Hillary the Hawk

Medea Benajamin and I make the anti-imperialist case for Hillary Clinton. Or do we? Guess you'll have to read it.

Bin Laden raid not one in milllion after all

In remarks reported by the U.S. government's official news network, Voice of America, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- like every other Obama administration official this election season -- recounts with pride that glorious spring day when, flowers blooming and birds chirping, a team of Navy SEALs found what they admit was an unarmed Osama bin Laden and shot him dead.

While the rah-rah, Obama-got-Osama! stuff is passé and unremarkable at this point, what's noteworthy is Clinton's boast in her speech that the bin Laden raid was not out of the ordinary at all. It wasn't a one-off, spectacularly exceptional raid undertaken because the target was the world's most wanted terrorist, she says. Gosh no. America does this sort of stuff all the time!

"This may sound really exotic and scary to you all, but we've probably done something similar to this - helicopter in, take the target, look for who you're after, and get out of there - we have probably done it now 1,000 times."

Indeed, the U.S. military has terrorized the people of Afghanistan for years now with night raids that, according to the occupying force's own statistics, have killed hundreds if not thousands of innocent civilians. Being poor brown people, though, the dead don't have names, their passing not trumpeted by every Democratic strategist within shouting distance of a microphone.

Life is so unimportant to self-styled liberal humanitarians that it doesn't even factor into their ostensibly all-encompassing contingency planning, as Voice of America notes:

Even with that experience on the ground, Clinton said President Barack Obama's advisors worked through every contingency they could think of in assessing the bin Laden raid: What if something went wrong with the helicopters, like in the failed effort to rescue hostages in Iran in 1980? When was the next moonless night? What would Pakistan do?

Conspicuously not asked: What if the raid ends up killing innocent bystanders? What if it was a case of mistaken identity and Navy SEALs ended up massacring an innocent family? What if, in their zeal to find and kill bin Laden by faking a vaccination a program in effort to track him down by way of DNA, the U.S. government triggered a polio outbreak in Pakistan?

That's not the only conspicuous absence, though. Check out this description of the raid and see if you can see what's missing:

As the raid progressed, a helicopter damaged its tail section on a wall of the bin Laden compound, so another chopper was sent in from Afghanistan. SEALs moved women and children from the house to shield them from an explosion set off to destroy the damaged helicopter while other SEALs brought out what they hoped was bin Laden's body. "All of this is happening - the body is going out, the women and children are coming in, the reserve helicopter is on its way, but it's not there yet," Clinton says. "There was a lot of breath-holding." 

Somehow Osama bin Laden went from being Osama bin Laden to being a "body," yet in a speech dedicated solely to celebrating his killing, how he was actually killed goes unmentioned. Kind of weird -- and it kind of makes you wonder: Maybe even the likes of Clinton feel a tinge of shame about an execution-style killing of an unarmed man, no matter how nasty of a man he might have been. Or, perhaps, they just fear bragging about those particulars might remind people that the original tale of a cowardly, trembling Osama hiding behind one of his wives was a lie.

Either way, it's probably best to keep the story ambiguous.

State Department warns Americans: Israel might kill you

Following weeks of conspicuous silence, the Obama administration is taking decisive action in response to the Israeli Defense Forces' killing of Furkan Dorgan, an unarmed U.S. citizen aboard one of the ships in the “Free Gaza” flotilla who was shot four times in the head by IDF commandos: it's telling Americans to stay the hell out of harm's way – that is, out of the range of the Israel's U.S. taxpayer-subsidized weaponry.

In a travel warning issued Sunday, the State Department “strongly urges that U.S. citizens” – including all those pesky “journalists and aid workers” who might be tempted to report on the Palestinians' plight – “refrain from all travel to the Gaza Strip”:

The security environment within Gaza and along its borders, including its border with Egypt and its seacoast, is dangerous and volatile. U.S. citizens are advised against traveling to Gaza by any means, including via sea. Previous attempts to enter Gaza by sea have been stopped by Israeli naval vessels and resulted in the injury, death, arrest, and deportation of U.S. citizens. 

In light of the warning, it's worth remembering what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared soon after news broke that an American was among the nine activists bringing aid to Gaza who were massacred by the IDF:

Protecting the welfare of American citizens is a fundamental responsibility of our government and one that we take very seriously. We are in constant contact with the Israeli Government, attempting to obtain more information about our citizens. We have made no decisions at this point on any additional specific actions that our government should take with respect to our own citizens.

