Just over a year after leaving her job as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton has offered views on foreign policy that analysts said seem part of an effort to distance herself from the Obama administration as she prepares a possible 2016 White House run.
In appearances this month, Clinton struck a hawkish tone on issues including Iran and Russia, even while expressing broad support for the work done by Obama and her successor as secretary of state, John Kerry.
Clinton said in New York that she was “personally skeptical” of Iran’s commitment to reaching a comprehensive agreement on its nuclear program.
“I’ve seen their behavior over (the) years,” she said, saying that if the diplomatic track failed, “every other option does remain on the table.”
Just two weeks earlier, Clinton was forced to backtrack after she drew parallels between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler at a closed-door fundraiser. In comments leaked to the media by a local reporter who attended the event, Clinton said Putin’s justifications for his actions in the Crimean region were akin to moves Hitler made in the years before World War Two.
“I’m not making a comparison, certainly, but I am recommending that we can perhaps learn from this tactic that has been used before,” she said the next day at an event in Los Angeles.
As secretary of state, Clinton was a key player in a U.S. effort to reset relations with Russia, a policy that critics say now appears to be a glaring failure.
Clinton’s recent rhetoric on Iran and Russia is part of a renewed focus on foreign policy for the former first lady and New York senator, who is widely considered the Democratic presidential front-runner in 2016 if she chooses to run.
She has been giving speeches across the country since leaving the State Department, but Wednesday’s address was her first on-the-record event in recent months focused solely on international relations.
“Secretary Clinton is distancing herself a bit on foreign policy matters from the administration recently,” said John Hudak, a Brookings Institution fellow and expert on presidential campaigns.
“This is a pretty standard practice for anyone looking to succeed the sitting president, even within the same party.
“It’s one of the first steps for her to say, ‘We’re not the same candidate,'” he said.
Clinton’s office did not respond to questions about the issue.
Creating space between her position and Obama’s is a “smart move,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a New York-based Democratic strategist who worked for the 1996 presidential re-election campaign of Hillary Clinton’s husband, Bill Clinton.
“The present administration is in a no-win situation with Russia, with Syria and in the Middle East,” Sheinkopf said before Clinton’s New York speech.
“Making a distance from them can only help.”
During her four-year tenure in the State Department, Clinton helped lead the charge on imposing strong sanctions on Iran, which she mentioned in her New York speech to a pro-Israel audience-including several Democratic lawmakers-at an American Jewish Congress dinner honoring her.
In late January, Clinton sent a letter to Carl Levin, Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, calling herself a “longtime advocate for crippling sanctions against Iran,” but urging that Congress should not impose new sanctions during negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program.
She said that like Obama, she had no illusions about the ease or likelihood of reaching a permanent deal with Iran following an interim agreement reached under Kerry.
“Yet I have no doubt that this is the time to give our diplomacy the space to work,” a stance she reaffirmed on Wednesday.
Republicans have promised to make Clinton’s State Department record an issue if she runs for the White House, focusing on the 2012 attacks on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed.
The Republican National Committee has condemned Clinton’s handling of the Benghazi assault, suggesting in a recent research note that “Benghazi is still the defining moment of Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.”
Some political analysts see her toughening rhetoric as more than a campaign tactic, and fitting with her foreign policy statements before joining the Obama administration. They said that could broaden her appeal to voters if she chooses to run, a decision she has said will not come until the end of this year.
Clinton, while a senator, voted in 2002 for a resolution authorizing U.S. military action against Iraq, a position that hurt her with liberal primary voters in her losing battle with Obama for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
“Making a credible and forceful case for America’s place in the world – that’s the kind of thing she’s likely to say and continue to say,” said Josh Block, a former Clinton administration official and now an executive at the Israel Project in Washington.
“Those are messages that will resonate with Democrats and independents, as well as some Republicans.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, defying Ukrainian protests and Western sanctions, signed a treaty on Tuesday making Crimea part of Russia but said he did not plan to seize any other regions of Ukraine.

In a fiercely patriotic address to a joint session of parliament in the Kremlin today, punctuated by standing ovations, cheering and tears, Putin said Crimea’s disputed referendum vote on Sunday, held under Russian military occupation, had shown the overwhelming will of the people to be reunited with Russia.

To the Russian national anthem, Putin and Crimean leaders signed a treaty on making Crimea part of Russia, declaring: “In the hearts and minds of people, Crimea has always been and remains an inseparable part of Russia.”

Parliament was expected to begin ratifying the document within days.

The speech drew immediate hostile reaction in Kiev and the West. Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it did not recognize the pact, which showed how Russia posed a threat to international security.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, on a visit to Poland, called Moscow’s action a land grab and stressed Washington’s commitment to defending the security of NATO allies on Russian borders.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Russia’s move on Crimea was unacceptable to the international community, while British Foreign Secretary William Hague said London had suspended military cooperation with Russia.

