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Eli Lake

How Obama's Iran Policy Undermines Clinton's Campaign Message

The president wants it to join the community of nations; the candidate vows to punish its misdeeds.
Tricky business.

Tricky business.

Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

In a year when the GOP has grown increasingly fractured, it's easy to lose sight of a foreign-policy schism inside the other major party. After all, the presumptive Democratic nominee was the current president's first secretary of state. Her Republican opponent, on the other hand, now touts his opposition to a war his party's last president launched in 2003.

Yet despite their governing partnership, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have very different views of Iran following last summer's nuclear deal. Both support that pact and say that it makes the region and the world safer. But Obama has sought to integrate Iran into the community of nations, while Clinton promises to punish Iran's bad behavior.