Clinton’s Foreign Policy Achievements Disputed
WASHINGTON — To hear Hillary Rodham Clinton tell it now, she had a lot more going on as first lady than she let on at the time.
On the presidential campaign trail, Clinton frequently makes the pitch that she is uniquely qualified to pass the “commander in chief” test in large part because of her foreign policy and national security experience in Bill Clinton’s White House.
She takes credit for helping bring peace to Northern Ireland, negotiating open borders for refugees fleeing Kosovo, standing up to the Chinese government over women’s rights, and flying into Bosnia when it was too dangerous to send the president.
There is little doubt that Clinton was an exceptionally activist first lady. She was the first to set up shop in a West Wing office alongside other White House policymakers, and immediately was in the thick of domestic policy deliberations, most notably her long and unsuccessful fight for health care reform.
Clinton also took a keen interest in foreign policy, traveling to more than 80 countries, with her husband and alone, to promote U.S. policy and the cause of women and children.
But Clinton is taking credit for accomplishing more than some of those who were active in foreign policy during the Clinton years recall.
Former Clinton administration officials, many of them now aligned with either Clinton or Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama, offer differing views on the extent of her influence — and its relevance to the presidential race.
“Her experience speaks for itself,” says former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who is advising Clinton’s campaign. She wasn’t the one making the final decisions on U.S. policy, he says, but “no one in the world got a better idea of the countervailing pressures. The most important decision a president can make is to send Americans into harm’s way. She knows what that entails.”
A contrary view comes from Susan Rice, a former assistant secretary of state from the Clinton years and an Obama campaign adviser. She said Clinton’s involvement with foreign policy as first lady was “laudable and important, but it is hardly the same thing as the kind of crisis management” that is required of a president. “There is no crisis to be dealt with or managed when you are first lady,” Rice said.
A look at some of Clinton’s specific foreign policy claims:
–NORTHERN IRELAND: “I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland.”
Clinton traveled to Northern Ireland five times as first lady, and was a tireless advocate for the peace process. But she was not directly involved in negotiating the Good Friday peace accord.
She did encourage Irish women on both sides of the conflict to come together and get involved in a process that was dominated by men.
Former Democratic Sen. George Mitchell, who brokered the peace accord, said Clinton was “quite helpful.”
“She became quite active in encouraging women in Northern Ireland to engage in the political process and in the peace process, and ultimately the role of women was important in moving the process forward,” said Mitchell, who is neutral in the presidential race. “She was one of many people who participated in encouraging women to get involved, not the only one.”
John Hume, the Catholic leader who shared the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the peace accord, credits Clinton for playing a “pivotal role” in the peace process.
But others in Northern Ireland say Clinton overstates her role.
“The road to peace was carefully documented, and she wasn’t on it,” says Brian Feeney, an author and former leading Belfast politician from the same party as Hume.
KOSOVO: “I negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo.”
At the urging of the Macedonian government, Clinton in May 1999 traveled to Macedonia, which was being inundated with Albanian refugees from Kosovo. She visited a huge refugee camp, held hands with children, told their parents they would go home and announced business loans for the country to help its laggard economy cope with the refugee influx.
On May 5, Macedonian officials had shut the border to refugees, blaming the West for allowing more than a quarter-million people to overwhelm the country. Despite later government insistence that the border was open again, Serb soldiers appeared to be blocking refugees’ exit, and only a trickle passed through on May 13, the day before Clinton arrived, according to an AP story written at the time. Refugees were reported to be afraid even to attempt the crossing.
Melanne Verveer, a Clinton aide who accompanied the first lady on the trip to Macedonia, said that only a small section of the border was open when she arrived, and that there was no guarantee it wouldn’t close again at any time.
Verveer, who sat in on May 14 meetings between the first lady and Macedonia’s president and prime minister, said Clinton was forceful in urging the leaders to keep the border open, and in assuring the Macedonians that the U.S. would support them in coping with the influx of refugees.
“What she did there I don’t think can be underestimated in terms of the positive impact that it had,” said Verveer, who is active in Clinton’s campaign.