Now we know what additional specific action the secretary of state had in mind, and it's essentially the same one the brave knights of Monty Python's "Holy Grail" came up with when confronted with a superficially friendly little bunny rabbit with a penchant for murder: Run Away!

Hillary Clinton admits Israel has nukes

It’s becoming something of an annual tradition for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: travel to the Middle East and in literally every public appearance refer to Iran’s “pursuit of nuclear weapons” and the consequent need for more stringent sanctions. Last March, no less than a half-dozen times in the span of a week Clinton, in press conferences from Egypt to Israel, dished out some of the harshest and most militant rhetoric from the Obama administration up to that point on Iran’s “aggressive” pursuit of nukes. This past week, Clinton again toured the Middle East, reprising her by now familiar role as the Obama administration’s point person for hawkish, moralizing lectures against the few remaining non-U.S. client states in the region.

"We think the time has come for the world community to take a position which perhaps will penetrate into all of the decision-making arenas that exist now within Iran, and cause some reconsideration not of their peaceful program, which I know the Iranian people support and have every right to have, but of their nuclear weapons military program," Clinton said at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha.

Responding to a question during a separate townhall-style interview, however, Clinton seemingly slipped up by declaring that the U.S. goal, "eventually, is to have a Middle East free of nuclear weapons." There is, of course, just one country in the region that possesses nukes: Israel, which is widely acknowledged to have at least 100 of them. The U.S. and Israeli governments, however, officially deny this is case, preferring ambiguity over open acknowledgment, which risks drawing attention to the glorious hypocrisy at play. Even aside from the tacit admission of Israeli nukes, that hypocrisy was already on full display.

Back at the World Forum, Clinton earlier maintained the U.S. position "regarding Iran’s nuclear program is simple. We believe that all states, including Iran, start with the same rights and the same responsibilities." This is demonstrably untrue, though. The U.S. and other Western governments, for example, openly flaunt their nuclear weapons arsenals as part of their official national security "deterrence" (dick waving) strategies as they boost spending on developing new and improved means of incinerating their enemies with atomic efficiency. Existing nuclear powers having been graciously grandfathered in on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, however, these governments need only take meek steps toward reducing their stockpiles, it being okay to possess enough nukes to destroy the world once-over, but twice being a tad gauche. Iran, on the other hand, is not an empire but a mere nation, and as Clinton notes thus only permitted "the right to nuclear power so long as they accept the responsibility of demonstrating unequivocally that their programs are used solely for peaceful civilian purposes."

If a country never even takes the good-faith step of committing to the non-proliferation treaty -- Israel, Pakistan, India; U.S. allies and recipients of taxpayer largess all -- all is permitted, under de facto U.S. policy, seemingly undermining the incentive for signing up to the agreement in the first place, given it subjects a signatory to possible charges of non-compliance but offers little certainty one can pursue a nuclear energy program in peace and security. But reason and sanity have never been useful guides to U.S. foreign policy, which, as Steve Hynd notes, is increasingly recalling memories of the 2002 buildup to the Iraq war, complete with media sycophancy -- the administration's distortion of its own intelligence agencies findings a complete non-story in the mainstream press -- and dubious claims of WMDs and emerging threats dominating the airwaves, so much so even our right and honorable statesmen sometimes forget what year it is.

Take Hillary Clinton (no really, please, take her) at the townhall event in Qatar:

"Now, I have spent a lot of time talking with the leaders, and leading influential people from the Gulf and the broader Middle East. And they worry a lot about Iraq having nuclear weapons."

For remembrance's sake, Clinton on the floor of the Senate in 2002:

"[I]ntelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program."

Seems like old times. Even if not seeking to start an actual shooting war,  each day the Obama administration trumps a threat of an Iranian nuclear weapons program its own intelligence officials and international inspectors have found no evidence to prove even exists makes it easier for Israel -- or a President Palin -- to justify military action of their own. In the meantime, perhaps the best we can hope for is that President Obama's troubles on the domestic front don't lead him to start reading Daniel Pipes.

History, as told by the U.S. government

"We think we have a strategy that will create the space and time for the Afghans to stand up their own security forces and take responsibility.  But we're not going to be, you know, walking away from Afghanistan again.  We, we did that before, it didn't turn out very well.  So we will stay involved, we will stay supportive, and I think that's exactly the right approach."

