WASHINGTON: Hillary Rodham Clinton, a potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, writes in an author’s note released yesterday that her four years running the State Department for President Barack Obama taught her about the United States’ “exceptional strengths and what it will take for us to compete and thrive at home and abroad”.

“As is usually the case with the benefit of hindsight, I wish we could go back and revisit certain choices. But I’m proud of what we accomplished,” Clinton writes. “This century began traumatically for our country, with the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the long wars that followed, and the Great Recession. We needed to do better, and I believe we did.”

Hard Choices, Clinton’s book about her time at the State Department, will be released June 10. The book arrives as the former first lady considers another White House campaign and as Republicans seek to question her handling of the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, and other decisions on her watch.

In the excerpts, Clinton writes that she didn’t write the book for followers of “Washington’s long-running soap opera”, but Americans and people everywhere who are trying to make sense of a rapidly changing world.

She writes in new excerpts from her upcoming book that she wishes she could go back and reconsider some of her past decisions

Clinton says the need to keep America “safe, strong, and prosperous presents an endless set of choices, many of which come with imperfect information and conflicting imperatives.”

She cites Obama’s decision to authorise the raid to capture Osama bin Laden as a leading example, noting that the president’s top advisers were divided and the intelligence “was compelling, but far from definitive. The risks of failure were daunting”. Clinton writes, “It was as crisp and courageous a display of leadership as I’ve ever seen.”

If she runs for president, the author’s note offers clues to how Clinton may characterise the role of the US. in the 21st century. She writes that “talk of America’s decline has become commonplace, but my faith in our future has never been greater. While there are few problems in today’s world that the United States can solve alone, there are even fewer that can be solved without the United States.”

“Everything that I have done and seen has convinced me that America remains the ‘indispensable nation.’ I am just as convinced, however, that our leadership is not a birthright. It must be earned by every generation,” she writes.

Clinton aims to recount her tenure as her nation’s top diplomat in terms that average Americans can understand, writing that everyone faces hard choices on how to balance their careers with family responsibilities. She says in making the major decisions of her life, she has “listened to both my heart and my head”.

“And my heart and head together sent me into public service. Along the way, I’ve tried not to make the same mistake twice, to learn, to adapt, and to pray for the wisdom to make better choices in the future.”—AP

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2014