“I think Mrs. Clinton finds herself in the middle of a very ironic dilemma,” said Bruce Riedel, of the Brookings Institution, who, like almost everyone interviewed, spoke with POLITICO before Clinton’s aide issued a statement. “She probably lost the nomination for the presidency in 2008 because Barack Obama had spoken out about a stupid war and now he’s put her in the place where she either supports him or speaks out against it. From a political standpoint I think she’s in a tough place.”…
Lawrence Kolb of the Center for American Progress argued that the position Clinton outlined Monday night – supporting the president in going to Congress and aa limited strike, while also being able to remind people she’d wished she had been able to do more while at State – puts her in a “no-lose position.”
“So they’ll do something, and as long as it turns out well and as long as no Americans get killed no one’s going to care,” Kolb said in an interview shortly after Clinton’s aide issued the statement.
“I think the stakes for her are entirely determined by what happens,” added a senior Democrat, adding, as Kolb did, that the major concern for Clinton is mission creep and the strike becoming broader in scope than originally intended.
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