BLACK AND WHITE

In his speech, Putin lambasted Western nations for what he called hypocrisy, saying they had endorsed Kosovo’s independence from Serbia but now denied Crimeans the same right, he said.

“You cannot call the same thing black today and white tomorrow,” he declared to stormy applause, saying that while he did not seek conflict with the West, Western partners had “crossed the line” over Ukraine and behaved “irresponsibly”.

He said Ukraine’s new leaders, in power since the overthrow of pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovich last month, included “neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites.”

Putin thanked China for what he called its support, even though Beijing abstained on a U.N. resolution on Crimea that Moscow had to veto on its own. He said he was sure Germans would support the Russian people’s quest for reunification, just as Russia had supported German reunification in 1990.

And he sought to reassure Ukrainians that Moscow did not seek any further division of their country. Fears have been expressed in Kiev that Russia might move on the Russian-speaking eastern parts of Ukraine, where there has been tension between some Russian-speakers and the new authorities.

“Don’t believe those who try to frighten you with Russia and who scream that other regions will follow after Crimea,” Putin said. “We do not want a partition of Ukraine.”

Setting out Moscow’s view of the events that led to the overthrow of Yanukovich in a popular uprising last month, Putin said the “so-called authorities” in Kiev had stolen power in a coup, opening the way for extremists who would stop at nothing.

NATO SAILORS

Making clear Russia’s concern at the possibility of the U.S.-led NATO military alliance expanding into Ukraine, he declared: “I do not want to be welcomed in Sevastopol (Crimean home of Russia’s Black Sea fleet) by NATO sailors.”

Moscow’s seizure of Crimea has caused the most serious East-West crisis since the end of the Cold War and Putin showed no sign of backing down despite the threat of tougher sanctions.

In Crimea, where his speech and the signing ceremony were broadcast live, his words caused rapture for some.

“Putin’s done what our hearts were longing for,” said Natalia, a pensioner who sells snacks in a kiosk in the center of Simferopol, the region’s capital. “This finally brings things back to what they should be after all those years. For me, for my family, there can be no bigger joy, for us this is sacred.”

Feride Kurtbedinova, a high school student and a member of Crimea’s Muslim ethnic Tatar minority, said: “After Putin met with the Tatar leaders, that made it for me. He showed respect, gave us security guarantees, for Tatars that is important.”

Before Putin’s speech, Ukraine’s interim prime minister, Arseniy Yatseniuk, had sought to reassure Moscow on two key areas of concern, saying in a televised address delivered in Russian that Kiev was not seeking to join NATO and would disarm Ukrainian nationalist militias.

On Monday, the United States and the European Union imposed personal sanctions on a handful of officials from Russia and Ukraine accused of involvement in Moscow’s seizure of the Black Sea peninsula, most of whose 2 million residents are ethnic Russians.

Russian politicians dismissed the sanctions as insignificant and a badge of honor. The State Duma, or lower house, adopted a statement urging Washington and Brussels to extend the visa ban and asset freeze to all its members. The Foreign Ministry in Moscow said it would retaliate.

Japan joined the mild Western sanctions on Tuesday, announcing the suspension of talks with Russia on investment promotion and visa liberalization.

The White House said the world’s seven leading industrial democracies will hold a Group of Seven meeting without Russia on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit in The Hague next week to consider further response to Russia’s actions.

CLOSER TIES

Russian forces took control of Crimea in late February following the toppling of Yanukovich after deadly clashes between riot police and protesters trying to overturn his decision to spurn a trade and cooperation deal with the EU and seek closer ties with Russia

Despite strongly worded condemnations, Western nations were cautious in their first practical steps against Moscow, seeking to leave the door open for a diplomatic solution.

Russian stocks gained another 2 percent after rallying strongly on Monday as investors noted the initial sanctions did not target businesses or executives. But the ruble fell 0.6 percent against the dollar and the euro.

In a sign of the negative impact of the crisis on the investment climate, Russia’s state property agency said it may postpone major privatization deals until the second half of the year.

Washington and Brussels have said future punitive measures could affect the economy, energy and arms contracts as well as the private wealth of magnates close to Putin.

The EU also said its leaders would sign the political part of an association agreement with Ukraine on Friday, in a gesture of support for the fragile coalition in Kiev.

Highlighting rifts in the EU, member state Austria offered on Tuesday to mediate between Moscow and the West.

Putin has declared that Russia has the right to defend, by military force if necessary, Russian citizens and Russian speakers living in former Soviet republics, raising concerns that Moscow may intervene elsewhere.

Putin has repeatedly accused the new leadership in Kiev of failing to protect Russian-speakers from violent Ukrainian nationalists. Ukraine’s government has accused Moscow of staging provocations in Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine to justify military intervention.

In a symbolic gesture, Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov announced that Crimea would switch to Moscow time from March 30. In the Crimean capital Simferopol, Banks scrambled to introduce the ruble as an official currency alongside the Ukrainian hryvnia.