After four years as President Obama’s
secretary of State and America’s ambassador to the world, Mrs. Clinton
is perhaps the globe’s most recognizable woman – one of her few rivals
might be the queen of England – and she figures among the most admired.
Clinton’s
approval rating among Americans is almost unheard-of in the current
climate of over-the-top partisanship: She consistently scores 70 percent
or better. And many political pundits assume the 2016 Democratic
presidential nomination, not to mention the presidency, is hers if she
wants it.
Yet
despite Mr. Obama’s recent pronouncement of Clinton as “one of our
finest” secretaries of State, expert opinions are more divided over the
job Clinton did and the impact she’s had on US foreign policy.
Clinton’s last day on the job is Friday, when she’ll culminate a week of valedictory events and goodbyes to an adoring State Department staff. On Thursday she addressed the Council on Foreign Relations
on the future of American power, after holding a global town-hall
meeting earlier in the week with youths asking questions via satellite.
Also
in her last week, Clinton gave a series of sit-down interviews to some
of the women journalists assigned to the State Department, underscoring
her focus on women’s empowerment.
During
the town-hall meeting, Clinton coyly addressed the question of her
future political ambitions by saying she is “not inclined” at this point
to seek the presidency – though she certainly did not slam any doors
shut. If she does eventually decide to make another White House
bid, most political analysts say they would expect her to run on a
theme of “Hillary can do it all,” in which her tenure as secretary of
State would be an important highlight but not the focus.
For her
protagonists, Clinton has effectively reestablished and reenergized
America’s working relationships with allies and partners that had become
estranged from the United States during the George W. Bush administration.
Beyond that, she began implementation of Obama’s “pivot” to the Asian
Pacific region, they say, by building dialogue and institutional ties
with a rising China
while at the same time strengthening America’s links with the Asian
countries that are feeling the impact of China’s growing weight.
“Hillary
Clinton has been highly successful and has left a very positive mark on
American foreign policy,” says Karl Inderfurth, a former assistant
secretary of State for South Asian affairs who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “In two areas especially” – stewardship of the Asia
pivot and elevation of the role that women and girls play in political
and economic development – “she will have a lasting legacy,” he adds.
She'd embark on an epic swansong around the world as secretary of
state, a dizzying itinerary of east-west and north-south flights that
would take her past 1 million miles in the air at the helm of American
diplomacy and perhaps break her own record of 112 countries visited
while in the post. Then, there would be a long rest, time and work with
her husband, former President Bill Clinton, on development issues and a
sequel to her 2003 memoir "Living History."
Finally, she'd make a destiny-defining decision: whether to try again to become America's first female president.
Her health got in the way: a nasty stomach virus while returning from a
weeklong trip to Europe, exhaustion, severe dehydration, a faint, a
fall and a concussion that led to a brief hospitalization when doctors
discovered a blood clot near her brain. The woman who'd seemed to lay
the perfect groundwork for another presidential bid -- indeed, who'd
made a life carving out her own path -- was sidelined by circumstances
beyond her control.
It was a rare sign of vulnerability in what had been a carefully
charted four years of often grueling overseas travel and
behind-the-scenes politics, where as a peace mediator, international
enforcer and global ambassador of America she fully emerged from the
giant shadow of her husband. But it was not the only sign.
Burden of Benghazi
The deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya,
on Sept. 11, 2012, revealed an episode of State Department
miscommunication on her watch that could feed into her diplomatic legacy
and give future political opponents, should she return to politics, an
opening to exploit.
And so, when she testified to Congress about the attack, both the drive
and the drama forever associated with the Clintons were suddenly back.
In the final spectacle of a diplomatic career that ends Friday when John
Kerry succeeds her, she would not be browbeaten.
Pressed perhaps once too often on why the terrorist assault was miscast
as a public protest in the days afterward, Clinton went after her
Republican inquisitor with her voice rising and quivering in anger.
