Clinton Promises a Demilitarized Foreign Policy

Hearing before the Senate

Facts instead of prejudice, demilitarization and smart use of power: The nominee for Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said during her Senate confirmation hearing how she wants to use her office. She sees the use of military force only as a last resort. For Clinton, the priority should be diplomacy.

Yesterday in the U.S. Senate, confirmation hearings began for Barack Obama’s cabinet appointees. According to the U.S. Constitution, the Senate must approve cabinet appointees before they can take office. A president can use his discretion to fill only those positions below cabinet level. The hearings began in the morning for the nominee for Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. With her daughter Chelsea in attendance, Clinton was welcomed by John Kerry, the committee chairman. In the 2004 Presidential election, George W. Bush defeated Kerry, who was the Democrats’ nominee for president. Kerry had wanted to become Obama’s Secretary of State.

In her introductory comments, Clinton emphasized a demilitarization of American foreign policy and stressed her fundamental agreement with Obama. “We must use what has been called ‘smart power,’ the full range of tools at our disposal. With ‘smart power,’ diplomacy will be the vanguard of foreign policy.” She continued, “The President-elect and I believe that foreign policy must be based on a marriage of principles and pragmatism, not rigid ideology, on facts and evidence, not emotion or prejudice.” This is not a new or a radical concept, but has been valid since ancient Roman times. The Pentagon is in complete agreement with this concept. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made “the case for adding resources to the State Department.” Clinton specifically thanked Gates, the only Bush cabinet member being retained by Obama, for his support. Sometimes military force will be necessary, but it must remain only “as a last resort.”

Iran is being viewed by the incoming administration “with great concern” because of “its sponsorship of terrorism, its continuing interference with the functioning of other governments and its pursuit of nuclear weapons.” The Obama administration will pursue, “through diplomacy, through the use of sanctions, through creating better coalitions with countries that we believe also have a big stake in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear weapon power, to try to prevent this from occurring. We are not taking any option off the table at all, but we will pursue a new, perhaps a different approach that will become a cornerstone of what the Obama administration believes is an attitude toward engagement that might bear fruit. We have no illusions that even with a new administration, looking to try to engage Iran in a way that might influence its behavior, that we can predict the results.” It will clearly say that “a nuclear armed Iran is in no one’s interest under any circumstances.”

To Kerry’s question of whether the bottom line of U.S. policy is that a nuclear Iran is “simply not desirable” or something to be prevented from ever happening, Clinton said “the President-elect has said repeatedly it is unacceptable. It is going to be United States policy to pursue diplomacy with all of its multitudinous tools to do everything we can to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. As I also said, no option is off the table.” On the question of possible direct contacts with Tehran, Clinton said the new administration must first be in control and then survey the situation. The administration would be “looking at a range of possibilities” for the time being. But, nothing it does will “take our friends and allies by surprise.” “The Obama administration will be consulting broadly and deeply. So that when we move, we will move in concert insofar as possible.”

In Afghanistan, the “central front in the war against terror,” a “smart combination of diplomacy, economic development, and military operations” is necessary. On Gaza, Clinton said that Israel, like America, has the right to self-defense and for this reason can count on the full support of America. At the same time, however, the civilian victims on both sides must have an incentive to bring about a lasting solution to the problems in the Middle East. “The confidence and trust with Europe will be deepened.” There will be disagreements, but America has “no more trusted allies.” Clinton said “America cannot solve the most pressing problems on our own, and the world cannot solve them without America. I believe American leadership has been wanting, but it is still wanted.”

Clinton directed a sharp warning at Moscow. Richard Lugar, the committee’s ranking Republican member, asked about the dispute over natural gas and whether the Europeans were actually taking the Russians’ natural gas policy seriously enough. Clinton said that Russia’s natural gas policy is a “significant security challenge.” In the future, there will be a coordinator for energy security issues within the State Department. In view of the seriousness of the situation, this will require a new framework “in which we can talk about energy security issues” with the Europeans. She then added “it may or may not be Article 5.” This incidental but apparently not accidental hint at the assistance article in the NATO Treaty was a verbalization of considerable importance.

During the hearing, Senator Lugar and other Republicans also brought up the subject of Bill Clinton’s global charitable foundation. There had to be a guarantee that there would not be a political conflict of interest between the Secretary of State and her husband. Lugar recommended that the Secretary of State should see to it that no more foreign contributions come into the foundation. The Associated Press reported that, as a Senator since 2001, Hillary Clinton had done political work on behalf of at least six American companies, which later made donations to the Clinton Global Initiative.