Hillary Clinton and the dangers of hubris

The Baltimore Sun

CHICAGO -- During the Democratic debate in South Carolina, I heard something I never expected to hear: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton coming out against U.S. military intervention.

At least I think she was coming out against U.S. military intervention. Asked if U.S. troops should be sent to Darfur, the New York Democrat made a valiant effort to dodge the question by declaiming about sanctions, divestment and U.N. peacekeepers. But when pressed, "How about American troops on the ground?" she finally said, a bit awkwardly, "American ground troops I don't think belong in Darfur at this time."

But don't bet that she'll stick to that position if she's elected. It goes against type. Mrs. Clinton favored intervention in Haiti in 1994. She favored intervention in Bosnia in 1995. She favored intervention in Kosovo in 1999. As first lady, Mrs. Clinton said, "I am very pleased that this president and administration have made democracy one of the centerpieces of our foreign policy." Before the Kosovo war, she phoned Bill from Africa and, she recalled later, "I urged him to bomb."

Among her critics, Mrs. Clinton is known for a mother-knows-best domestic policy that relies on overbearing interference from Washington to remake the landscape to her specifications. The flip side is a mother-knows-best foreign policy that relies on overbearing interference from Washington to remake the landscape to her specifications.

Democrats hope that when it comes to international affairs, Mrs. Clinton would represent a big change from President Bush. Republicans harbor that fear. In truth, this is one realm where the two are more alike than different.

She didn't support the war because she was hoodwinked by Mr. Bush. She didn't do it for strictly political reasons. She supported it because of her conception of America's proper role in the world - which combines a thirst for altruistic missions with a faith in the value of military force to get what you want. Those same impulses, of course, motivated the neoconservatives who urged President Bush to go into Iraq. On the morning after the South Carolina debate, the Clinton campaign trotted out former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright to gush about the senator's declaration that she would not meet with various dictators "until we know better what the way forward would be. ... She gave a very sophisticated answer that showed her understanding of the diplomatic process."

Mrs. Albright is the renowned diplomat who helped the Clinton administration blunder its way into an 11-week aerial war in Kosovo. Mrs. Albright was confident that Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic would cave at the first whiff of gunpowder, and was shocked when he didn't. That misjudgment had disastrous consequences.

Like Iraq, the Kosovo war demonstrated the folly of taking military action without preparing for the worst. Both also showed the dangers of unchecked hubris. But those are not lessons Mrs. Clinton has necessarily absorbed. When she ran for the Senate in 2000, she mocked Republicans who think "we should intervene with force only when we face splendid little wars that we surely can win, preferably by overwhelming force in a relatively short period of time." On the contrary, she said, we "should not ever shy away from the hard task if it is the right one."

As Michael Crowley of The New Republic has noted, she had another reason for supporting Mr. Bush on Iraq. "I'm a strong believer in executive authority," she said in 2003.

There you have it. A Hillary Clinton presidency promises to unite Madeleine Albright's zeal for using bombs in pursuit of liberal ideals with Dick Cheney's vision of the president as emperor. Won't that be fun?

Steve Chapman is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. His column appears Mondays and Fridays in The Sun. His e-mail is schapman@tribune.com.

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