Whatever Hillary Clinton's long-term plans, some journalists are hyped for her presidential run. As she leaves the State Department, there will be leaks of instances when her plans for foreign policy were turned down by the White House. These will be repeated in 2015-16 should it appear that she was right.Sunday's NYTimes, in one such story, reports that she and David Petraeus (when head of the CIA) devised a plan for the CIA to arm carefully vetted parts of the Syrian opposition. According to the story, the White House "rebuffed" the idea. Though she was a loyal part of the administration and accepted the decision, we are reminded that Clinton is more hawkish than the president, e.g., with Robert Gates (when secretary of defense), she supported the Afghan surge; and joined the French and English efforts to support the Libyan opposition against Qaddafi.

Margaret O’Brien Steinfels is a former editor of Commonweal. 

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