By the time Hillary Clinton finished her sturdy and detailed testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, the lives of millions of people around the world began to change. That may sound like hyperbole, but I believe the real news of Clinton's historic hearing ahead of her certain confirmation as U.S. Secretary of State was lost in the usual shallow tidal pool of what passes for national political commentary in this country.
What Clinton previewed in her impressive appearance was no less than a massive shift in the face of American foreign policy, and even amidst the current financial meltdown, the new face of the Obama Administration may represent the real change so many have been waiting for. Like it or not, American foreign policy is one of the strongest forces in the modern world - and Clinton made it clear (in both her oral testimony and in answers to written questions) that potentially dramatic shifts are on the horizon.
Take Cuba. For the first time since JFK, an American administration promised to ease the embargo (starting with family travel and remittances) that has locked U.S.-Cuban relations in a strange and chilly timewarp of Cold War loathing and South Florida electoral politics. The initial policy changes are vague and rather thin. But as indie journalist and longtime hemispheric analyst Al Giordano put it: "That’s a super big deal, and it’s the crack through which, if implemented, more sweeping changes will plow through."
That crack was even slimmer in the SecState designee's brief discussion of the disproportionate and increasingly horrifying Israeli invasion of Gaza - yet the new language Clinton used, however slight its difference in plain English, signaled the kind of change that means something to diplomats - and earned notice in outlets ranging from the Huffington Post to Al Jazeera. The key word was "legitimate" in reference to the political and economic aspirations of the Palestinian people (even while rejecting direct negotiations with Hamas). Wrote the HuffPo's Ryan Grim:
Mainstream American politicians are famously reluctant to utter the words "suffering" and "Palestinian" in the same sentence. By breaking from that tradition, Clinton appeared to send a signal to Israel that that it would not have a free hand to operate in the Middle East.
Israel's cynical timing of its operation to coincide with the ultimate dead zone period in American politics shows just how much U.S. policy really matters in the endless Palestinian question. Just as it does in so many quarters. As Taylor Marsh pointed out, international journalists focused squarely on the actual policy news that was made during Clinton's testimony, not the lunatics:
The world welcomed the change, because the bigger picture has nothing to do with Bill. That Clinton's respect from the Senate Foreign Relations committee infuriated wingnuts and the usual suspects like David Shuster, who couldn't wait to give Christopher Hitches another chance to bloviate about the Clintons, but was relegated to a sideshow, was fitting. Because the signal sent from President-elect Obama through Clinton was received loud and clear around the world.
And then there was Melissa McEwen's quote of the day at Shakesville - to read it is to know Change We Can Believe In, and to look forward to next Tuesday.
from Amazon.
I suppose it is a Great Leap Forward when an American politician dares to refer to the fact that Palestinians are suffering. But. Reuters recently ran a news report stating that ‘US officials’ are hoping that after Israel has smashed Gaza to smithereens and presumably ousted Hamas, rebuilding efforts funded by the West under the benign rule of the Palestinian Authority will eventually make Gazans grateful for the ‘lesson’ Thomas Friedman wants to teach them.
It's not possible to blame all this on Bush.I doubt that Obama or Clinton disagree with the foregoing in any meaningful way. The US has never been an honest broker on this issue, and that was true during the Clinton Administration and part of the reason the Camp David deal failed.
However, the news on Cuban policy is great. I hope there’s follow-through.
Posted by: Susie | January 15, 2009 at 03:18 PM