The liberal group MoveOn.org issued a stark warning to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in response to her not-so-subtle knock on President Barack Obama’s foreign policy approach.
In a statement on Tuesday Ilya Sheyman, the executive director of MoveOn Political Action, said that Clinton or “any other person thinking about seeking the Democratic nomination in 2016, should think long and hard before embracing the same policies advocated by right-wing war hawks that got America into Iraq in the first place and helped set the stage for Iraq’s troubles.”
The statement follows comments Clinton made to The Atlantic where she said that Obama should have taken action in Syria. Specifically, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg asked Clinton what she thought of the Obama Administration’s foreign affairs motto, “Don’t do stupid shit.”
“Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle,” Clinton said in response.
Read the full statement from Sheyman below:
Secretary Clinton, and any other person thinking about seeking the Democratic nomination in 2016, should think long and hard before embracing the same policies advocated by right-wing war hawks that got America into Iraq in the first place and helped set the stage for Iraq’s troubles today. These hawkish policy stances are also threatening to undermine the peaceful international resolution of Iran’s nuclear program.
Voters elected President Obama in 2008 to bring the war in Iraq to an end. MoveOn members will continue to stand with elected officials who oppose military escalation that could put us back on a path to endless war.
I support Hillary but this comment about ‘leadership’ is disturbing. I do not want to ‘lead’ which is code for war…we have done enough harm with our meddling.
Simple fact, don’t do stupid stuff is not an organizing principle.
If we, as a nation, had adhered to the idea of not doing stupid stuff, the world would be a better place because as a nation, we have done some awful and stupid stuff in the area of foreign policy.
Excellent. Little bit of a brushback for Hillary. Anything that contains her foreign-policy hawkish tendencies–and remembers some of the POTUS 42 overseas blunders–is probably smart. Glad they did this.
America wouldnt be in IRAQ, again, if wasnt for Hillary “doing stupid shit” like voting for the Iraq war. In essence, Pres. Obama is cleaning up her shit.
Peter Beinhart correctly articulates HRC foreign policy problem(s) in Haaretz.