Hillary Clinton’s own visit to Iraq, just hours after President George W. Bush completed his unannounced Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad, may mean that the former first lady, now a senator for New York, still has her eyes set upon the White House.

In fact the superb timing of her visit, in which she could present herself as something of a political counterpoint to the president, was probably mere good fortune. Her arrival was clearly arranged some while ago. Perhaps she guessed Bush might make such a dramatic unheralded gesture, but she could not actually have known of his plans.

Few doubt Mrs. Clinton would love to be America’s first female president, but she has thus far not joined the other ten Democrats hopeful of winning the nomination. The primaries start in Iowa and New Hampshire in January. At the moment Mrs. Clinton is enjoying the position of being a dark horse and no doubt waiting to see what deals the Democrat party machine is prepared to offer her. There is considerable speculation that she might save her own run for the White House for another four years and stand instead as the vice presidential candidate on Gen. Wesley Clark’s ticket.

Given that Bush still seems ahead among pollsters, Mrs. Clinton would be taking little political risk if Clark were defeated in the presidential election. If he won, however, she could be expected to try and transform the vice presidential role into a much more high-profile and active arm of the executive. This would provide her with a platform to launch her own run at the White House in 2008, if Clark chose to stand down, or 2012, when he would have to leave office.

The Bush White House has proven itself so blind to good advice and so wedded to the idea that conflicts are won by the guys with the biggest and fastest guns that there may be many in the Middle East who would have great hopes of a Democrat incumbent in the White House in 2005.

Such hopes are probably misplaced, especially if they rest on a president Wesley Clark and vice president Hillary Clinton. First off, Mrs. Clinton’s political power base is New York, with its rich and powerful Zionist lobby. She is not therefore going to favor an impartial approach to the tragedy of Palestine.

President Bush’s administration also includes its fair share of Zionist sympathizers, but these people represent the reactionary element of his administration, which has dug the US into its current Iraqi hole and is still busy digging.

A second-term Bush presidency could afford to abandon these hard-line advisers and try a new political tack, whereas if Hillary Clinton gets anywhere near the White House, her own Zionist backers will be able to start with a clean sheet.