On the one
hand she was America’s first female President. On the other
hand, she now had Responsibility, with a capital R. And her main
responsibility was to defend America, a task vastly complicated
by the fact that Iraq was once again in hostile hands, Iran had
successfully tested a nuclear device, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak
had been overthrown by the Muslim Brotherhood and Osama bin Laden
had resurfaced in a breakaway province of Pakistan.
The bombing
of the Shiite mosque had been interpreted by many Americans as
proof they were losing in Iraq. A significant block of congressional
Republicans, fearful of losing their grip on power, had pressured
the Pentagon into accelerating its scheduled drawdown of troop
levels. Iraqi politicians, mindful of what had happened after
American troops departed South Vietnam, moved to save their own
skins – starting with the surprise release of Saddam Hussein
from custody into a thinly disguised form of “house arrest”
in the Sunni triangle.
Throughout
the Middle East, the message was clear: terror had won. In the
United States, the Republicans lost control of Congress anyway
in 2006 – in part because of a “culture of corruption,”
in part because their efforts to weasel out of Iraq were seen
for what they were, a confession of failure. The GOP candidate
for President in 2008, John McCain, had been unable to assuage
the doubts within the Republican base – and, at the age
of 72, was visibly exhausted after only a month of campaigning.
All of which
was enough to hand the White House to Hillary Clinton, though
only by a 46-40 plurality (with 14 percent to the Greens and Libertarians).
Though eager to proceed with HillaryCare at home, she first faced
a gathering storm abroad.
After the
moderates in Iraq had been rounded up and slaughtered, the theocrats
of the Middle East turned to Israel. Finally, they calculated,
the moment had arrived to revenge the losses of 1947, 1967 and
1973. After all, hadn’t this new President Clinton once
publicly embraced Yasser Arafat?
Meanwhile,
Europe’s leading politicians were, as usual, counseling
appeasement, fearful that a strong stand against Islamic extremism
would provoke more “intifadas” within their borders
– or even a medium range nuclear missile from Tehran. Let
the Jews defend themselves, European leaders were openly saying.
Even in the
United States, Mrs. Clinton’s friends in Hollywood –
the “Munich” crowd, as they came to be known for the
movie that won the Oscar for best picture in 2006 – had
done much to persuade Americans that Palestinian terror was the
moral equivalent of the Israeli democracy’s efforts to defend
itself. Islamic extremism uber alles!
In the end,
of course, President Clinton knew she would have to defend Israel.
But as she stepped to the podium to deliver her Inaugural Address
– a passionate peroration on “the politics of meaning”
– she pondered that it might have been smarter to back Bush’s
war in Iraq more forthrightly when she was still in the Senate,
rather than voting for it and then sniping from the sidelines
about its conduct. And what if that darned Bill had nailed Osama
with a missile when he had the chance?
