Matt's anxiety about Hillary Clinton's foreign policy program is well-put, and widely-shared. She has not sought to convince anyone that statements like "We cannot, we should not, we must not, permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons, and in dealing with this threat, as I have said for a very long time, no option can be taken off the table," are general election posturing, or should be taken to mean something other than "if diplomacy fails, I will bomb Iran in order to disrupt their nuclear program." One reason, I think, that some Democrats are relatively sanguine abut her presidency is that they forget that the Democratic Party is not, in fact, an anti-war party, that its recent turn against the war in Iraq was a wrenching shift that came only after overwhelming evidence had accumulated showing this war a lie and a failure, and only after opposition grew into a popular cause. But such skepticism is not laced into the party's DNA, and it could easily change were a Democrat in office. Indeed, a Democrat might even want it to change, in order to demonstrate toughness and command in a way that only militarism allows, and to show that Democrats are not afraid of force, and can be trusted to wield American might with confidence and ease. Whether Clinton is that sort of Democrat is impossible for me to say, because she has continually sought to imply that she is, while simultaneously having supporters quietly explain that politics being what they are, this is what she has to say for the general election. On the one hand, Richard Holbrooke boasts that [Clinton] is probably more assertive and willing to use force than her husband. Hillary Clinton is a classic national-security Democrat," which certainly sounds like a campaign that sees both policy and political value in a resolute willingness to go to war -- add that to her Iran statements, and it's hard to believe it's all posture. On the other hand, this is something her backers, if asked off the record, will vehemently dispute, attributing it all to electoral demands. So, in sum, I'm confused. But I want to open this up to the other Tapped contributors, many of whom have been watching Clinton's campaign closer than me. What's your sense of her core foreign policy commitments and aversions? What's your sense of her bottom line with Iran? And why? --Ezra Klein
