2023-06-02 20:52:04
Relaxed, smiling and comfortably distanced from active politics, Hillary Clinton has offered this Friday to Barcelona a panoramic view of the major world affairs of which he was the protagonist for many years. Wielding a veiled dose of self-criticism, theformer Secretary of State of the United States he recognized that the reluctance of the West to face a Vladimir Putin for years, who already warned of his intentions with the Russian intervention in Georgia 2008 or the annexation of Crimea Ukrainian in 2014, paved the way for the invasion of Ukraine. “No one wanted to accept that Putin would become the aggressor of Europe to endanger the order created after the Second World War and the autonomy of the ex-Soviet republics,” he said during the conversation of a little more of an hour “We dedicated ourselves to imposing some sanction and criticizing him rhetorically. There was no appetite for more.”
Hillary was the highlight of the 50th anniversary of CIDOB (Barcelona Center for International Relations), one of the main laboratories of ideas dedicated to international relationships in Spain, a country where they are not plentiful. It was the first time he visited the Catalan capital in his 75 years of life, which he arrived on Thursday after spending a few days in Madrid, always accompanied by the ambassador Julissa Reynoso, with whom he maintains a close friendship. Accustomed to stirring passions found in the US, where many Republicans have made their demonization a way of life, Hillary found nothing but applause in the MACBA Chapelfull to the brim.
During her time at the helm of US diplomacy, Clinton had to deal directly with Putin, whom she defined as a «dictator with reminiscences of the tsars and dreams to restore the Russian empire». In his opinion, the Kremlin autocrat miscalculated in Ukraine. It happened that Donald Trump promised to pull the US out of NATO if re-elected in 2020, a claim he made based on the memoirs of John Boltonwho was secretary of state of the republican, to find one front unit a Occident. “He didn’t count on Western solidarity or others such harsh penaltiesthe massive military aid to Ukraine and, above all, with the leadership of Volodímir Zelenski and the bravery of Ukrainians,” said Hillary.
The future of world order
The fate of the international relationships, he remarked, is being played in the tortured Slavic country. “Ukraine will decide what kind ofworld order we are able to build”, he said with the seriousness that permeated moments of the conversation. “We must support Ukraine because not only the integrity of its neighbors is at stake, but itself western democracy”.
The also ex-first lady and ex-senator for New York stated that the Russian military fiascoas well as the vehement Western response, has had an enormous influence on the china and its neighborhood. «Xi (Jingpin) expected a quick victory from Russia.” An outcome that, according to his opinion, would have served Beijing to more firmly project its growing hegemony in Asia. And maybe to top it off Taiwan. “Putin’s aggressive behavior in Ukraine has caused Asian countries to rethink their security,” he said before referring to the increase in military spending in Japan or the Philippines’ re-alignment with Washington.
Clinton has kept a low profile since she left active politics in 2016 after losing the election to Trump. Apart from giving a conference, he devotes time to the Clinton Foundation i Onward Together, another organization she founded herself in 2017 to raise funds for progressive causes. Last February he also started taking International Relations classes at the Columbia University.
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Of his Republican nemesis, whom he described as “one clever demagogue, like all demagogues”, spoke the righteous man. Of course, he took it upon himself to remember that in the elections he lost in terms of electoral votes, he got more than three million more votes than Trump, a joke that made the audience laugh. And he accused the republicans to have embarked on all kinds of dirty tricks to make sure that no matter how much they keep losing the popular vote they can win the vot electoral that opens the doors of the White House. “I’m sure that if we can count the votes like the rest of the world, Biden will win re-election,” she said emphatically.
The one of these days was his fourth visit to Spainwhich he said should lead the reaccent in Latin America. Hillary acknowledged that both Europeans and Americans have neglected the region, just as they have done with Africa, regions that have largely turned their backs on Western initiatives in Ukraine to defeat Putin’s troops.
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