Robert Gelbard, who was presidential envoy to the Balkans at the time and now serves as an adviser to the Obama campaign, offers an opposing view.
“I cannot recall any involvement by Senator Clinton in this issue,” he said. “The person who was able to get the border opened was Mrs. Sadako Ogata,” the U.N. high commissioner for refugees. Gelbard said he had questioned other U.S. officials directly involved and none remembered involvement by Clinton.
There were no public reports at the time of Clinton negotiating to keep the border open.
Overall, said Gelbard, “She had more of a role on some foreign policy issues than a lot of other first ladies, including, for example, the current one. My own firsthand experience, though, is that her role was limited and I’ve been surprised at the claims that she had a much greater role than certainly I’m aware of on the issues I was working on.”
SERBIA: “I urged him to bomb.”
Clinton doesn’t bring this one up now, but in a 1999 interview published in Talk magazine, the first lady was quoted as saying that she had urged her husband to recommend a NATO bombing campaign on Serb targets to halt ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. According to the story, Clinton called the president on March 21, 1999, from her travels in North Africa. “I urged him to bomb,” she was quoted as saying. “You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?” NATO airstrikes began March 24.
Clinton generally refuses to talk about the private advice she gave her husband. But Holbrooke this week recalled a time during the subsequent NATO bombing campaign when he and his wife were invited upstairs at the White House after a social event. He said Hillary Clinton was a big participant in an hour-long discussion about the bombing, the possible use of ground troops and other matters.
She didn’t take sides in the conversation, Holbrooke said, “but I have no doubt that she continued the conversation in the privacy of their relationship” and made her views clear.
CHINA: “I’ve been standing up to the Chinese government over women’s rights.”
Clinton says her participation on the U.N. Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 was “one of the highlights of my own life.” There had been a huge debate over whether she should even go, with some human rights advocates expressing concern that China would use the conference as a public relations tool.
Clinton got strong reviews for threading the diplomatic needle with an impassioned speech that contained a wide-ranging denunciation of human rights abuses worldwide. She criticized China, without naming it directly, for the practice of sterilization and forced abortion, and for preventing many women from attending or participating fully in the conference.
In her memoir, Clinton writes about the rousing reception her speech received at the conference and adds, “What I didn’t know at the time was that my 21-minute speech would become a manifesto for women all over the world. To this day, whenever I travel overseas, women come up to me quoting words from the Beijing speech or clutching copies they want me to autograph.”
Rice, the former Clinton administration official now supporting Obama, credits the first lady for delivering an important speech on women’s rights, but says that that doesn’t translate into presidential crisis management credentials.
BOSNIA: “If the place was too small, too dangerous or too poor, send Hillary.”
Clinton cites her March 1996 trip to Bosnia as an example of traveling into a war zone to promote U.S. policy, recalling a harrowing “corkscrew” landing during which she and her daughter, Chelsea, were ordered into the armored front of the plane to protect them against possible ground fire. She jokes that one mantra around the Clinton White House, was that “if the place was too small, too dangerous or too poor, send Hillary.”
Clinton brought up the trip to counter Obama’s suggestion that her experiences as first lady amounted to having tea at an ambassador’s house.
“I don’t remember anyone offering me tea,” Clinton said of the Bosnia visit.
Security was very tight on Clinton’s goodwill tour to Bosnia, but officials said at the time that she took no extraordinary risks.
Rice, the Obama supporter, dismissed the trip as a “meet and greet.” She stressed that comedian Sinbad and singer Sheryl Crow accompanied Clinton on the flight to put on a USO show for the troops.
It’s interesting how Hillary’s “impassioned” speech at the U.N. Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 was pinpointed as such a huge contribution toward women’s rights in China. A speech did you say? Hmmm…isn’t this the same woman who criticized Barack Obama for making speeches? His speeches have clearly inspired a new movement in the political process have brought about a positive change many of us have never seen before. Yet again, Hillary is up to her double-speak. If Barack gives a speech, it’s just words. But if she gives a speech it’s”a manifesto for women all over the world.” Exactly what universe is this woman living in? Hillary, it’s time you came back to earth.
