Hillary Clinton: Chinese System Is Doomed, Leaders on a 'Fool's Errand'

JG: The flip side of that question is: Has this moment taught us that foreign-policy realism, the realist school, is dead? I mean, you're sounding very idealistic --

HRC: No, no. I think I'm very hardheaded. I've never understood the division between so-called realists and so-called idealists. I don't know how you get up in the world every day, doing what I do, if you don't have some sense of idealism, because you have to believe that as hard as it is, you're going to prevent the dictator from oppressing his people, you're going to help to stop the war, you're going to figure out a way to get clean water to thirsty people and cure kids of disease. And at the same time, I don't know how you go through the day and expect to be successful without being very hardheaded and realistic. So for me, it's not an either/or.

When I came in here, I said, look, I think there are these three trends that we have to pay attention to that are separate and apart from dealing with nations, dealing with regions, dealing with ideologies. [First,] power is diffuse. It is no longer the province of just governments. There's too much going on in the world today. People know too much. So we have to start dealing with people on a more direct basis.

JG: The realist camp did hold for 50 years -- Scowcroft/Kissinger types -- that dictators, benevolent or otherwise, are the one address we should pay attention to: you should deal with the leader, and let them sort out the problems beneath them.

HRC: Right.

JG: I know you're arguing against the idea that there are discrete streams of foreign-policy thought, but --

HRC: I'm not arguing --

JG: -- but you are talking --

HRC: Look, I'm not arguing against it. I'm just saying that it's not either/or. So that today, that, to me, would be impossible, so the realist position today is you have to deal with. Realism evolves. I mean, we aren't living in Bismarckian Germany right now. And can you imagine any secretary of state like Henry Kissinger being able to go anywhere secretly today? I don't think so.

JG: You mean allegedly being sick in Pakistan for a week and dashing off to China? You would kind of like that, though.

HRC: Well, of course I would. But it's not possible. The second issue is the dispersal of power through information that was unimagined a decade ago, let alone 50 years ago. So even if you thought you could just deal with one guy in one country and you could check it off your list of concerns, that's impossible now. The way technology has exploded means that we are all living in a totally different environment. It has changed everything. And to pretend otherwise, that there's some kind of great doctrine out there that can be taken from the heavens and imposed upon the global national body, is just not realistic anymore.

JG: I'm not a fan of coherence. We have this bias toward coherence. Everything has to be tied up neatly --

HRC: Everybody wants that.

JG: Everybody wants coherence. Is there, however, some sort of coherent story line that you can identify that's happened since the poor vegetable seller self-immolated.

HRC: I mean, I'm now being blamed in some Arab capitals for having caused this with my speech in Doha. I mean, because what I saw happening was so clear to me that what was going on was just this movement below the surface, that despite the leaders' either refusal or blindness to see what was going on, it was moving. And we have just lost our breath over the last many years trying to get people that we worked with ahead of the curve. So I gave that speech in Doha, and it was fascinating, and I noticed it at the time. A lot of the government leaders were like, "No, didn't want to hear it." The business leaders, the NGOs, were on the edge of their seats. They were nodding at each other. They were poking each other in the arm. I could see it. I could literally see it where I was sitting as I was delivering it, and then during the question-and-answer period.

So the leaders might have chosen to be oblivious, but people in the society, not just the young people, but people of all walks of life, they knew that there was this beginning of change.

JG: One of the obvious contradictions here is that while on the one hand you are pushing for democratic reform in Egypt and Tunisia, places like that, you have also gone into the monarchy business. We have a lot of allies -- Jordan and Saudi Arabia, most notably -- who are going to feel some pressure on the democratic front, and our direct interest is in supporting and keeping these guys on their thrones. Does this contradiction bother you?

HRC: I wouldn't accept the premise. I think that we believe in the same values and principles, full stop. We believe that countries should empower their people. We believe that people should have certain universal rights. We believe there are certain economic systems that work better for the vast majority of people than other subsystems. So I think we're very consistent. I think that's been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for at least the last century.

At the same time, we live in the real world. And there are lots of countries that we deal with because we have interests in common. We have certain security issues that we are both looking at. Obviously, in the Middle East, Iran is an overwhelming challenge to all of us. We do business with a lot of countries whose economic systems or political systems are not ones we would design or choose to live under. And we have encouraged consistently, both publicly and privately, reform and recognition and protection of human rights. But we don't walk away from dealing with China because we think they have a deplorable human rights record. We don't walk away from dealing with Saudi Arabia --

JG: And (the Chinese) are acting very scared right now, in fact.

HRC: Well, they are. They're worried, and they are trying to stop history, which is a fool's errand. They cannot do it. But they're going to hold it off as long as possible.

JG: But what do you do to get these kings -- for instance, King Abdullah II of Jordan? He's under more pressure than he's ever been. He's a great ally to America, he's certainly not a murdering thug like Qaddafi. But he's a king, and he's got problems in managing the government. How do you specifically help a person like that stay ahead of the curve?

HRC: We offer as much support and advice as we possibly can.

JG: It didn't work with Mubarak.

HRC: No, it did not work with Mubarak, and it wasn't for want of trying. President after president, secretary after secretary -- everybody tried. In countries such as Jordan, we are trying to be of practical help. So for example, the king has not only some political challenges and economic challenges that he is working toward addressing, but Jordan is one of the most water-deprived countries in the world. So a few months ago, I announced a Millennium Challenge grant of something like $250 million to help them deal with their water problems, because I believe that it's not only that we go and sit and say, "You should do this, and you should do that," which is easy to say, but that we're a real, friend, partner, and ally. And we say, "Look, here's some positive, tangible progress we can help you make." And that's true across the board where we deal with people who are in the throes of transition and we think have their hearts in the right place, but face some difficult issues.

JG: One thing I didn't understand was this Bashar al-Assad moment, when you called him a reformer, or said he was being seen by others as a reformer. There is always going to be plasticity or strategic hypocrisy in the way you have to deal with the world. But shouldn't we be blowing some of these winds of change in the direction of Damascus and Tehran as well?

HRC: We don't have to blow. The winds are blowing. There's no stopping them. And what we have tried to do with him is to give him an alternative vision of himself and Syria's future. So when a number of the members of Congress who have gone over to Syria come back and say both publicly and privately, "We think he really wants to reform, but he's trying to put together the political pieces to be able to do that," I think it's worth reminding him of that. And since I'm not going to be on a phone conversation with him, and I'm not going to fly to Damascus, I think that's one way of communicating with him. He's got to make the decisions, and thus far, it doesn't look like it's heading in the right direction. But there was certainly a lot of hope that he would begin to introduce the kinds of reforms that would help Syria get ahead of the curve.

JG: Would you be sad if his regime disappeared?

HRC: It depends upon what replaces it.

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