member, she may have stuck with the administration purely out of party loyalty and overarching need to protect the president from attacks from the Republican dogs ready to tear down Obama and his policies. Only Hillary knows why Hillary held back from creating some distance between her and the Obama administration for so long in the face of so many scandals and missteps, and one can only speculate here, at best, as to the likely reasons just like the media is doing.

However, there is limit to endurance. If she allowed herself to be labeled Obama clone it could cause irreparable damage to her political ambitions. Now she could take it no more given what’s happening in Iraq today, which must be laid squarely at the doorstep of the Obama administration for the following reasons:

Firstly, he ended the war in Iraq prematurely and pulled out of Iraq precipitously leaving no troops behind due to “failed status of troops” agreement with Prime Minister Nuri Maliki when the Iraqi insurgency, though largely contained under President Bush’s “troop surge’ which made a huge difference, had not altogether been vanquished and suicide bombings by Sunni militants was still the order of the day.

It does not require the military genius of a Napoleon Bonaparte to understand that the vacuum created by US troops’ departure would be quickly filled by the insurgents and terrorists, which has been the case with huge spikes in terrorist bombings in Iraq since the departure of US troops. Thousands have died in Iraq since the withdrawal of US troops, no thanks to the same Sunni militants that battled the US army for years claiming over 4,000 of them and tens of thousands more wounded before the pullout in the name of ending the “war that Bush caused.” This was done in order to claim political credit at home and be in the good books of the anti-war crowds in the Democratic Party.

If you asked me, I would say right away as many have said, that the pull out was the most irresponsible thing to do even by an avowedly anti-war president just to please his domestic constituencies.  A commander-in-chief has a duty to the nation first and foremost not to his political constituencies and Obama failed to grasp that imperative even when it was reasonably foreseeable that the militants would exploit the vacuum created, just as it is happening already in Afghanistan with the withdrawal of US and NATO troops from that country. The Talibans are now cashing in and overrunning the country with the murder of the top US general last week. Obama is proving himself as being utterly incapable of wearing the shoes of President and Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces in wartime.

Secondly, ISIS, which has now carved out a brand new caliphate from Iraqi and Syrian territories, is a creation of the United States and the West to oust President Bashir Assad of Syria from office, which has so far failed to materialize given Russia’s and Iran’s objections. Western arms and funds have been flowing like water to these militants in Syria which they have been using to commit mayhem against Christian minorities in Syria. Whole villages have been razed down and depopulated by these heartless terrorists backed by the West with Obama and his counterparts in Europe keeping mum and not raising a single voice of protests or call them to order.

Instead Obama was spoiling to bomb Assad allegedly for using chemical weapons on civilian populations with no hard evidence to substantiate the claim and which chemicals may have indeed come from the militants themselves and blamed it on Assad in order to justify Western attack. As the Islamists’ reign of terror on Christians has shown beyond doubts, Assad is the only guarantee of their safety in Syria and one is at a loss why the West would prefer to side with Islamists against Assad who had been protecting Christians in his country.

This would appear to be part of the war on Christianity that the West has been waging of which Obama is front and center hence his support for Islamic fundamentalists everywhere whether it’s in Libya, Egypt, Syria or Iraq. We have seen similar support even for the Palestinian Hamas that’s daily raining rockets on Israel while blaming Israel for its counter attacks against the Palestinians. A clear pattern has formed about Obama’s stance and where his loyalties are. It’s a pity that people like Hillary for whatever reasons are only just coming around to recognizing what has become an open sore.

In an interview with the Atlantic Clinton alluded to the cut and run policy of the Obama administration when she averred that:

“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 filledNow all these are hurting the chances of Hillary and it’s time to open up and lay the gloves on Obama publicly.

And without using the word all but accused Obama of cowardice when she laid this on him:

“You know, when you’re down on yourself, and when you are hunkering down and pulling back, you’re not going to make any better decisions than when you were aggressively, belligerently putting yourself forward,” Hillary said of Obama as reported by Rt News and other news outlets.

 Unlike Obama that’s indifferent to the danger posed by Islamists, which he is blindly supporting and promoting all over the world while pretending otherwise, Clinton is concerned that the terrorists might one day turn their wrath on the US and Europe again as they did before. And who is so daft that would not recognize such a clear and present danger from those terrorists who are gleefully and sadistically executing women and children in their thousands and dumping their bodies in mass graves like slaughtered diseased animals? Does this prick the conscience of the West to withdraw its support from them in Syria and elsewhere? No, because they’re Islamists, who must be supported at all costs to overthrow Gadaffi, Mubarak and Assad. That’s what’s happening in Ukraine, too, by the way.

“One of the reasons why I worry about what’s happening in the Middle East right now is because of the breakout capacity of jihadist groups that can affect Europe, can affect the United States,” she said.  Does Obama care about that?

It reminds me of what then candidate Hillary said of Obama that he’s not up to the job of commander-in-chief. Remember her ad about what would Obama do when he’s woken up in the middle of the night to deal with an emergency abroad and questioned if Obama would be able to handle it? Remember that?

Well, such emergency actually came to pass in the Benghazi US embassy attack and Obama was found wanting, completely abandoning his ambassador and other Americans trapped inside to die a shameful death with no help coming to them in for hours on end even though Obama was fully briefed on the ongoing attack by terrorists. He thereafter lied, and as has been subsequently revealed by the media, equally caused Hillary to lie to Americans that an anti-Moslem video caused the attack and caused a fraudulent, phony apology to be issued to Moslems by the State Department. These are some of the things that have caused huge disappointments in Obama’s leadership and raised serious doubts in his ability to lead the world’s greatest nation. And so far he has demonstrated time and again that he does not have the ability to lead. Flowery speeches read from teleprompter, rhetoric and funding raising prowess, do not conduce to effective leadership.

Well, for me and others at least, it’s a good thing that Clinton is finally distancing herself from Obama, because to be honest with you, the reader, she would have been a far more effective leader that this tentative, indecisive, pacifist, wobbling and fumbling one foisted on the nation that the world is literally exploding on his face due to lack of leadership. Yes, President Hillary Rodham Clinton, would have been the Margaret Thatcher of the United States—the Iron Lady—and I’m no fan of Hillary. And God knows, the United States needs one at this critical moment in history—a strong leader that the world can count on to deliver in times of crisis and a terror to bad guys in the neighborhoods around the world.

President Obama clearly does not fit that bill, and hence the world is literally aflame under his watch. The world is dying to have a bold, brave and decisive leader from the US to help put a lid on the violence flaring up all over the world and bring some measure of order, peace and tranquility in the world. When the US pulls back as Clinton has said, the bad guys show up in the neighborhoods to wreak havoc, and in this case, they seem to have gotten a nod from the White House. Sad to say, unfortunately, that Obama is part of that problem rather than the solution.

Franklin Otorofani is a Nigerian trained attorney and public affairs analyst based in the United States.

Contact: mudiagaone@yahoo.com