Unfortunately, the decisive action she urged did not “stop the violence in Libya.” Our ambassador to Libya got killed in proximity to an unexplained CIA operation. Mali was destabilized. Libya has had two governments simultaneously drawing salary from its resource revenues. Terror gangs still rule many of the roads. All we managed to prove about Smart Power is that ISIS is what we get in Iraq and Syria when American policy extends and exacerbates a civil war. And a colony for ISIS is what we get in Libya when American policy foolishly tries to end one.
It’s simple, really. Clinton’s rivals can even read their stage directions while performing this attack. Just say: “Barack Obama defeated you by saying that you exercised poor judgment in supporting the war on Iraq. He then foolishly trusted you as his secretary of state, and your signature achievement was the worst foreign policy decision of his administration, the one that exacerbated a refugee crisis that is roiling Europe, and put ISIS within a day’s sail of Sicily. You were wrong about Iraq. You were wrong about Libya. Why should anyone — our European partners, the diplomatic service, the American people, or even the cutthroat terrorists themselves — ever take you seriously as our commander in chief? Of course, they should not.”
Only Rand Paul occasionally brings up Libya as a demerit on the former secretary’s record. The other Republican candidates cannot bring themselves to question the results of force. And Bernie, well, who has time for beheaders when the Koch brothers are subsidizing libertarian academics?
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