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Politico

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s revelation that she won’t be staying on if there is a second Obama term may have been news to those who don’t know her, but did not surprise her friends, who say she’s spending an increasing amount of time considering her post-government options even as challenges mount at Foggy Bottom.

Clinton has made similar “I’m not here forever” comments before – but it was the timing of her remarks to CNN on Wednesday that raised eyebrows, coming at a critical moment in her fierce internal battle to push President Barack Obama to join the fight to liberate Libya from Muammar Qadhafi.

Clinton’s position was vindicated early Thursday evening when the United Nations Security Council - at the urging of the United States - approved a resolution authorizing “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians, including a no-fly zone. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters that such a move could involve direct attacks on pro-Qadhafi forces now bearing down on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi in eastern Libya.

Clinton’s persistence in the anti-Qadhafi cause has been such a constant in the White House in recent days that Obama, according to reports, joked about Clinton lobbing rocks through his window during his remarks at Saturday night’s Gridiron dinner.

“Stay tuned,” said one Clinton friend when asked if the secretary would ultimately prevail.

Two Clinton friends, who speak with her regularly, told POLITICO she wasn’t trying to send any message to Obama with her interview with Wolf Blitzer Wednesday and she has no plans to leave earlier than the end of the president’s first term.

But they say her Sherman-esque statement reflects a growing sense of crisis fatigue that friends can read in her face, hear in her voice and recognize in her wistful talk about the future.

Moreover, her chat with Blitzer took place during an especially draining week that saw her spokesman, P.J. Crowley, forced out for publicly criticizing the Pentagon over its treatment of WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning and during week-long trip to Europe and North Africa, where her triumphant visit to Cairo’s Tahrir Square was tarnished somewhat, by a snub at the hands of some pro-democracy leaders.

“She’s tired – she still likes what she’s doing – but she’s tired,” said one longtime Clinton friend, who noted that Clinton is still regarded as a relative outsider in Obama’s tight-knit inner circle.

In private, Clinton often tells friends she’s looking forward to a new, lower-stress life, which might include writing another autobiography – this one covering her epic 2008 primary campaign loss to Obama and tumultuous tenure as the nation’s top diplomat – teaching, and possibly starting her own foundation which might be focused on promoting international women’s rights.

The former New York senator is considering a “book, speeches, teaching, a foundation — either his or starting her own,” said a Clinton family friend who has spoken to her recently. “The world will be her oyster.”

At the moment, however, the world is offering Clinton precious few pearls.

The biggest strain on Clinton has been her effort, not embraced by everyone in the administration, to stave off the kind of genocide in Libya that her husband permitted to occur in Rwanda in the 1990s.

Clinton, according to sources, has been pressing Obama to take bolder action in the Middle East for weeks, especially in Libya where she has privately implored the president and his top aides to impose a no-fly-zone to aid anti-Qadhafi rebels before it’s too late.

But she’s reportedly faced opposition from National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and Defense Secretary Robert Gates who have argued for a far more cautious approach, warning against the cost, logistical complications and political blow-back of further U.S. military involvement in such a volatile part of the world.

Clinton has not publicly pressured Obama. But her husband has.

“I wouldn’t do it if they hadn’t asked, but if the (insurgent) leaders are on television pleading…I think that we should do it,” Bill Clinton told the Women in the World conference in New York a week ago.

“Qadhafi has internationalized the conflict himself by hiring people from other countries who do not give a rip about the Libyans,” he said. “So that’s why (the insurgents) said, ‘Just give us the chance to have a fair fight,’ and I, for whatever it’s worth, think that’s what we should do.”

Clinton, speaking in Tunis on Thursday, pressed even harder for action against Qadhafi, warning that the dictator should be taken at his word when he promised to show “no mercy” on his enemies in Benghazi.

“A no-fly zone requires certain actions taken to protect the planes and the pilots, including bombing targets like the Libyan defense systems,” she said in Tunis, her last stop on a trip that also took her to Cairo and Paris.

The United States, she added, would support U.N. actions that gain a “broad base of participation, including from Arab nations.”

Military action might be needed, she said, but ground intervention is not being considered.

“Qadhafi must go,” Clinton said, calling him “a ruthless dictator that has no conscience and will destroy anyone or anything in his way.” If he does not go, she added, “he will just make trouble – that is just his nature, there are some creatures that are like that.”

Clinton has often said she doesn’t want her current job “forever” – and certainly wouldn’t serve eight years — but she drew a far brighter line with Blitzer, who accompanied her to North Africa.

“If the president is reelected, do you want to serve a second term as Secretary of State?” Blitzer asked.

“No,” Clinton replied bluntly.

And “no” was her curt response when Blitzer ticked off a list of other future ambitions – Vice President, Secretary of Defense and another run at the presidency in 2016.

Clinton’s aides downplayed the importance of those comments, arguing that she’d said it all before, in one way or another.

“I’m not going to do this forever. I want to teach. I want to speak. I want to travel,” Clinton told Harper’s Bazaar magazine in January, adding that she also wants to spend more time with her family, with her newly married daughter, reiterating her oft-stated desire to become a grandmother.

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