Hillary Clinton took a hit from the left on Tuesday morning when the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org harshly criticized her for backing a more aggressive response to ongoing military conflict in Syria and Iraq.
"Secretary Clinton, and any other person thinking about seeking the Democratic nomination in 2016, should think long and hard before embracing the same policies advocated by right-wing war hawks that got America into Iraq in the first place and helped set the stage for Iraq's troubles today," MoveOn's executive director, Ilya Sheyman, said in a statement.
Clinton, an expected presidential candidate in 2016, started to draw clear foreign policy differences with President Barack Obama in an interview published over the weekend. Clinton, who once served Obama as secretary of state, said her former boss failed to heed her advice calling for the U.S. to arm moderate Syrian rebels who may have been able to block the expansion of the jihadist military force known as the Islamic State.
But Sheyman argued Clinton should be learning the lesson from her 2008 presidential campaign, when Obama outflanked Clinton to the left on the Iraq War during the Democratic primary.
"These hawkish policy stances are also threatening to undermine the peaceful international resolution of Iran's nuclear program. Voters elected President Obama in 2008 to bring the war in Iraq to an end. MoveOn members will continue to stand with elected officials who oppose military escalation that could put us back on a path to endless war," Sheyman said.