That’s what James Taranto (Best of the Web) says, and it seems to me he’s right:
“Former US first lady Hillary Clinton said the “stubborn” policies of President George W. Bush’s administration were endangering stability in the Middle East,” Agence France-Presse reports:
The New York Democrat senator told the London-based Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat that the Bush administration had not been “frank” with the American people concerning the human and financial costs in Iraq.
Clinton said the Bush administration did not have a plan for Iraq and did not have a full understanding of the situation there.
She said the United States was in trouble because it could not abandon Iraq, nor provide enough manpower to run the country, nor gather world allies willing to provide the necessary assistance for the gigantic task.
She described the Bush administration as “stubborn and arrogant” for refusing to admit its mistakes which were endangering US soldiers, Iraqis and stability in the Middle East.
Mrs. Clinton obviously has a perfect right to say whatever she wishes about the Bush administration, but is it really wise to advertise in the Arabic press her belief that the U.S. is in trouble?
I realize that anything one says in any newspaper may get into the Arabic press. But when the readers in the Arab world, likely including Iraq, know the statement has been made to an Arab newspaper, it seems to me that the perceived force of the statement would be magnified: “The American opposition wants us to know that even they think that the U.S. is in trouble.” (The interview was with a British Arabic language newspaper, but naturally the material would be reprinted in other publications in the Arab and Muslim world — the quote in the Best of the Web story is from Brunei Online, with an Agence France Press dateline of Beirut — and the readers will likely perceive the statement as having been made to the Arab community.)
Seems to me that the very likely effect of statements such as this is to magnify the resolve of those who are trying to defeat us, to kill our soldiers, and to take over Iraq (despite the line about “could not abandon Iraq,” which many Iraqis would assume could change if America’s “trouble” only got big enough). It is especially likely to magnify their resolve to keep fighting until the election, rather than to surrender and be seen as giving Bush a victory. And the standard (and often quite persuasive) justification for such criticism even during wartime, which is that Americans need to hear all the arguments to decide whom to vote for, is at its least forceful with a statement such as this one.
UPDATE: Reader Steve Waldman suggests that Bill Clinton has done better on this score than Hillary, quoting a Jan. 2004 New York Post column by Ralph Peters:
Asked by an eager-to-Bush-bash delegate [at a conference in Qatar] if he, Bill Clinton, would have behaved differently after 9/11, our former president said he would have followed an identical course, pursuing our enemies into Afghanistan and beyond. Queried about his position on Iraq, he stated that any disagreements he might have would be most appropriately expressed at home in the U.S., not before a foreign audience. . . .
(I couldn’t find the entire text of the original column, but I’ve seen it quoted in enough places that I think the quote is likely correct.)
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