Hillary claims that she has all the experience. But when you start to investigate she is end up with nothing. Journalists have to do their homework instead of taking as truth everything she said.
I don’t know if you journalists when to college or university and have some ethics. It shows us that she has the media and uses it for her own advantage.
I feel sorry for you US.
In Canada, we do homework and find the true. It why the opposition and journalists here want to find the truth about the Naftagate.
So, Sheryl Crow is more qualified to be president because she went to Kosovo. Please don’t forget Sinbad!!!! now he is more qualified too. Right?????
Excuse me, but why is RICE who works on the Obama campaign, the one to challenge Clinton’s credentials. That seems suspect to me, and clearly unbalanced and unfair reporting. Let’s be clear about one thing however-her foreign policy experience far outweighs that of a community organizer.
I think that rather than criticising what Hillary did or didn’t do while she was in the White House and what kind of foreign policy experience she has, why wouldn’t anybody say anything about what kind of foreign policy experience Senator Obama has or what kinds of foreign policy decisions he made other than claiming that he was against the war in Iraq.
WOW!! These accomplishmnets are so great. Can someone speak about the 8m+ people who died. I did not read this part on Sen. Clinton resume where she assist. I would imagine this would be apart of the accomplishments consider other things i read given it was all the same time.
Hillary Clinton accused Barack Obama of plagarism with respect to his speeches. It turned out that Barack Obama had permission from the author to do so, so it wasn’t plagarism. What is it when you claim credit on your resume for accomplishments you did not achieve? That’s a whole lot more serious than any trumped up “plagarism” charge that wasn’t substantiated in the first place. People get fired for doing this. It’s called lying on your resume about your qualifications.
what is she claiming, taking credit of somethin she is not directly involve FOX NEWS YOU CANT BRING THIS ONE UP, IF THAT IS OBAMA IT WILL BE HEADLINE IN EVERY MINUTS YOU GUYS ARE PLAYING PARTIAL GAME, IS CLINTONS YOUR GOD.
HC and BC are, as we well remember from their drama days in the 90’s, the supreme masters of spin, manipulation, denial, and deceit. Unprincipled throughout their public life, these two are unworthy of returning to the White House. Obama has a sound and legitimate argument for confrontin HC’s patently false, inflated claims of “experience.” I already am experiencing Clinton Fatigue again as they blame others, point fingers, pout, and play the “victim” card yet again. I do feel sorry for Hillary, the fighter, for not having sufficient “fight” in her to divorce Bill when he was humiliating her as governor of Arkansas. That decision is almost as self-serving as voting for war in Iraq! What exactly prepares her to be Commander in Chief? Bill?
“Activist first lady” that is commendable.It is bad to appropriate to yourself your husband’s accomplishments even though we know that behind every successful man,there is a good woman,mind you the quiet Mrs Laura Bush to my mind is a far better advocate than the loquacious Mrs Clinton.Mrs Clinton should tell the whole world why she did not ask her husband to send in troops to quell the Rwandan genocide one of the worst human catastrophies in the 20th century,maybe Africans or black people do not matter to Mrs Clinton’s agenda.
Now that her foreign policy record is in dispute perhaps Hillary clinton will hasten to open the actual recoeds to the public but I hardly think that is likely. Were it to her advantage to do so she would have long ago. After winning 3 out of 4 contests on Tuesday following her 11 straight losses to Mr. Obama (Texas was close about 3% margin of victory and she actually lost the caucus even though she won the primary)
She has now lost Wyoming and is poised to lose Mississippi as well. If she does lose as expected Mr. Obama will have won 26 states and 2 territories giving him the majority of the U.S. with several states left to go and will have an even larger lead in delgates than the 111 point lead that he already has.
This being the case why not reslease the records and squash all remaining doubts immediately. Her husband certainly has the power to do so as she herself has admitted to Tim Russert on national television. I find it quite disturbing that she is withholding her tax records as well.
