Spotlight: Clinton's regret over Iraq invasion unlikely to change U.S. Mideast policy if elected

Hillary Clinton, Democratic front-runner in the U.S. presidential race, recently said she regretted to have voted for America's invasion of Iraq in 2003, yet she will not change her country's interventionist Middle East policy if elected president, said experts.

"Like all previous U.S. presidents, Hillary Clinton will come to carry out an agenda that serves only Israel and it's own interests, but does nothing to bring genuine peace to the region that has long inflamed with hatred and violence," AbdelElah Haidar Shaiee, a well-known Yemeni expert on the U.S. war on terror, said.

Shaiee was jailed in 2010 in Yemen reportedly at the request of the Obama administration after reporting that an attack on a suspected al-Qaida training camp in southern Yemen for which the Yemeni government claimed responsibility had actually been carried out by the United States.

Shaiee visited the site and discovered pieces of cruise missiles and cluster bombs not found in Yemen's arsenal. Charged with being an al-Qaida operative, he was released in 2013 after his imprisonment sparked outcry among tribal leaders, human rights activists and fellow journalists.

"Since Israel was established till today, U.S. presidents have been working with minority sects to bring them to power in the Arab countries, in order to control the political decisions and military actions of Arabs in return for providing protection to their thrones," he said.

"Clinton... helped circulate lies of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction that led to the U.S. invasion on Iraq in 2003 that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people and children," Shaiee added.

"She has since never apologized to the world nor to Iraq's hundreds of thousands of widows and orphans who lost their loved ones," Shaiee said.

Shaiee accused Clinton of being responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, destroying their country and their army... and bringing sectarian militias to rule Iraq.

"Clinton was a leading one behind the so called the 'creative chaos.' In the beginning of 2011, she paid a visit to the Yemeni capital city of Sanaa, where she did not meet with any official, but with Yemeni activist Tawakul Karman, who was later awarded Nobel peace prize," he said.

Former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh accused Washington of financing Karman's efforts against his administration.

Shaiee said the chaos now gripping the countries that went through the so-called "Arab Spring" is the legacy of Washington's intervention in the region, in which Clinton also played a part.

Khaled Abdul-Jabbar, a professor at Aden University, said Clinton is not really sorry for "invading Iraq and sparking the war there, but... just to gain more votes only."

"Clinton has proven several times that her decision making is flawed... extremely flawed," Abdul-Jabbar said. "If she really means it then why she is still committed to intervening and trying to change regimes and the political process in some Arab countries?"

"She is just lying," he said.

Jalal Dawood, a military expert, said that "Clinton and most of the U.S. officials think that sowing violence and creating instability in foreign countries would keep the U.S. and its people safe."

"The U.S. leaders don't care about the people who died as a result of instability in the Middle East countries," he said. "All those dead women and children in the Middle East don't matter (to them.)"

Dawood accused the United States of helping create more problems among other regimes in order to gain an opportunity to start U.S. military intervention.

Saleh Mukhtar, a political expert, said Clinton "learned nothing from the previous mistakes and she still believes in using military force against other countries especially in the Middle East."

"I personally and most of the people in the Arab countries highly doubt she (Clinton) is telling the truth," Mukhtar said. "Clinton is trying desperately to swing people emotionally." Endit