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Meet the Press, December 6, 2009

Advocates for a “strong” foreign policy of U.S. empire, beyond suffering the ills of projection and overcompensation, possess a remarkable capacity for ignoring inconvenient aspects of history. That is, while those of the bomb-them-‘till-their-free school of thought can point to a long list of countries and conflicts where they argue an American intervention could have prevented massive loss of life -- Rwanda, Darfur, etc. -- they are remarkably unconcerned with any of the negative consequences befalling a policy of constant war (such as the establishment of permanent and sizable constituency directly benefitting from empire and armed conflict that might agitate for wars not always on the basis of Samantha Power’s superior moral sensibilities) or the demonstrated failings of past U.S. interventions (Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, Iran, Iraq...). Conveniently, these are often the same people ordering the bombs to be dropped in the first place.

So when Hillary Clinton, alluding to the presence of al Qaeda in Afghanistan before 9/11, suggests that was a result of the U.S. “walking away” from the region, she’s conveniently gliding over more than a decade of American arms and funding that went to groups we now collectively label “the Taliban” -- and a few folks, like Osama bin Laden, that would later on make a name for themselves turning their fire against their former patrons -- as one would expect from a person in her position. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who as a high-ranking CIA official helped direct funding to the Afghan mujahideen beginning in 1979, has made the same self-serving claim, arguing the the hypothetical actions the U.S. did not take in Afghanistan are more responsible for its present state that the demonstrable, having-actually-occurred actions successive American administrations did take. For those who gain power and prestige from the maintenance of a global American empire -- people like Gates and Clinton, and the countless hangers-on at Washington think tanks and within the State and Defense bureaucracies -- it serves one’s interests well to contrast make-believe accounts of interventions that could be with the less than holy interventions of the real world.

Preferring a fairy tale straight out of Hollywood, Gates and Clinton neglect to mention the very real blowback that came about as result, not of some policy of backwards isolationism, but imperial Cold War proxy fighting aimed at undermining the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan by arming and funding -- via the always reliable Pakistani intelligence service, financial backing courtesy of our theocratic friends in Saudi Arabia -- many of those we now call the Taliban and al Qaeda (who, mind you, are not the same thing). Rather than a failure to build more schools and playgrounds following the Soviet exit, it was a proactive U.S. policy aimed at strengthening the mujahideen with money and arms that ultimately led to their being strengthened. One needn't possess a PhD in international affairs to grasp that cause and effect. The staggering number of Muslims the U.S. government has killed since the late 1980s has only further strengthened those groups by fueling opposition to the United States, often labeled "anti-Americanism" by the media as if it were some sort of irrational religious phenomenon and not a perfectly understandable reaction to American policy in the Middle East.

As becomes more obvious the more you observe those in power, it simply pays to be blissfully unaware -- or to appear that way -- if one wishes to rise to the top of the hierarchy. Consider Gates’ comments rejecting there being any historical comparison between the Soviet and American occupations of Afghanistan:

"First of all, the Soviets were trying to impose an alien culture and, and political system on, on Afghanistan.  But more importantly, they were there terrorizing the Afghans. They killed a million Afghans.  They made refugees out of five million Afghans.  They were isolated internationally.  All of those factors are different for, for us, completely different.  We have the sanction of the U.N. We have the sanction of NATO.  We have the invitation of the Afghan government itself.  We have 42 military partners in Afghanistan."

Boiled down, Gates' defense of the U.S.-led war is this: we’ve got more friends, which I doubt would pass good old St. Augustine’s litmus test. And spoken by a man who oversees another U.S. war that has created five million refugees and, by some accounts, led to the deaths of more than one million people -- to say nothing of the very real death and destruction U.S. policy has wrought on Afghanistan in the last decade alone that Gates so blithely elides -- the remarks are offensively asinine. Again, though, that’s just par for the course, to be expected.

And given the historical illiteracy of much of the major media's celebrity journalists, why should Gates be bothered with repeating uncomfortable truths that don't help the preferred U.S. narrative? It's not like he will ever be challenged on his history, certainly not by the likes of NBC's David Gregory, whose idea of a tough question is asking Gates -- no joke -- "Is failure an option in Afghanistan?" Well, David, no it isn't, I suppose. Practicing real journalism isn't one either, from the looks of it.

