Legion Troll
A fine upstanding poster
Hillary Clinton’s service as America’s third female secretary of State produced few dramatic diplomatic initiatives.
Now the scandal over Clinton’s use of a private email server while at the State Department, plus her response to the 2012 Benghazi attack and the relentless global crises have overshadowed her achievements and could undermine a pillar of her presidential campaign.
“The first Obama term was much more successful in terms of foreign policy than the second,” said Walter Mead, a foreign policy scholar.
“Because things have not gone as hoped, while the world got in worse shape, it is harder to talk about legacy,” Mead said.
Clinton was not the lead decision-maker in key peace efforts. Her plan to appoint special envoys to handle the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan in early 2009 came to naught, either marginalized or overridden by the White House.
Moreover, some of Clinton’s gains overseas, such as restoring relations with Myanmar after decades of isolation, have faded. The government in Yangon is still accused of regular human rights abuses.
Even what once seemed like victories — the 2011 ouster of longtime despots in Egypt and Libya, for example — have been lost in the wave of violence and chaos sweeping the Middle East.
And the “reset” with Russia went nowhere once Vladimir Putin was elected president in 2012 and asserted a muscular Russian nationalism that put him at odds with numerous U.S. policies.
Unable to shed those controversies, the Democrat nominee has only given one speech that her aides billed as a major foreign policy address.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-clinton-foreign-policy-20160816-snap-story.html