It seems Hillary Clinton has sacrificed her conscience to ambition. Chinese proverb has it that “he who sacrifices his conscience to ambition, burns a picture to obtain the ashes”. She announced her readiness to reduce 70 million 
innocent Iranian lives to ashes so that she could imagine her picture in the White House. Her lust for ambition will never be satisfied; on the contrary, it seems to grow more inflamed with the prospect of mass murder. After all, this is nothing new to her.
Hillary knowingly supported the Iraq war to defend the “future of freedom”. In her drive for the Iraq war, she was supported by the Progressive Policy Institute, a self-described think-tank of the Democratic Leadership Council[i]. Perhaps no one describes the group better than former neoconservative Jacob Heilbrunn who wrote: “Don’t look now, but neoconservatism is making a comeback-and not among the Republicans who have made it famous, but in the Democratic Party,”[ii]. Indeed, many of them supported the war for the purpose of promoting democracy.
Her ideology has contributed to the nation’s moral bankruptcy, the loss of over one million lives, and the depletion of America’s treasury. These neoliberals who have driven us into a quagmire, elaborated it would serve America’s interest to promote the Democratic peace theory. Scholars, university professors, and neoliberal jurists presented the concept that sovereignty, as it stood in international law did not provide immunity from attack to states engaging in systematic human rights abuses or amassing weapons of mass destruction. These would be considered ‘pariah’ states to be attacked by democratic coalitions with a warrant to liberalize them.[iii] Candidate Hillary comes from this stock. It seems that the only thing which differentiates her from McCain is the conduct of the war in Iraq, not the immoral and illegal war itself.
One can see why she would oppose the Bush conduct in this war by understanding the PPI. A book entitled “With All Our Might: A Progressive Strategy for Defeating Jihadism and Defending Liberty” edited by Will Marshall (President of PPI) outlines the strategy difference the ‘progressives’ (neoliberals) and the Bush unilateralism. The war in Iraq is part of a strategy for”building a world safe for individual liberty and democracy.”[iv]. She has endorsed the illegal invasion of a sovereign nation based on her belief that she holds a superior ideology which must be imposed on others, regardless of the cost and the consequences.
No doubt a person’s character is never so well disclosed as when it is seen through the company he/she keeps. It appears that Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D -Texas), co-chair of Hillary’s presidential campaign, not only shares her friendship with America’s presidential hopeful, but she also promotes America’s terrorists[v]. The Mojaheden-e Khalgh (MEK) were put on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list by President Clinton for they were responsible for the assassination of Americans in Iran in the 1970’s, as well as for their role in the US embassy takeover[vi], yet their leader and Hillary have a common friend and promoter. Congresswoman Jackson Lee went as far as calling Rajavi “Sister Maryam,[vii]. Are Hillary and Maryam ‘sisters’ too? Is our presidential candidate ‘sister’ to a notorious cult leader?
Raymond Tanter, a former National Security Agency staffer who led the IPC, predicted that the MEK would be removed from the terrorist list and be used by the US against the regime.”I foresee a situation where Laura Bush, Condi Rice, Karen Hughes, and Maryam Rajavi are posing for a picture in the White House,”[viii]. Tanter was not far off. The MEK is certainly being used, and in all likelihood they will be moved from the terrorist list. However, Maryam Rajavi may have to wait for the photo op and take it with Sister Hillary.
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an Iranian-American studying at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Her research focus is US foreign policy towards Iran, Iran’s nuclear program, and influence of lobby groups. She is a peace activist, essayist, radio commentator and public speaker.
Notes:
[i] Tony Smith, “A Pact with the Devil. Washington’s bid for world supremacy and the betrayal of the American promise’. Routledge 2007.
[ii] Jacob Heilbrunn,”Neocons in the Democratic Party,”Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2006.
[iii] Tony Smith. Ibid.
[iv] Will Marshall, editor, With All Our Might: A Progressive Strategy for Defeating Jihadism and Defending Liberty, PPI (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006).
[v] http://www.maryam-rajavi.com/content/view/168/66/
[vi] http://www.cfr.org/publication/9158/
[vii] Financial Times, October 6, 2005.
[viii] Connie Bruck, “A reporter at large: Exiles; How Iran’s expatriates are gaming the nuclear threat”. The New Yorker, March 6, 2006.
Middle-east-online – Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
April 24, 2008