Clinton breaks with Kerry on Iran

Earlier this summer Senator John Kerry (D-MA) hinted at a possible change in U.S. policy when the Massachusetts Democrat -- chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a lawmaker more likely to echo administration talking points than openly challenge them -- told the Financial Times that Iran has a right to enrich uranium for peaceful energy purposes, calling the Bush administration’s stance against such enrichment “ridiculous”.

While many reasonably believed Kerry’s position signaled a new stance from the Obama administration, with the FT having earlier reported that such a change in policy was indeed under consideration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put the notion to rest in an interview over the weekend on Meet The Press.

“My view is you hope for the best, you plan for the worst,” Clinton told host David Gregory, continuing:

“Our hope is -- that's why we're engaged in the president's policy of engagement toward Iran -- is that Iran will understand why it is in their interest to go along with the consensus of the international community, which very clearly says you have rights and responsibilities. You have a right to pursue the peaceful use of civil nuclear power. You do not have a right to obtain a nuclear weapon. You do not have the right to have the full enrichment and reprocessing cycle under your control.

David Gregory might have noted that international inspectors and the U.S. intelligence community do not believe Iran has an active nuclear weapons program, but he didn’t.

The sanctimony about the “international consensus” from an administration that continues to assert the right to hold terrorism suspects indefinitely without charge, meanwhile, is a bit rich, if to be expected. Perhaps the most newsworthy aspect of the interview, however, was Clinton’s declaration that Iran has no right to have the “full enrichment” of uranium under its control -- a position Kerry vehemently denounced in the interview with the FT as just more “bombastic diplomacy” and “wasted energy,” adding that Iran has “a right to peaceful nuclear power and to enrichment in that purpose.” Though Kerry was referring to the Bush administration at the time, his remarks drive home the fact that the Obama administration is electing to continue some of the most-criticized policies of his predecessor, with Clinton outdoing even Condoleeza Rice in terms of her "altogether steelier and more terrifyingly hawkish persona."

Worth noting is that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the U.S. government is actively undermining by providing nuclear fuel to non-signatory and known proliferator India, states that parties to the agreement (like Iran) have an “inalienable right . . . to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination”. With that in mind, Clinton's statement that Iran has no right to enrich uranium indicates the Obama administration believes it can reinterpret an international treaty to its liking, the actual text of the agreement be damned.

David Gregory might have noted that rather salient fact, but he didn't.

Lying about Iran: an American tradition

With the Obama administration publicly stating its desire to find a diplomatic solution to Western concerns over Iran's nuclear program, one would think top White House and State Department officials would go to great pains to ensure their statements about Iran comport with the facts. And with Admiral Dennis Blair, the top intelligence official in the U.S., stating Iran has not decided to pursue nuclear weapons and in fact suspended years ago any weapons work it may have engaged, one would think this fact-checking task would be made that much easier. One would think.

The reality? Obama's chief spokesperson and his top foreign policy officials have shown a remarkable lack of concern for the truth, choosing to repeat the Bush administration line about Iran pursuing or developing nuclear weapons despite the fact there is no evidence they are doing so -- and contrary to the view of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran suspended any weapons-related work back in 2003.

Just this week, the administration's most prolific liar on Iran, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during a joint press conference with the prime minister of Haiti stated:

We will continue to work with our allies to make it clear that Iran cannot continue to pursue nuclear weapons. We will stand behind the sanctions that have already been implemented, and we will look for new ways to extend collective actions vis-a-vis Iran's nuclear program.

Meanwhile, a day earlier White House spokesman Robert Gibbs discussed the Obama administration's efforts to halt Iran's "pursuit of its illicit nuclear program":

As you all know, Bill Burns went last week to meet with the P-5 plus one, to discuss the next steps involved. There was unity among the participants about the strategy moving forward, and that the goal remains very clear. The goal is, and remains, a suspension of Iran's illicit nuclear weapons program.

Dana Perino couldn't have said it better. Indeed, as Gibbs noted:

The concern remains the same. The goal remains the same. And that is, as I said, the suspension of Iran's illicit nuclear program.

Gibbs might have added that the tactics also largely remain the same: profess a commitment to diplomacy, extend economic sanctions, and lie lie lie.

