Hillary Clinton downplays differences with Obama on Syria

Hillary Clinton on Wednesday said she supported President Obama’s Syria strategy while playing down past disagreements on the issue. 

“The situation now is demanding a response and we are seeing a very robust response,” Clinton said at a panel discussion at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York, according to CNN. 

{mosads}When Clinton was secretary of State in 2011, she pushed to arm Syrian rebels to fight the forces of President Bashar Assad. Obama ultimately rejected the recommendation. 

In an August interview with The Atlantic, Clinton addressed the administration’s policy, saying that the “failure” to arm the rebels “left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.”

Clinton played down those differences on Wednesday.

“Whatever the debates might have been before, this is a threat to the region and beyond,” Clinton said. “I can’t sit here today and tell you that if we had done what I had recommended we would be in a very different position. I just can’t. You can’t go and prove a negative.”

“I think you can always argue back and forth,” she added. “Certainly, when I was in the administration we had some very good discussion, debates even, on what to do and how to do it starting in Syria.”

Obama won approval in Congress last week for a plan to arm the Syrian rebels, and the U.S. is launching airstrikes against Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria.