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Hillary Clinton: No New Iran Sanctions

Says she has no ‘illusions’ about Iran, laying potential 2016 groundwork

by
Stephanie Butnick
February 03, 2014
Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivers remarks after being presented the 2013 Tom Lantos Human Rights Prize December 6, 2013 in Washington, DC.(Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivers remarks after being presented the 2013 Tom Lantos Human Rights Prize December 6, 2013 in Washington, DC.(Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned her former colleagues in the Senate against passing new sanctions against Iran, the Guardian reports. She explained her position on the proposed sanctions in a letter released by Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee and a vehement opponent of the sanctions.

According to the Guardian, Clinton said she has no “illusions” about Iran—in marked contrast to her successor as Secretary of State, John Kerry, who still seems a bit more optimistic—a strong public position, and a somewhat subtle nod toward the pro-Israel camp in the early lead-up to the 2016 presidential elections, in which she is expected to run.

In her letter, dated 26 January, Clinton stressed her early advocacy of “crippling sanctions” on Iran over its nuclear programme, a nod to her bona fides as an Iran hawk, before telling her former Senate colleagues that proposed sanctions legislation would risk making Washington seem at fault if a permanent deal cannot be reached in the agreed-upon six-month timeframe.



“It could rob us of the international high ground we worked so hard to reach, break the united international front we constructed, and in the long run, weaken the pressure on Iran by opening the door for other countries to chart a different course,” Clinton wrote.

We’ll see if Clinton’s plea has any effect on her former colleagues.

Stephanie Butnick is chief strategy officer of Tablet Magazine, co-founder of Tablet Studios, and a host of the Unorthodox podcast.