Yup, still lying

In case anyone is wondering, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is still making unsubstantiated claims about Iran's nuclear program, ignoring the testimony of the Obama administration's own Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair -- just like the president, the CIA director and the ambassador to the United Nations. Here she is today in a press conference with Panamanian Foreign Minister Samuel Lewis Navarro:

And obviously, we believe that, you know, pursuing very careful engagement on a range of issues that affect our interests and the interests of the world with Iran makes sense, and there's nothing more important than trying to convince Iran to cease its efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon.

The amazing disappearing 2007 NIE on Iran

Power has a strange effect on people, turning what can otherwise appear to be decent human beings into murderers and liars. Take Barack Obama -- a man elected in no small part due to his charisma and compelling personal story -- who took just under 72 hours to kill his first innocent civilians. The day before heralding the need to respect habeas corpus with prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Obama strangely had no problem permitting the extrajudicial killings of alleged Islamic militants and innocent members of their family in Pakistan.

Though the White House proclaims that change has come to America, its increasingly evident change won't come to U.S. foreign policy, particularly with respect to the Bush administration approach of routinely violating Pakistani sovereignty -- a nuclear-armed, politically unstable (nominal) ally. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it in a press conference on Tuesday, "where continuity is appropriate, we are committed to doing that."

Take Iran, and President Obama's repetition of the Bush administration's discredited talking point about that nation's nuclear program in his much ballyhooed interview with Al-Arabiya:

Q: Will the United States ever live with a nuclear Iran? And if not, how far are you going in the direction of preventing it?

THE PRESIDENT: You know, I said during the campaign that it is very important for us to make sure that we are using all the tools of U.S. power, including diplomacy, in our relationship with Iran.

Now, the Iranian people are a great people, and Persian civilization is a great civilization. Iran has acted in ways that's not conducive to peace and prosperity in the region: their threats against Israel; their pursuit of a nuclear weapon which could potentially set off an arms race in the region that would make everybody less safe; their support of terrorist organizations in the past -- none of these things have been helpful.

But I do think that it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress. And we will over the next several months be laying out our general framework and approach. And as I said during my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.

Unfortunately for politicians committed to playing up the threat allegedly posed by Iran, the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate declared that Iran had ended whatever nuclear weapons program it may have once had years ago. Indeed, the fact that the '07 NIE declared with "high confidence" that Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons was once noted by Obama himself (before he attained power), and it remains the official consensus opinion of the entire U.S. intelligence community, which has every reason to play up foreign threats. More importantly, the International Atomic Energy Agency has found no evidence Iran is developing nuclear weapons -- but that hasn't stopped Obama or his secretary of state from regularly and matter-of-factly referring to Iran's "pursuit of nuclear weapons".

Obama and Clinton's statements stand in direct opposition to the findings of their own intelligence agencies. Someone -- a reporter, perhaps? -- really ought to ask them to explain why.

As for Gaza: Those hoping against hope that Obama's conspicuous silence concerning Israel's assault on Gaza was anything other than a tacit endorsement, well . . . here's Secretary of State Clinton:

We have, as I said, some short-term objectives such as a durable ceasefire, which as you know has receded somewhat today because of the offensive action against the IDF along the border.

But of course, we're concerned about the humanitarian suffering. We're concerned any time innocent civilians, Palestinian or Israeli, are attacked. That's why we support Israel's right to self-defense. The rocket barrages, which are getting closer and closer to populated areas, cannot go unanswered. And it's, you know, regrettable that the Hamas leadership apparently believes that it is in their interest to provoke the right of self-defense instead of building a better future for the people of Gaza.

Rhetoric vs. Reality

Last year conservative columnist William Safire, addressing the prospect of a Hillary Clinton/Rahm Emanuel presidential ticket on Meet the Press, remarked that the noted liberal interventionists' rallying cry could be "Invade and bomb with Hillary and Rahm." While a Clinton/Emanuel ticket was not be, the alleged opponent of the hawkish wing of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama, has ensured both will likely have significant sway over U.S. foreign policy for the next four years.

One of the constant refrains in my posts about Obama over the last six months has been that those expecting fundamental change from the president-elect, particularly with regard to U.S. foreign policy -- withdrawing from Iraq, engaging countries like Iran -- would be severely disappointed. For while a smart politician who deftly positioned himself to capitalize on voter discontent with those associated with the Iraq war during the primaries, Obama is far from a radical set on upturning the system. Rather, he has shown himself time and time again to be the very epitome of the cautious, consensus-seeking politician -- one more likely to placate the established interests than take them on. 

