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Journalism of Courage
During his campaign, Barack Obama spoke of sitting down for talks with Iran, an idea that Hillary Rodham Clinton publicly criticised.
So the idea that Obama might choose Clinton as Secretary of State might seem incongruous. But foreign policy advisers to both Clinton and Obama said that the two are not as far apart on foreign policy — particularly the issues of Iran and Iraq — as they seemed to be during the primary battle for the Democratic presidential nomination.
While Hillary voted to authorise the Iraq war in 2002, so did a majority of her Democratic colleagues in the Senate. Since then, she and Obama, who opposed the Iraq war, have found their way to similar positions on a timetable for withdrawing American troops. They both support sending additional troops to Afghanistan, and agree on climate change and Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
And while they publicly sparred during the primary over whether Obama, as President, should meet with Iranian leaders without preconditions, Obama has since said that such an outreach would first involve lower-level preparatory work, a position that is closer to Hillary’s.
But a more complicating factor is whether Hillary could be the one to begin that preparatory work.
“I don’t think that Hillary Clinton could do this,” said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian studies program at Stanford University. “When she thought she had no serious opponent in Obama, she was a much more reasonable person on Iran. But the minute she got into the game of trying to embarrass Obama, she began saying things, and the words you say during a campaign do have meaning.”
In May, Iran lodged a formal protest at the UN about comments Hillary had made in an interview in April. Asked what she, as President, would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, she replied: “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the President, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”
Iranian leaders called Hillary’s comments “provocative, unwarranted and irresponsible.” Iranian experts said the choice of Clinton as a possible emissary to Iran would be hard for the regime to stomach, given that women in Iran are not allowed to run for President or to be judges. That did not stop Bill Clinton from appointing Madeleine Albright as Secretary of State, or George W Bush from appointing Condoleezza Rice to the job.
Obama is considering several others for Secretary of State, including Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and former Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota.
Obama could skirt the problem of who could best represent him in initial talks with Iran by appointing a high-level presidential envoy who would report directly to him. Or he could give the portfolio to Vice President-elect Joseph R Biden Jr, who is well-steeped in foreign policy.
Or, if Obama chooses Hillary, he could leave Iran for her to handle, advisers said, under the assumption that having her as his emissary could promote the very ideal of American democracy that leaders in Washington have been trying to advance. It could send a strong signal to Ahmadinejad, who did not think either Obama or Hillary had a chance of winning the election.
