*This article was originally published in The Topeka Capital-Journal, July 30, 2016.
“Hillary Clinton is a hawk.”
This sentence keeps popping up in columns and interviews as if it’s an election-shifting revelation. For example, according to the New Republic’s Jeet Heer, ” … liberals are facing the grim realization that the only alternative to Trump’s frothy isolationism is Clinton’s liberal hawkishness, which has more in common with neoconservatism than the Obama doctrine of prudent restraint.” In a recent Foreign Policy Magazine piece titled “Hillary the Hawk: A History,” Micah Zenko informs Clinton supporters of her “long track record of being generally supportive of initiating U.S. military interventions and expanding them.”
This stream of reminders about Clinton’s hawkishness is unnecessary — is there anyone who still thinks she’s some kind of peacenik? Unlike President Obama — who has always been leery of interventionism — Clinton has long been an advocate of robust deployments of American power. She was a staunch supporter of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, she pushed for the NATO air campaign against Muammar Qaddafi, she recommended the Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan and she was a strong proponent of increased American involvement in Syria.
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