Foreign Policy

Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy cred.

At a moment when foreign policy figures to loom larger in this presidential race than in recent election cycles, none of Mrs Clinton’s prospective opponents can match her credentials as a four-year secretary of state. Ordinarily that would be a strong selling point. Yet Mrs Clinton also is tied to Obama-era overseas initiatives that have largely proved unpopular and she’ll be hard-pressed to cite concrete achievements that she made happen on her watch, analysts say.

However, not only is she tied to Obama’s foreign policy failures, she has her own…accomplishments…from her stint sitting in the Secretary of State’s chair. Many of you might remember her 2008 Presidential campaign ad about answering the 3 am call. When she got exactly that call from a consulate that was under attack, Clinton’s attitude, as she said so defiantly in front of a House committee hearing, was “What difference, at this point, does it make!?

Then there are all of those emails she exchanged with her staff and Foreign Service officials—on her personally owned, set up, and maintained email server—of which she turned over to State print copies (only) of carefully selected emails and equally carefully and deliberately erased the rest. Which turnover and erasure she did only last fall after the emails were demanded. She is refusing to turn over her server for forensic analysis.

Then there’s her evident disinterest in the details of foreign affairs, details that might seem unimportant but that in their aggregate contribute to the laughingstock nature of State and of the United States on the world stage. Details like a red button she gave Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a button ostensibly labelled “Reset” in English and in Russian. What the Russian word actually meant was “overcharge.” This carelessness was typical of Clinton’s time in the Secretary’s chair.

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