Hillary Clinton: “I’m Not Prepared…”; Engages In Doublespeak As Violence In Iraq Escalates
Hillary Clinton expressed her thoughts on the U.S. working with Iran – and there are Iranian troops in Iraq as we speak – to deal with ISIS and the violence in Iraq. In a nutshell, the former first lady and Secretary of State says we need to be careful about what we get into, but is this just so much political double-speak?
According to an AP report, Hillary had this to say at a CNN Town Hall meeting:
“I am not prepared to say that we go in with Iran right now, until we have a better idea what we’re getting ourselves into.”
In a related report in the Inquisitr, Clinton recently expressed congressional inquiries into her inaction during the Benghazi Consul attack as “minor league ball.” No word on whether she considers a few thousand extremists from ISIS and their stated desire to re-establish a caliphate in the Syria-Iraq region a “major league ball” issue or a “minor league ball” issue.
While Hillary Clinton is currently on a book tour touting the high principles that led her to refuse to attack Sarah Palin in the 2008 elections and not in any official U.S. government capacity, her opinion continues to carry weight with many, largely because she is considered a likely candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency in 2016.
Bloomberg Businessweekquotes Hillary saying this:
“I’m not in favor of any formal negotiations with or agreements with Iran at this time regarding Iraq.”
It’s unclear whether Clinton is trying to distance herself from President Barack Obama, whose approval ratings have fallen to an all time low, since the AP has already reported that the U.S. has entered into an initial dialog with Iran regarding how to handle the violence in Iraq.
Clinton did not offer a suggestion about what she would do to end the violence in Iraq, nor did she state plainly that she would not be willing to work with Iran. She is on record saying that any deal that we work out with Iran or anyone else should maintain both U.S. and Israeli national security, according to a CBS News report.
By saying she’s “not prepared” to back working with Iran on the violence in Iraq, Hillary has given herself an out however the escalating violence in Iraq plays out. If the Obama administration works with Iran to quell the violence in Iraq and things end badly, she can always take a page out of Obama’s playbook and take to the campaign trail claiming that she never supported working with Iran. If, on the other hand (however unlikely it is), the U.S. works with Iran and are somehow able to defeat ISIS while maintaining Barack Obama’s promise not to commit U.S. ground troops, she is not on record definitively saying we should not have worked with Iran – just that we should be cautious.
What do you think? Can we afford national leaders who won’t say plainly what they think the U.S. should do about major world crises? Should someone who is a likely candidate for President of the United States be prepared to give a definitive statement on what we should do in one of the most critical events on the planet today or is Hillary ‘Minor Leagues’ Clinton’s “I’m not prepared to say” good enough?
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