Hillary Clinton's 'Major Foreign Policy Address' Was Anything But

It made sense to remind voters that [Donald Trump] advocates torture and the assassination of relatives of terror suspects "even though they are war crimes." It's important to keep front and center Trump's threats to send tens of thousands of U.S. ground troops to fight in Middle East wars (at least when he's not counseling against interventionism, as he does at other times). And for the target audience of this speech - apparently independents, centrist and right-wing Democrats, and Republican moderates - it also made political sense to rail against Trump's threats to "abandon allies" by leaving NATO or (gasp!) being "neutral" on Israel-Palestine. She spoke more or less approvingly of the Iran nuclear deal, but bragged that her role was to "lead the effort to impose crippling global sanctions," not to actually carry out negotiations. She repeated the debunked claim that "Iran was racing toward a nuclear bomb" when the Obama administration took office and then immediately pivoted to a reminder that the U.S. "will act decisively if necessary, including with military action" against the country if the deal falls through - because, she says, "Israel's security is non-negotiable." It was a notable absence. Most especially because [Hillary Clinton] calls for a new Libya-style "no-fly zone" to be established in Syria - something she didn't mention in this speech. She was cheerleading for intervention in Libya in 2011 when then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a Republican, challenged her. "A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses," he warned. He was clear that a no-fly zone is an act of war, and wars have consequences. Clinton's plan calls for just that kind of a war against not only the Syrian government, but potentially its military allies Iran and Russia as well. Her "foreign policy speech" didn't spell that one out this time.