It is my suspicion, and that of many objective thinkers, that upon doing so it will be revealed that her claims of having experience making foreign policy positions and bringing peace to Northern Ireland etc. will be revealed as fraudulent.
The hippocrisy here is apparent even to people who are new to politics. She has DEMANDED that others reveal such information about themselves and cried foul that the records of others have not been examined properly. She also claims to have been vetted . Well apparently she has not as we have no access to the records. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and her goose will probably be cooked when the truth comes out.
Honestly, and we ALL know this whether we admit it in public or not, NOBODY is prepared “on day one” to be Commander in Chief unless they have already held that position. She would only be ready only in the sense that Bill would be there for her to ask what to do if she became confused. She will not say this because she knows that the whole two-for-one scenario will kill her in the general election.
So let’s be honest. Hillary is trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
What was Hillary thinking? Bringing her child into a war zone. If it was to dangerous for Bubba why you put your daughter in harms way.That is the worst judgement of all. I sure don’t want her to answer that 3 am call. Go Obama Yes we can
So, Senator Obama is not interested in the Veep position with Hillary. Nothing small like that. He aims at [his own words] “winning this nomination and changing the country.” It tell me he wants to make the Rules and Call the shots.
I always wondered about the man. Now it makes me wonder whether others in the Party or those in leadership in the Democratic Party really know what they have in their breast. Does he want to change the Party too, or is he just planning on creating as much havoc as possible, in which he is successful right now, and then see the Democratic Party and the Country being torn apart, asunder, and destroyed. Meantime he uses the Party as a platform?
The Senator is running wild, firing from the hip, an uncontrolled loose cannon or I must be going nuts if I am the only one seeing this.
There is something like this in history somewhere …. ?
Makes you think?
The Self Righteous, self serving story weaver.
Hey if I had Bills Phone number I would have called and let him know my opinion on things that were important to me too..Would that make me ready on day 1..??
So she urged him to do what he had already pondered and consulted with pentagon on .. whoopee…
So throwing in her 2 cents[opinion] constitutes national security crisis management, and foreign policy formulation??
I don’t think so…
What Mr. Clinton had to deal with was a live-in self-appointed advisor [back seat driver] constantly medeling and interfering in the performance of his duties.
Its no wonder he sought comfort in the embrace of other women.
She is one of those people we call a one upper. She could be one of those people who overstate their involvement. The President have a team of expert to advise him, so he can make the best decsion possible. We want a president that is calm under pressure. She is not that. Anyway the Clinton bring drama with them because they are power hungry. It is not about us. I am a democrat and Obama supportor, I rather have Mccain as President than Hillary.
this says it all. seems her resume is as inflated as her ego.
JUST WORDS?
Hillary tirelessly advocated peace in Ireland = Just Words…
She was one of many who encouraged women to take part= Just Words…
She visited and held hands and told Albanian refugees they can go home= Just Words…
She supposedly Urged and assured the Macedonians to open the borders= Just words…
She crrashed the party and talked for one hour with White House Visitors one night re: the nato bombings in the Balkins and the possible use troops= Just Words…
Gave a Speech in 1995 in Bejing, China= Just Words…
Made a rough landing in Bosnia on the way to a USO meet and greet with Sinbad and Cheryl Crow but cant remember if she had any tea the entire visit= Just Words…
Cheryl should be Secretary of State and Sinbad should be Secretary of Defense…I guess.
Hillary also accomplished file gate, travel gate, rose law firm, bimbo erruptions, Vince Foster’s murder eeerrrrr suicide (ransacked his office), etc. Come on people, wake up. No one wants to relive the disgrace of the Clinton’s. Vote Obama!!
Yeah, her accomplishments are just social pivots, nothing else. She just have to be there for the photo-ops. Didn’t anybody see her photo-ops with the generals with all the American flags behind them? Wasn’t that funny? Generals are endorsing her? Give me a break! Either they want something if she is wins or they already owed Bill some favors.
