Friday, January 14, 2011

Is Hillary Clinton a Neocon?

Hillary Clinton demonstrated her toughness in the Middle East once again. Speaking in Qatar, she lashed into the Arab states for failing to promote democracy as well as women's and religious rights. Has she become George W. Bush reincarnated? Is she, in fact, a neocon?

Not exactly. Clinton upbraided her Arab audience for promoting extremism by failing to offer new opportunities to the teeming masses for economic and political development, which, by the way, usually go hand-in-hand (though China is trying to skirt the issue). Clinton also pointed out that for all their huffing and puffing about the Palestinians, the Arab states are behind America when it comes to actually providing them with financial support.

But this doesn't mean that Clinton is promoting democracy at the point of a gun. Quite the contrary. Instead, she's announcing, if I read her correctly, that America can't go it alone, that it shoulders too much of a burden in trying to prod the region toward peace. As the New York Times reports,

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