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Photo courtesy: state.gov
As US President Barack Obama takes his oath of office for his second term, one of the most prominent names who served under him during his first four years will not be joining him — Hillary Rodham Clinton. Bested in the Democratic primaries by Obama, Clinton served Obama in one of the most powerful positions in the US government, the Secretary of State. Yet as she leaves office, what is the legacy Clinton leaves behind?
It is not an easy task to make such evaluations, particularly in the era of the imperial presidency. Furthermore, the public at large has an inflated image of the SecState owing to the preponderance of American military and economic power. Yet international leaders are also focused nationalists, brazen manipulators, and opportunists willing to use world crises for their own ends. Clinton also enjoys
tremendous popularity, voted by Americans as the most admired woman in the world 12 years in a row and 17 times since she became First Lady in 1993. In many eyes, her achievements are magnified and her failures diminished. Another factor is that some policies bear fruit only in the long run, and it is too soon to be speaking of Clinton’s legacy. Thus, any judgment must be considered with a pinch of salt.
Clinton’s term has been beset with many challenges — some inherited from the previous administration such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and a few new ones such as the Arab Spring, Iran, and Pakistan. In an era of receding US influence, Clinton has had to rely more on persuasion than economic or military inducement than her predecessors did. The results have been somewhat lacklustre. To be fair to the SecState, however, social media, terrorism, and cyber attacks have dispersed threats and created a far more complex world for the simple exercise of 20th century state power.
Clinton is largely credited with persuading the President to intervene militarily in Libya in support of the rebels against Muammar Qaddafi. Yet much of her efforts were tarnished when Islamists attacked the US consulate in Benghazi and killed the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, among three other US citizens. As revolution swept across the Middle East, it was evident that the Department of State had no strategy to handle the situation. On the one hand, many observers saw it as yet another sign of US hypocrisy when Foggy Bottom chose to ignore the unrest in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq; Syria and Yemen only saw a delayed and mild response. On the other hand, Washington incurred the suspicion of its traditional allies too, who perceived the US reaction to the Egyptian conflagration as an abandonment of a long-time ally, Hosni Mubarak. “We were perceived to have thrown Mubarak under the bus,” said Strobe Talbott, Deputy Secretary of State under Bill Clinton.