America, brace yourself. How I would hope this was not necessary to say, but it is all so clear from News reaction by the widest spectrum of ordinary citizens, and almost incredible nobody seems to pick it up.
Iran has always hated anything American since the Carter days. For the Senator to say President Bush is to be blamed? Did you not expect a reaction? Even if you did not, don’t you see it now? America has reached the crossing of the roads; it is all so clear if you just read Readers Comments. Obama is striding across the screens, unperturbed, imperial, in Messiah cloth, demanding McCain should “repudiate Wyoming” but his Camp where it started? …. Don’t try tell me he did not know it …. It was all so well planned.
What I clearly see is [Please allow me this, |Michael Fox] “Forward to the Past” on Fast Forward mode.
Let me close with extreme sadness. Unless you act right now, America will burn before this year is out. Save this comment, but for the sake of your land take precautions NOW [I SAY NOW] [NOT TOMORROW OR NEXT WEEK, MEAN NOW]. You must be blind not to see it. The biggest WAR is building up in homes, minds and people’s hearts. That’s how Terrorism works; I fervently hope it can still be stopped before it spills out into the streets and in the 2008 Convention Cities.
Please take note I am not saying Iranians will sing in the streets …. Not at all. What I am saying is America contains within itself the seed to self-destruct and that is all your enemies need in this kind of War …. Indeed they are promoting the process.
Iraq? Forget Iraq. Compared to what is building up in peoples’ minds Iraq will look like a walk in the park. You don’t believe it? …. Take note of the date I pen this: Sunday, March 09, 2008 and remember.
For how long are we going to have this Love Fest with Senator Obama? The man is no Messiah [not the desirable sort anyway; he is working on his own schedule known to him only.
Cry America.
Let me name this effort a Call for Reason. In between all published Comments there are a few sober bur deeply concerned observers. Let us get together, no agenda or …. ? whatever, …. let us meet in these columns and help towards what can be a solution. People like Todd, Really Really, many others: come in Please.
My approach is based on the assumption that everyone including Senator Clinton, past President Bill Clinton, the whole Democratic Party, every single one or group, we have all underestimated Senator Obama. Name calling, religion, race, all these things will continue [it has now become a tidal wave and we will have to learn to live with that] but let us refer to him as Senator Obama when we meet here.
I will look at the man we see in front of us now. Let his past be what it is, and let us concentrate on the man he reveals to be now, at the present moment, let us look at that.
To me it has become obvious that he has certain qualities [master in oratory, he is obviously highly intelligent, he is a magnificent organizer, and he can get people to follow him]. qualities most others at present can hardly match but in history [or previously] others have; many with disastrous consequences for their countries, because these very qualities were used for the wrong reasons …. let me leave names out …. because I must be short.
Problem the way I see it, is the Senator has his own agenda [which he does not reveal] but he obviously intends to call the Shots and to make or remake the Rules. I think he must be stopped before he rips this country apart. It is probably too late already to reason with him; but it may cause lesser pain if you stop him now; much more pain later if you wait. Is there one single person in this country who can control the Denver Convention if this thing goes that far, or the chaos in the streets? My answer is, I regret, unfortunately, a big NO. But he has got to be stopped. Remember Chicago 1968? It will look like a first grade school picnic after Denver 2008. I myself will make sure I am nowhere in or near any large city or town in August [go hide in the desert somewhere]. Call that scare tactics if you wish; and do whatever you wish; I merely wish to live.
But there awaits an enormous task to prevent the inevitable chaos from spilling over into something which can harm this country for ever.
Comments please?
Everyone seemed to have missed this little gem; I did too, until I sat here twiddling my thumbs while paging through old mail. There it was ….
In all their own previous statements both Senators in running assured America that with President Bush gone everything would be just fine, America will be happy, there won’t be no wars, Senator Obama would end all that, Soldiers home safely by end March …. America, everyone would sing and dance, love each other, a whole World at peace amongst Nations. PARADISE INDEED! soon as President Bush goes.
Why would she think anyone would want to call her at 3am? What crisis could there be?
Funny, isn’t it?