Israel Matzav

Clinton to take the fall for Obama's Mideast failures?

You will recall that Secretary of State Clinton ran against President Obama for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in 2008. It was a bitter fight, with Clinton not conceding the nomination without talk of a floor fight after the primary season had ended.

When she became Secretary of State, there were some expressions of surprise that she would agree to leave the Senate to take a position in the Obama White House. There were also some astute political analysts who said that Obama had Clinton exactly where he wanted her: By giving her a senior position in the White House, Obama had tied her hands from running for the Presidency in 2012, and by taking the most high profile issues away from her by the use of 'special envoys' (George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke), Obama was ensuring that her political career was effectively over.

All of that has proven to be true in the last week. Last week, Clinton disavowed any interest in running for elective office ever again. Now, reports Laura Rozen, Clinton is taking the fall for Obama's insistence on a 'settlement freeze.' Rozen reports that what Clinton will say - at what will apparently be a key policy speech at the Brookings Institution on Friday - will be an effort to salvage what is left of her own credibility in light of her doing nothing but Obama's bidding on the Middle East for the last 23 months (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due to make a statement Wednesday on the Middle East peace process. On Friday, Clinton will speak to the Saban forum, which will also be addressed by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

There will be "no dramatic change" in policy that Clinton announces, a second U.S. official said Tuesday on condition of anonymity.

"The tug of war inside the administration is [over] whether to make [Clinton's] pitch strong and determined but without saying anything of substance, or whether she needs to say something about U.S. views to bring the Palestinians back to the table following the settlements business," a senior American Middle East hand said Tuesday.

"What seems to be lost thus far in the debate is how her remarks will impact her own credibility: she's the one who originally called for a total freeze and then had to call the partial freeze 'unprecedented;' and she's the one who spent seven plus hours with Netanyahu trying to hammer out a deal that ultimately failed. If she doesn't say something substantive -- however determined ... the words -- will she continue to be taken seriously," the senior American Middle East hand continued.

But the 'total settlement freeze' was an Obama concept - not Clinton's. Clinton was sent out to support it at a time when the Israeli government thought it could drive a wedge between Obama and Clinton on the issue, because Israel felt more comfortable with Clinton from the get-go than it did with either Obama or Mitchell. (Significantly, Clinton is the only senior member of the Obama administration to meet with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and she has done so twice). It was Clinton who was asked to do Obama's dirty work in March by 'dressing down' Netanyahu for 43 minutes over the Ramat Shlomo construction permit after the issue had seemingly been resolved by Netanyahu and Vice President Biden. And it was Clinton who was sent to meet with Netanyahu during Obama's failed tour of the Far East so that when the 'settlement freeze extension' failed - as it inevitably would - it would be Clinton's deal and not Obama's.

Sometimes cabinet members get called on to take a fall for their bosses. Rarely in the history of American politics has a cabinet member taken so deep a fall for a President whom she didn't even like as Clinton has taken for Obama. While a year ago, the talk was that if Clinton left early it would be a sign that she would challenge Obama for the Presidency, it now seems far more likely that she will leave because Obama has destroyed her credibility and therefore she is no longer capable of making a positive contribution to the Obama administration. Unfortunately, her replacement is likely to be even more hostile to Israel - not less.

Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, settlement freeze extension

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:20 PM