Hillary Clinton: "Rosie the Riveter" of Foreign Policy
Hillary Clinton, showing to be a strong candidate in the current presidential debate, musters up a muscular foreign policy seemingly in attempts to put the stereotype of women as too weak for presidency to rest. However, the force Clinton wants America to have in the war in the Middle East fails to acknowledge the aftermath that affects working families. Clinton’s campaign has the diplomacy her fellow Democratic candidates have, but on the issue of immediate war in the Middle East, Clinton flip flops to a rather aggressive and prudent approach.
Clinton, with her past as the former first lady and Secretary of State, has plenty of knowledge when it comes to international relations and foreign policy. Due to these previous positions, however, Clinton tries to put great distance between her and the positions and decisions she made in the past that weakens her, while also standing by those she made during Obama’s term of 2008. Of course, in running for president, Clinton must also muster up her path that she wishes to put America on.
From Clinton’s official campaign website, her foreign policy can be broken down to three components that are similar to what all candidates propose. Clinton promises to defend and keep America safe using core values, defeat ISIS and terrorism, and strengthen America’s alliances with other nations. Most of her foreign policy has the same diplomacy as her fellow Democratic competitor, Bernie Sanders. On the topic of ISIS and conflict in the Middle East, both Clinton and Sanders calls for the partnership between America and other nations in the Middle East, as America should not and cannot defeat ISIS alone. However, differing from Clinton, Sanders praises the Obama administration’s diplomatic and peaceful actions. Clinton, emphasizing a perspective of delinquency and inevitable betrayal of Iran, promises to take whatever actions necessary.
Part of her foreign policy, Clinton also criticizes Obama for his hesitancies in getting involved with the war. As secretary of state, Clinton was a supporter of Obama’s orders to have noncombatant operations of training Syrians to fight for themselves. But as a candidate, Clinton argues that the process has been too slow and wants to dramatically increase the program’s effect. As part of her promise to strengthen America’s alliances, she plans to militarily strengthen the allies as well. Clinton wants to fund and provide Israel’s military with the greatest weapons. While this may be a wise move, strengthening our partners going into a war, Clinton also wants America to lead the battle against ISIS.
Making the decision to directly be involved in a battle to defeat ISIS should be one of last resort. Even if it becomes necessary to fight, America should not be on the front line of fire. The war should be led by Muslim nations in the region. War is a monster that seeps its poison into the lives of everyone involved. War is never necessarily desired by any nation or its leader, but war occurs and reoccurs. Beyond those brave soldiers on the battlefield, all American lives are put on the line. War ensures loss. Leading the fight, America will suffer more losses than the war already calls for.
The war in Syria is complicated, tangles of who’s fighting and why they’re fighting indicate no end on the horizon at this point. Beyond American lives being on the line, war shatters stability. Resources would be depleted, funneled into another war. When a nation enters a war, needless to say the ethical goal is to minimize the losses. Clinton pushing America to lead the fight entails that Congress would solely focus on supporting the military. Of course the priority should be to protect and support our brave men and women fighting. Unfortunately, with the focus on leading a war would turn a blind eye to the conflicts for our nation’s working families. Conflicts, such as lowering the costs of tuition, providing affordable health care, and creating decent paying jobs, that are discussed as part of campaigning would no longer hold as much importance. The immediate aftermath of leading a nation into a war is not considered.
As part of her campaign, Clinton has a great emphasis on the importance of ethical values, such as human rights and gender equality, to be upholded ubiquitously. While she has long argued for gender equality, Clinton shows to be driven by proving the gender constructs in politics wrong. Being a female candidate with feasible chances, Clinton must overcome sexism. Sexism undermines females as too weak, emotional, and inexperienced to lead. Popular arguments against female presidency have included the inability a woman would have to declare necessary wars. While overcoming sexism and emphasizing gender equality is an important and necessary task, it does not require the decision to enter and lead a war.
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