Hillary Rodham Clinton has been in this spot before.
As a senator in 2002, she endorsed military action in Iraq, a decision
that came back to haunt her in her failed White House bid six years
later.
Now, the former secretary of state and potential 2016 presidential
candidate is risking the possibility of similar political fallout in a
future campaign with her staunch support of President Barack Obama's
call for a U.S.-led strike in Syria as punishment for the use of
chemical weapons.
The two conflicts are different: Iraq was a full-fledged war with ground
troops that lasted nearly nine years, while the Obama administration is
talking about a limited, focused air attack in Syria. Even so,
Clinton's support of both engagements carries the same potential hazard —
that opponents could use her position against her in a future campaign.
"The world will have to deal with this threat as swiftly and
comprehensively as possible," Clinton said Monday in her first public
endorsement of the president's plan to respond to Syria's chemical
weapons use, a year after using her State Department post to press for
the U.S. to take a larger role in building support for the Assad
government's opposition.
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