If nominated, Hillary will in all likelihood defeat the Republican candidate, be it Rudy or McCain or Romney.

But Hillary's nomination is not a done deal. Obama, Edwards and Richardson are strong contenders. Left Bloggers and many Californians (including myself) are against her - she just does not get Iraq right. Any candidate who is tainted by Iraq, it will be hard to get elected. She is one of them.

Bill Clinton was not the final word in Foreign Policy. So will be Hillary in case she becomes President. There is nothing inspiring about her policies including her Foreign Policy. She is just trying to project a 'tough leader' image. It is not that she will not fulfill her duties as a President; but just too much of triangulation for America’s good. It is doubtful she can solve America's true, long terms problems.

Except being a woman, there is nothing special there. And Left feels that they have proven their feminist credentials by backing Pelosi to the hilt for the Speaker's job and her House victory in 2006.

Crowley's piece is not about what Hillary Clinton thinks. It's about what her friends, or at least certain former officials in her husband's administration, think.

We've been through this before -- twice, now, over the course of the last fifteen years -- tracking the course of a Presidential candidate's thinking on foreign policy by trying to interpret the statements of people he or she might appoint to high office if elected. Both times what we had at the core was a Presidential candidate who had not thought in any depth about foreign policy, and once elected had to make things up as he went along. Why should we not assume that Hillary Clinton's case (or that of Edwards, Obama, Romney and Giuliani) is the same?

By the way, a tome is not a newspaper column.

The democratic party is clearly divided.

There are those who are just opposed to the war on emotional and ideological grounds.

There are those who are opposed to losing the war because of the incompetence of the present administration. Hillary is clearly in this camp.
She actually has a foreign policy world view that rational republicans would find much more acceptable then essentially any other probable democratic candidate and maybe more acceptable then the world view of many extreme republicans..

For a Clinton regime change look at Kenneth Pollack "Threatening Storm: the Case for Invading Iraq"

An interesting conference/interview here:

http://www.cfr.org/publication/5212/threatening_storm.html?breadcrumb=%2Fbios%2F317%2Flisa_anderson

Kenneth Pollack was one of CIA analists that predicted Koweit invasion and was Clinton advisor for Middle East.