"What difference, at this point, does it make?" she demanded. "It is our
job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it
from ever happening again, Senator."
On Thursday, Clinton denounced those who still insist the administration lied about the attack.
"There are some people in politics and in the press who can't be
confused by the facts," she told The Associated Press in her last
one-on-one interview as secretary of state. "They just will not live in
an evidence-based world. And that's regrettable. It's regrettable for
our political system and for the people who serve our government in very
dangerous, difficult circumstances."
Whatever the merits of the arguments, Clinton's responses confirmed she
had lost none of the vigor that had taken her from defeated Democratic
Party presidential candidate to one of the world's most popular and
recognizable women.
And, it suggested that despite her recent health troubles, the former
senator and first lady was intent on keeping her political future in her
own hands, even as she laughed off attempts to coronate her as a
candidate-in-waiting.
"I am still secretary of state, so I'm out of politics," Clinton told
CBS' "60 Minutes" in a joint interview with President Barack Obama last
weekend. She cracked: "I'm forbidden from even hearing these questions."
But as Clinton was leaving office, the very appearance of two former
foes so close and so amicable only seemed to underscore Clinton's
eventual succession -- if she wants it.
Weighing 2016
Even before her ailments, people close to her were debating the pros
and cons of another presidential run. Would it be worth the cost in
time, energy and especially money -- her 2008 campaign debt was just
retired in January -- and would it spark a new round of personal attacks
on her, her husband and her character?
Polls show her as the popular favorite for 2016; no Democrat is better
placed right now to unify the party. With instant national appeal and
the highest approval ratings of her political career, she would also
presumably have a head start on any Republican candidate in a general
election. And at age 69, she'd hardly be too old to lead. She'd be five
years younger than Vice President Joe Biden, a possible party rival.
Yet any sense of inevitably is decidedly premature. After all, Clinton
was considered the prohibitive favorite for the 2008 Democratic
nomination for several years, right up until Obama beat her in Iowa.
Like Obama, some of the potential contenders for 2016 are largely
unknown quantities whose strengths cannot yet be measured.
There's no question Clinton's years as a well-regarded senator and
especially her statesmanship in the Obama administration have lifted her
above the partisan fray and improved her standing with the public. Her
favorability rating in polls is at its highest point in her career, 67
per cent in a recent Washington Post-ABC survey, indicating that the
polarization that marked her years in the White House, seen again in the
2008 campaign, has been overcome.
Some of that hard-earned respect would vanish the moment she re-emerges
as the face of the Democratic Party and becomes a critical player in
rancorous debates over immigration, abortion, debt, taxes, health care
and more.
Inevitably, she would in some ways revert to the divisive personality,
who -- fairly or unfairly -- in the 1990s inspired a massive campaign to
defeat her "Hillarycare" health overhaul and became the first
president's wife to appear before a grand jury when called on by the
Whitewater investigation. That probe, the White House travel office
firings, her feminist positions and the many donors to her husband's
campaigns invited to stay at the White House made some voters cynical
about the Clintons' integrity and moved critics to go after her in
strikingly personal terms.
Columnist William Safire, for one, famously labeled her "a congenital liar."
Clinton, of course, wasn't one to shy away from confrontation herself.
In the 2008 campaign, she called Obama a "slum landlord" representative
and called out the Illinois senator with the riposte "Shame on you,
Barack Obama." A decade earlier, she dismissed talk of her husband's
infidelity as part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" that had dogged him
for years.
A mangled tale
Now, reaction to the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, in
particular, is being looked at by her allies as a cautionary tale of the
tone that awaits any future presidential bid. Although no investigation
has specifically faulted Clinton or backed up claims of a conspiracy by
the Obama administration to provide disinformation about the assault,
Benghazi's timing in the final weeks of a close presidential contest led
to bitter and personal criticism of Clinton in the blogosphere, on
cable television and on Capitol Hill.
It went so far that some critics suggested she was faking a "diplomatic
illness," as John Bolton, a former UN ambassador for President George
W. Bush, put it, to avoid testifying on Benghazi.
"There is an obligation here, especially if Secretary Clinton decides
to run for president, to indicate what happened," Bolton said.
With the country pressing for answers after Ambassador Chris Stevens
and three other Americans were killed in the Benghazi attack, Clinton
left the difficult task of presenting the Obama administration's
response to Susan Rice, America's UN envoy and her would-be successor as
secretary of state.
Relying on talking points drafted by U.S. intelligence, Rice delivered
the now-retracted version of the consulate siege as a protest hijacked
by extremists, with no evidence to suggest the attack was premeditated.
Three months later, Rice was forced to withdraw from consideration to
succeed Clinton because of fierce criticism from Republicans in the
Senate.
What's next?
Clinton seems not to have made up her mind on a presidential run,
although she insists, seemingly less strenuously than before, that she
is through with the high-wire of politics. Certainly many of her
supporters, who just days ago launched a super PAC to support another
presidential run, want her to go for it.
At a September meeting in New York, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu asked her: "What are you going to do?" It was an apparent
reference to her post-secretary plans. Clinton shook her head and said,
"I don't know."
Asked on the eve of her departure from the State Department if she
still had contributions to make, she replied "Absolutely," but stressed
that the how and when were not yet clear.
"I haven't decided yet," she told the AP. "I really haven't yet. I have
deliberately cabined it off. I am going to be secretary of state until
the very last minute when I walk out the door. And then I am going to
take the weekend off and then I may start thinking about all the various
offers and requests and ideas that have come my way."
In the final months of her tenure as secretary of state, Clinton helped
secure a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group
Hamas in the Gaza Strip and ordered a series of changes in the
operations of her department in response to the Benghazi attack.
She also has remained committed to core interests such as women and
children in developing economies and civil society in repressive
countries -- issues she has tried to elevate to an equal diplomatic
footing with peace processes and trade talks.
The Bill Shadow
It was not always an easy path. Early on as secretary, amid talk that
she was losing influence within the administration, Clinton embarked on a
lengthy trip to Africa to highlight those issues, only to be upstaged
by the arrival of her husband and his entourage in North Korea to free
two American journalists.
Despite a historic visit to war-ravaged Goma in the Democratic Republic
of Congo, the seven-nation, 11-day tour of the continent is best
remembered for her testy exchange with a student in Kinshasa who asked
what Bill Clinton thought about Chinese influence in Africa. "You want
me to tell you what my husband thinks?" she asked. "My husband is not
the secretary of state. I am. So, you ask my opinion, I will tell you my
opinion. I'm not going to be channeling my husband."
In one early embarrassment, she presented a Russian official with a
button that was supposed to say "reset," conveying the Obama
administration's wish to mend ties with the Kremlin. The button had been
erroneously translated into Russian and read "overcharged."
Melanne Verveer, a longtime Clinton confidante who became the first
U.S. ambassador at-large for women's issues, once said her friend had an
"absolute tin ear for foreign languages." But Clinton has long realized
the value of listening, in any language, and made it a point to hear
out longwinded comments, not just from leaders but ordinary people, in
her travels. Clinton held nearly 60 town hall-style events abroad while
she was secretary, taking questions on topics ranging from her hairstyle
and marriage to drone strikes in Pakistan.
Voice of her own
And, she has not been shy in speaking her mind.
At an event in Pakistan in 2009, Clinton said she found it hard to
believe that no one in the Pakistani government knew where Osama bin
Laden was, prompting an outcry. Again, in Pakistan Clinton defended
deeply unpopular drone strikes against militant targets.
On her first trip abroad as secretary of state, Clinton raised eyebrows
by saying that differences over human rights could not hold the entire
U.S.-Chinese relationship hostage. This upset human rights activists,
who had been sympathetic to her presidential bid.
