In an interview with The Atlantic, Hillary began the process of separating herself from President Barack Obama by unloading some criticisms on his foreign policy.

Jeffrey Goldberg writes that "she used her sharpest language yet to describe the 'failure' that resulted from the decision to keep the U.S. on the sidelines during the first phase of the Syrian uprising."

Said Clinton:

"The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled."

Goldberg says his Clinton-watching sources

have told me that it is only a matter of time before she makes a more forceful attempt to highlight her differences with the (unpopular) president she ran against, and then went on to serve. On a number of occasions during my interview with her, I got the sense that this effort is already underway. (And for what it's worth, I also think she may have told me that she’s running for president—see below for her not-entirely-ambiguous nod in that direction.)