There’s a reason that those who were so eager for U.S. military intervention in both Syria and Ukraine were so passionately supportive of Clinton. They knew there was a high likelihood that she would do what Obama refused to do: risk war with Russia in pursuit of these foreign policy goals.
One can, of course, side with the Clinton wing on the ground that the U.S. has been too soft on Russia, but what should not be suppressed – and what the New Yorker article makes clear – is that the hawkish views on Russia now dominant (even obligatory) in the Democratic Party were exactly what Obama resisted up until the last day that he left office.
That’s why people like John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio, along
with various neocon organs,
relentlessly attacked Obama on the ground that he was too accommodating of Putin in Syria, Ukraine and beyond. The post-election Democratic Party orthodoxy on Russia has deliberately obscured the fact that the leading accommodationist of Putin was named Barack Obama, and in that, he had a radically different approach than Clinton advocated.
