The mainstream and left-wing media has slapped the label
“hawk” on Hillary Clinton, but if we are to believe the words of her senior
policy advisor, Jake Sullivan, a more accurate description would be call her a
“coalition-builder.” It’s clear from the comments Sullivan made in front of an
audience of about 250 people at the Asia Society on Park Avenue in New York
this week that, whether engaged in peaceful or war-like activities in other
parts of the world, Clinton will only act after deliberations with other
nations and within the context of an organized coalition.
A Google News search yielded seven media stories about Sullivan’s
remarks at the Asia Society, including the Society’s own blog, all of which
focused exclusively on Sullivan’s short comments on Donald Trump’s lack of
qualifications and dangerous statements. This comment took about one minute of
the more than an hour Sullivan devoted to presenting how Clinton will approach
foreign affairs.
The more important message—and story—is the Clinton approach
to dealing with a wide range of problems, from Syria to global warming, which
is to build a coalition of all parties, look for common ground and act
collectively. Implied but not stated by Sullivan, who is Vice President Biden’s
national security advisor and a senior advisor to the
Iran nuclear negotiations, is that collective action assumes collective
responsibility and financing.
Her approach to the knot of problems in the Middle East
demonstrates how Clinton hopes to implement this vision of cooperation.
Sullivan says that Clinton sees three main challenges in the Middle East:
1.
The destabilization of regimes, often brought
about by terrorists and violent extremists.
2.
The rise of militant right-wing Islamists.
3.
The long-term hostilities between Iran and Saudi
Arabia and the other Gulf States.
Clinton will be willing to ensure that Iran will not
destabilize Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States, but in return the United
States will expect the Saudis and other Gulf rulers to:
·
Contribute to the fight against ISIS
·
Stop funding terrorism
·
Begin internal political and social reforms in
their countries.
Sullivan calls Clinton “clear-eyed” about Iran, by which he
means that she still considers the regime hostile to U.S. interests, but she
sees the benefit of working with the Iranians, especially in Syria. Clinton
does not believe the Syrian problem can be solved without a new government and
that any solution to the Syrian problem must have the agreement of both Russia
and the United States to succeed. My
understanding of a “hawk” is someone who knee-jerks to calling in the military
like John McCain. Clinton’s first step to solving the Syrian crisis is
decidedly unhawkish: to negotiate “safe areas” within the country for refugees.
Sullivan kept stressing that the United States cannot be a
unilateral player, but must always act in concert with other countries,
whatever the region or issue. She will put a particular reemphasis on working
more closely with China, seeing no reason why China and the United States can’t
be friendly competitors. Clinton sees five important areas where the interests
of China and the United States coincide:
1.
Climate change
2.
Terrorism
3.
The stability of Afghanistan, which borders
China (and five other countries!)
4.
What Sullivan labeled “G-20” issues of trade and
international economics.
5.
North Korea
Clinton wants the United States and China to cooperate to
force North Korea to renounce development of its nuclear capability. Sullivan
pointed out at the Asia Society that every major economy was engaged in
sanctions against Iran, which produced the nuclear deal. He cautioned that the
relationship between China and the United States has not reached the point at
which the two nations would act in concert on North Korea.
On issue after issue, Sullivan described Clinton as taking a
studied, cautious approach that focused on alliance-building and not
saber-rattling. The sense I got from Sullivan is that Clinton is not afraid to
use force, but will depend first on peaceful resolution of international issues
that protects the United States’ interests but recognizes the interests of
other countries.
Whether left-wingers like the Clinton foreign policy depends
on whether we look at the glass as half empty of half full. Thus, I would
prefer it if the first thing Sullivan said was that Clinton would unilaterally
shut down the United States’ nuclear capability and stop selling and
facilitating the sale of military-grade weapons to all foreign countries. She
did not and will not. That’s the empty part of the glass.
But in the context of 70 years of America imperialistically
pushing its weight around, undermining democratic regimes such as in Chile and
Iran and pursuing useless wars like Viet Nam and Iraq, Clinton’s approach,
which echoes that of President Obama and her husband, looks promising and
dovish. I don’t believe the nonsense that Obama’s mishandling of foreign
affairs led to the rise of ISIS and the splintering of Syria. George W. Bush’s
ill-conceived Iraq War definitely caused ISIS; it also contributed to the
destabilization of Syria and to the growth or terrorism by giving proof to the
Islamic extremists who consider the United States the real rogue, devil state. Nothing
Bernie Sanders has said has convinced me that he will be any more left-wing in
his foreign policy than Clinton.
All the Republicans—including Donald Trump—proclaim that
they will be quick to use force to address international disputes. Trump talks about being a better negotiator
than the representatives of other countries, a kind of naïve American
exceptionalism masquerading as global bullying. It remains to be seen whether Trump
keeps spouting isolationist rhetoric when it comes to trade and immigration, or
retreats to Republican orthodoxy. On the most significant long-term global
issue—climate change—Clinton is light-years ahead of the GOP, which still has
its official policy the denial of global warming. Compared to the unstable Trump and the war-mongering
Republic foreign policy establishment, Clinton’s foreign policy is definitely
superior, with more positives than negatives. She remains within the mainstream of the last
70 years, but will move that mainstream further left, as Barack Obama has done.
Yes, the idealist in me is disappointed, but the realist understands that
electing Clinton (or Sanders) is critical to making the United States safer while
implementing a more moral and less bellicose foreign policy.
The moderator at the Asia Society presentation was the very
witty and knowledgeable Kevin Rudd, former prime minister of Australia and
current president of the Asia Society Policy Institute. He pointed out that Asia Society had offered
a forum to discuss foreign issues to every announced candidate for president
and only Hillary Clinton had agreed.
Let’s hope that Donald Trump presents before the Asia Society membership
(and Sanders, too, if he does it before the convention). More significantly,
let’s hope that more of the news media cover the presentation and that coverage
focuses on the strategies the candidates propose and not the name-calling to
which the news media seems to want to reduce all campaign stories.
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