Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s new memoir hasn’t been a welcome development for Hillary Clinton. In one of the book’s most quoted passages, Gates writes that he witnessed Clinton make a startling confession to Barack Obama: she had opposed George W. Bush‘s last-ditch effort to salvage the Iraq war, the 2007 troop “surge,” because the politics of the 2008 Democratic primaries demanded it. Clinton’s critics were quick to celebrate the new evidence of the former Secretary of State’s expedience. Clinton, hissed a statement from the conservative Stop Hillary PAC, “will do anything, including mislead the country by putting her political ambitions ahead of the safety of Americans at home and abroad.” Whatever the truth of that surge anecdote—Clinton’s camp won’t comment on it—the larger truth is impossible to deny. Clinton has demonstrated a well-documented willingness to use American military power overseas. Gates’ book is just the latest evidence, along with previous reporting and original interviews with current and former Obama officials, of the strikingly hawkish voice Clinton offered during Obama Situation Room debates. (MORE: The Real Reason Hillary Rented Her Email List: To Get It Back) As Secretary of State, Clinton backed a bold escalation of the Afghanistan war. She pressed Obama to arm the Syrian rebels, and later endorsed air strikes against the Assad regime. She backed intervention in Libya, and her State Department helped enable Obama’s expansion of lethal drone strikes. In fact, Clinton may have been the administration’s most reliable advocate for military action. On at least three crucial issues—Afghanistan, Libya, and the bin Laden raid—Clinton took a more aggressive line than Gates, a Bush-appointed Republican. Former administration officials also tell TIME that Clinton was an advocate for maintaining a residual troop force after the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq—an issue of renewed interest given al Qaeda’s resurgence there. They also describe her as skeptical of diplomacy with Iran, and firmly opposed to talk of a “containment” policy that would be an alternative to military action should negotiations with Tehran fail. Recent comparisons of Secretary of State John Kerry’s … Continue reading Hillary Clinton’s Unapologetically Hawkish Record Faces 2016 Test