2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: The clip of Hillary laughing with a Repug about bombing Iran deserves its own thread. [View all]karynnj
(59,523 posts)in making the world less dangerous. You and I may disagree on what policies in the middle east (or here) could lessen the danger, coming from that area of the world -- but I am sure this video is counter productive. Consider how effectively the right (and even some Democrats) have used outrageous comments from Ahmadinejad.
Consider the effort that both Obama and Kerry made to put out statements for the Iranian new year - with Kerry referring to his Iranian American relatives. Those comments were clearly designed to humanize these men and to signal they saw Iranians as people.
There was an interesting Clinton email in the last batch where she forwarded a pretty cryptic Kerry email (likely on Iran and the very early efforts without writing anything that could be classified) -- she forwarded it to Jake Sullivan -- and both seemed rather dismissive.
To me, the differences go to the heart of the difference between Obama and HRC. Obama really did side with hope and a huge desire to avoid the horrors of war, where HRC might well have thought it too low a risk to succeed and taken a more militant path. ( Note that - Kerry made the first connections and Obama opted to go for it -- and HRC did assign some top people - including Sullivan to work on the secret Oman negotiations. She also took the lead in getting the world on board for the tough sanctions - something needed both wanted by the neo cons AND something that helped bring Iran to the table. Until the negotiations worked, she was noncommittal on them having any chance to work. She has however since then duly taken credit for starting the process while giving as little credit to Kerry as possible. The question I have - which obviously will never be answered is whether she would have committed the effort that Obama did had she been President for something seen to be far more likely to fail than succeed. )