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When Hillary Rodham Clinton sat down on a Manhattan stage with CNNs Sanjay Gupta, the planned topic for discussion was babies brains and how to improve infant development around the globe.

Instead, the first three questions from Gupta focused on the U.S. airstrikes raining down on Iraq and Syria, aimed at defeating the expanding Islamic State terrorist group.

I support what they are doing, Clinton said in the interview Wednesday, referring to her former colleagues in the Obama administration. I personally believe the way they have thought this through and planned it and limited our involvement, avoids [Islamic State] achieving their objective of suckering us into their fight.

War in Iraq is a subject that wont go away for Clinton, whose Senate vote in 2002 to authorize the last war in that Middle Eastern country put her out of step with the Democratic base six years later. She lost her bid for president to a challenger who, as an obscure Illinois state senator, had come down on the antiwar side.

Now weighing another White House run, Clinton is faced again with the problems in Iraq and her role in shaping U.S. policy in the region. The airstrikes on the Islamic State group have inflamed the Democratic left, adding another potential line of attack against her if she decides to run for the White House.

Hillary Clinton might not be the only candidate on the left who launches a presidential campaign. Meet the guys who may try to take her on: former Virginia senator Jim Webb, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, Vice President Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). (Jackie Kucinich/The Washington Post)

In her remarks Wednesday which came during the swanky Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting Clinton was largely supportive of the Iraq and Syria strategy being pursued by her former opponent and boss, President Obama.

But, prompted by a question, Clinton also noted that, as the top U.S. diplomat, she had disagreed with Obamas decision not to give more assistance to moderate rebels in Syria while demurring on whether it would have made a difference. Both she and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, have suggested in other interviews that Obama made a mistake by not following her advice.

I cant sit here today and tell you that if we had done what I had recommended we would be in a very different position, I just cant, Hillary Clinton told Gupta. You cant prove a negative.

A risky stand to take

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Iraq looms large again for Hillary Clinton as she weighs another White House bid