Crimea: Another Secretary of State Clinton Success?

America elected our current president based mainly on the superficial desire on the part of liberals and well-meaning but otherwise confused moderates to elect our first African-American president. Will we make the same grave error in 2016 by electing the first woman president, Hillary Clinton? For the sake of the country and the free-world for that matter, let's hope not. The Office of the President of the United States of America is far too important to allow it to continue to be used as an affirmative action program. A major factor in judging Mrs. Clinton's qualification to be president has to be her performance as Secretary of State. For our nation's top diplomat, performance comes down to the answer to two questions. One: Are America's interest throughout the world better now than when they took over their post. And Two: Are ties with our friends and allies stronger now than they were before. To both questions, the objective answer has to be a resounding no. Starting with her first diplomatic trip to Russia and the ill-fated "reset button" incident, our relationship with Russia has continued to deteriorate. Russia has resisted our attempts to prevent Iran from continuing to develop nuclear weapons, interfered with efforts to stop the violence in Syria, and now invaded Ukraine. (As of this writing, a referendum in Crimea seems to indicate that it will break away from Ukraine and rejoin Russia leaving the US with few good options.)Furthermore, during her tenure as Secretary of State, North Korea has joined the group of countries with nuclear weapons capability, Libya went from a country that was cooperating with the US and strengthening its ties with America to one where Al Qaeda affiliates have taken control of a large part of the country and it is no longer a safe place for American diplomats to serve. This became abundantly clear when our Ambassador and three other personnel in Secretary Clinton's charge were murdered in Benghazi. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the costly gains paid for with American blood and treasure have been lost as Al Qaeda and the Taliban return to Iraq and Afghanistan respectively due to a failure to reach diplomatic agreement on how the US should support the new governments after our military role has ended. As a result, America is withdrawing our forces from the region without any mechanism in place to maintain those gains. The answer to question two is also clearly, no. Relations with Russia have not been this bad since prior to the collapse of the old Soviet Union. President Putin's actions make it obvious he has no respect for President Obama or his current Secretary of State, Mr. Kerry. Relations with key friends and allies such as the UK, Israel and Germany are strained as a result of snubs, inattention, and the embarrassing revelations of NSA eavesdropping on personal communications of their leaders. In Egypt and Libya, we encouraged the ousting of two leaders, Muammar Khadafi and Hosni Mubarak - no gems of humanity to be sure - but they were favorable to our national interests. Following Mubarak’s overthrow, unbelievably, our government supported Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood – the original Islamist movement organization. For their first official act once in control, Morsi and his government announced that, after 30 years of peace with Israel under Mubarak, they would no longer honor the Camp David Accords thus undoing one of the few accomplishments of Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Today, chaos reigns in both nations as Islamist groups vie for control. As we get closer to the 2016 presidential campaign season, look for Clinton supporters to try to rewrite the record of her accomplishments, especially as Secretary of State. We should also expect the bootlicks at CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, Washington Post and the other leading mainstream media outlets to continue to ignore the diplomatic wreckage left in the wake of her Sec State aircraft's contrail. This won’t be an easy task but they are a clever lot and I’m confident they will do their best. Perhaps they will continue to ignore stories like Benghazi in favor of the items the public is clamoring for and really needs to know about such as Gov. Christie’s Bridgegate scandal. Any sarcasm detected was intentional.