Iran is playing a wise game, while our retreat was tragic, Hillary Clinton

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that began after the September 11, 2001 attacks, as well as the U.S.-Israeli war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, during an interview with MS NOW on the anniversary of 9/11.  Speaking about the war in Afghanistan, Clinton said that the initial decision to enter the country was made with the aim of pursuing Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda militants, which she considered a necessary decision.

Clinton said, “I think we should have gone into Afghanistan and tried to find not only bin Laden but also other al-Qaeda fighters.”  Hillary Clinton said that the Taliban had an opportunity to hand bin Laden over to the United States, but for various reasons—including cultural issues and their history of cooperation and fighting alongside their forces during the 1980s—they did not do so. As a result, the war in Afghanistan became a “very major event” during George W. Bush’s administration.

She said that the Bush administration, followed by Barack Obama’s administration, in which she herself served, sought not only to pursue what they described as their core mission, the “war on terrorism,” but also to establish a “more stable country” so that Afghanistan would no longer pose further threats to the United States. However, she said, the situation was different in Iraq.

Hillary Clinton, who had previously represented New York in the U.S. Senate, attempted to justify her vote in favor of the Iraq War, saying, “I voted for the Iraq War, but that vote was based on what I believed was ‘coercive diplomacy.’”

Clinton claimed that her intention was to use the vote as a means of putting pressure on former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to clarify the status of his weapons and weapons programs.  The former U.S. Secretary of State also recalled that Israel had bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in the 1980s.  She said, “It was not at all unreasonable to imagine that there was something there that needed to be uncovered, but we should have searched for it wisely, rather than launching an attack that had not been adequately planned and without knowing what would happen after we intervened in Iraq.”