While Obama's penchant for conciliation and consensus has been welcomed by many in the wake of the Bush administration's unilateralist approach to governing, that approach is also likely to generate much more in the way of continuity than change, particularly in the realm of foreign policy -- as witnessed by the number of holdovers from the Clinton administration on the Obama team like Madeleine Albright and -- if media reports are right -- Hillary Clinton.

The appointment of Clinton to secretary of state, in particular, has upset liberal antiwar activists who (rightly) thought the former first lady a hawk for unrepentantly backing the Iraq war and the sanctions and official policy of "regime change" that preceded it -- and who (wrongly) believed Obama, who contrasted his 2002 speech against the war with Clinton's early and loud support as evidence of his superior judgment and the failure of the Washington establishment, would as president break from the Washington foreign policy establishment.

The last major party candidate who even talked of significantly altering U.S. foreign policy was George McGovern in 1972 -- every candidate since, Obama included, has embraced America's right to intervene militarily around the world to promote its interests. Jimmy Carter officially embraced the U.S.'s sole right and responsibility to intervene in the Middle East to protect its oil.

But the idea that Obama was a neo-McGovernite peacenik -- as claimed by Republicans, and wished by antiwar activists -- was always rooted in the campaign's rhetoric rather than the substance of Obama's views. Part of the reason for this misperception was willful, but part of it can also be traced to inaccurate media reports that conflated Obama's moderate deviations from Bush administration policy with radical departures.

Case in point: Obama's pledge, as reported in news story after news story, to "withdraw troops from Iraq." In reality, Obama has long supported merely withdrawing "combat" troops from Iraq -- based more recently on "conditions on the ground" --  and maintaining a "residual" force in the country to combat terrorists and train the Iraqi military; a platform that is arguably less "antiwar" than the status of forces agreement that the Bush administration just negotiated with the Iraqi government.

With that in mind, the hawkish Clinton as secretary of state makes perfect sense, especially when you realize, as the New York Times notes, that the differences between her and Obama during the Democratic primaries were for the most part merely rhetorical:

While Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama agree most of the time on foreign policy, during the campaign she made a point of highlighting their differences, seeking to paint him as unsophisticated. Now those differences will be brought into stark relief as she seeks to become into Mr. Obama’s emissary to the world.

On Iran, for instance, Mrs. Clinton staked a position during the primaries to the right of Mr. Obama. She voted in favor of a measure more hawkish than what even most of the Bush administration had been willing to venture, asking Mr. Bush to declare Iran’s 125,000-member Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. Mr. Obama did not show up to vote that day but said that if he had, he would have opposed the bill.

Many Iran experts criticized the bill, saying it was similar to Iran’s declaring the United States military a terrorist organization because it carried out Mr. Bush’s orders. Even some members of the Clinton campaign’s foreign policy team at the time privately disagreed with the vote.

But the bigger fight between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama was over the issue of talking to Iran, which Mrs. Clinton could soon find at the top of her portfolio. When during a debate Mr. Obama termed “ridiculous” the notion of not talking to adversaries, Mrs. Clinton sharply criticized him, calling that position “irresponsible and frankly naïve.”

The difference between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama on the issue is more perception than reality, advisers to both now say. Mr. Obama has said he would have a lower-level envoy do preparatory work for a meeting with Iran’s leaders first, and Mrs. Clinton has said she favors vigorous diplomacy and lower-level contacts as well.

On Iran, it's worth noting that while Obama's campaign criticized Clinton as a reckless militarist for voting to label the Revolutionary Guard a "terrorist organization", Obama himself told AIPAC just this summer that the IRG, in his view, had been "rightly" labelled a terrorist group. Meanwhile, Obama's backtrack on meeting with foreign leaders of "enemy" nations -- such as Cuba's Raul Castro, as I noted in a piece during the campaign -- further reveals the would-be change candidate's efforts to more closely align with the same elite that brought the world the Iraq war.

To expect a candidate who during the campaign endorsed unilaterally attacking a nuclear-armed ally, Pakistan -- and pledged his support for Israel's disastrous and deadly war on Lebanon in 2006 -- to be a peacenik was always a fantasy. As Obama transitions from campaigning to governing, however, it will be a fantasy increasingly difficult to maintain:

Aside from Clinton and [Bush Defense Secretary Robert] Gates, the roster of possible Cabinet secretaries has included Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), who both voted in 2002 for the resolution authorizing President Bush to invade Iraq, though Lugar has since said he regretted it.