Clinton stuck to her guns, though, and three years later, she was able
to negotiate the release of the blind Chinese lawyer who had taken
refuge at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, while re-opening a human rights
dialogue with Beijing.
It was one of her biggest diplomatic triumphs, alongside her historic
trip to Myanmar. With signs of the long-repressive regime opening,
Clinton in December 2011 became the first secretary of state in 56 years
to visit the country, urging it along its reform path and sitting down
with the long-imprisoned opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
She traveled to every country in Southeast Asia in the end,
strengthening ties with old enemies from the Vietnam War and showing
China that it wouldn't be able to steamroll its smaller neighbors in
maritime and other disputes without also facing U.S. resistance.
Successes also included a tenuous oil deal between Sudan and South
Sudan, persuading China and others to implement crippling oil sanctions
against Iran and elevating gay rights -- much like she did with women's
rights in the 1990s -- to a new level of global credibility.
Missions unaccomplished
Yet Clinton leaves with many international crises unresolved, such as
Syria's civil war and Egypt's democratic future. The U.S.-Israel
alliance is on shaky ground, terrorism is on the rise in North Africa,
there's an unclear endgame to the Afghanistan war and Israelis and
Palestinians are no closer to a two-state peace solution than they were
four years ago. And, despite endless warnings, Iran's nuclear program
has moved closer to weapons capacity.
In all, Clinton spent 401 days on overseas travel and almost three months in the air.
Oftentimes she made a splash in the world without even trying.
In Italy, an impromptu 2011 shopping expedition to the Salvatore
Ferragamo store with her aide de camp, Huma Abedin, caused a major
traffic tie up in central Rome. A visit to ancient ruins at Cambodia's
famed Angkor Wat temple complex turned the heads of hundreds of other
tourists.
Photos of her drinking a beer at a bar in Colombia made newspaper front
pages. A video of her dancing at a dinner in South Africa became a hit
online as did the "Texts from Hillary" meme, featuring a photo of a
stern-looking Clinton peering through sunglasses at her Blackberry while
aboard a military plane en route to Libya.
A village in India is named for her. In 2010 in Kosovo, Clinton's
motorcade made an impromptu stop at a store called "Hillary" just a
stone's throw from a statue of her husband on the main road from the
airport to the capital of Pristina. She happily posed for pictures there
with her entourage.
She dealt confidently with the first major hiccup of her watch, the
release of hundreds of thousands of classified State Department cables
by WikiLeaks, which caused deep embarrassment as it laid bare
confidential and often harsh assessments of foreign leaders by U.S.
diplomats around the world and put at least several informants at risk.
Aside from her recent health scare, Clinton has not been immune from personal tragedy while serving as top diplomat.
One of her foreign policy mentors, the diplomat Richard Holbrooke, whom
Clinton tapped to run Afghanistan and Pakistan policy, died in December
2010 after suffering a ruptured aorta during a meeting in her office.
Less than a year later, Clinton's mother, Dorothy Rodham, died at the
age of 92.
And, Clinton's own painful memories of marital discord were rekindled
in the summer of 2011 when Abedin's husband, former Rep. Anthony Weiner,
D-N.Y., was forced to resign from Congress after a sexting scandal.
Yet, her four years as secretary of state also yielded personal
triumphs. From her daughter's wedding in July 2010 to her emotional
get-together with Suu Kyi in Yangon and separate meetings with ailing
South African icon Nelson Mandela, a personal idol, Clinton rode the
crest of a wave of popularity she had not seen in her public career
before.
"Get into the arena, stand up for what you believe and put together the
arguments that can win the day," she told the AP as she prepared to
leave office, imparting advice to anyone who might be considering a
career in politics.
"I am making no decisions, but I would never give that advice to
someone that I wouldn't take myself, she said. "If you believe you can
make a difference, not just in politics, in public service, in advocacy
around all these important issues, then you have to be prepared to
accept that you are not going to get 100 per cent approval."
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