"It's astonishing that not one of the 23 senators or 133 House members who voted against the war is in the mix," said Sam Husseini of the liberal group Institute for Public Accuracy.

It certainly is astonishing that no antiwar voice has been considered for any position higher than White House janitor, but not if one were paying attention during the campaign. No doubt, like during the campaign, Obama will continue to enjoy a good deal of support from professed liberal antiwar types, likely well into his first term -- the reality of his business-as-usual, militaristic foreign policy views (such as a "surge" of tens of thousands of U.S. troops into Ira-- excuse me, Afghanistan) be damned.

The endorsement that speaks for itself

As an outspoken supporter of the Iraq war -- and of the earlier policy of starving hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children to death -- Hillary Clinton is of course a widely respected figure in Washington when it comes to foreign policy. No doubt Clinton's illustrious track record of advocating a belligerent though "humanitarian" militarism (once criticized by President-elect Obama in an earlier, forgotten time) was a key factor in her winning a glowing endorsement to be the next secretary of state from a fellow war criminal who once occupied the office:

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Henry Kissinger said Hillary Clinton, frontrunner to be the next U.S. Secretary of State, would be an "outstanding'' appointment to the post.

New York Senator Clinton appears to be President-elect Barack Obama's leading choice for secretary of state, according to a Democrat familiar with the matter.

"She is a lady of great intelligence, demonstrated enormous determination and would be an outstanding appointment,'' Kissinger, who served as secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, told the World Economic Forum's India Economic Summit in New Delhi today.

Having overseen the deaths of millions of innocent civilians in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, Kissinger -- in a just world -- would be considered, at best, a pariah whose endorsement would be more toxic than Al Qaeda's. But in the United States, those who advocate and facilitate disastrous, illegal wars of aggression are considered well-respected statesmen, with critics of American exceptionalism excluded from respectable mainstream discourse.

Kissinger's endorsement of Clinton should at least provide a clue to those self-described anti-war progressives expecting great things from the next president that -- rather than great change -- the incoming Obama administration will more often than not represent continuity, particularly with regard to foreign affairs.

As I like to point out to my Obama-adoring friends: any man who can win the endorsement of both Colin Powell and Code Pink is bound to disappoint one or the other. I'm guessing it won't be Powell.

Electing the next president of... Israel?

In comments to a post by Daniel Larison at The American Conservative regarding the idiotic meme that calls for Democratic Party "unity" are "fascist", a blogger by the name of "Grumpy Old Man" points out a truly remarkable statement made by Clinton campaign surrogate Ann Lewis reported by Dana Milbank a few weeks ago.

Speaking to a gathering of American Jews, representatives of both the Obama and Clinton campaigns attempted to demonstrate their pro-Israel credentials. But unfortunately for Obama, his representative, Princeton professor Dan Kurtzer, was unable to outdo the brazenness of the Clinton campaign and their representative, former Clinton administration spokeswoman Ann Lewis:

Next question to Kurtzer: Obama's assertion that he needn't have a "Likud view" -- that of Israel's right-wing party -- to be pro-Israel. Kurtzer explained that Obama wanted to see a "plurality of views." Silence in the room.

To that, Lewis retorted: "The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel. It is not up to us to pick and choose from among the political parties." The audience members applauded.

Silly me. I thought the role of the president of the United States was to support the decisions that are made by the people of the United States, not any other country. But then again, Israel isn't just "any other country," and a major party candidate has nothing to lose by expressing absolute fealty to the most right-wing Israeli policies, however much those policies may actually hurt both the United States and Israel. On the other hand, expressing the most mild of criticisms of Israeli actions -- such as the immoral and counterproductive collective punishment of the people of Gaza -- is likely to get one branded as "far left" or an anti-semite. In Obama's case, merely suggesting that the United States should listen to a plurality of Israeli voices has gotten him roughly the same treatment in some quarters.

However, with the rise of pro-Israel groups in the United States that aren't entirely beholden to the Israeli government's more destructive policies, the political climate may slowly be shifting to the point that sane discussion on Israel and Palestine may someday be a reality. Maybe.