*** Hillary Strangelove? Because of Jeremiah Wright remaining in the news, not that much attention has been paid to Clinton’s recent comments regarding Iran and the Middle East. But Sunday’s
Boston Globe weighed in -- harshly. It dubbed her “Hillary Strangelove,” because of her umbrella Iran-Mideast ally retaliation policy. And the paper called that "Rambo rhetoric" that "plays into the hands of Iranian hard-liners who want to plow ahead with efforts to attain a nuclear weapons capability." More: “(T)here are some red lines that should never be crossed,” it said. “Clinton did so Tuesday morning, the day of the Pennsylvania primary, when she told ABC's ‘Good Morning America’ that, if she were president, she would ‘totally obliterate’ Iran if Iran attacked Israel. This foolish and dangerous threat was muted in domestic media coverage. But it reverberated in headlines around the world.”
link by John Aravosis (DC) · 4/27/2008 02:31:00 PM ET · Link
It's a story that the American media totally ignored. Our wonderful "independent" reporters collectively decided last week that it simply wasn't news that Hillary revealed she'd be nuking Iran if they attacked Israel, and that it wasn't news that she'd like to extend the US nuclear umbrella to Israel's neighbors. That means we'd be nuking Iran if they attacked Jordan, Egypt, maybe even Saudi Arabia. Show of hands: How many Americans are willing to start a nuclear war for the Saudis?
Well, it seems even the Saudis aren't too keen on the idea. They criticized Hillary this week, we learn via a
Boston Globe editorial entitled "Hillary Strangelove" (the Globe is one of the few American papers to even write about this issue). They said she was as stupid as Bush:
The Saudi paper called Clinton's nuclear threat "the foreign politics of the madhouse," saying, "it demonstrates the same doltish ignorance that has distinguished Bush's foreign relations."
A British Foreign Ministry official wasn't very pleased either:
"While it is reasonable to warn Iran of the consequences of it continuing to develop nuclear weapons and what those real consequences bring to its security, it is probably not prudent in today's world to threaten to obliterate any other country and in many cases civilians resident in such a country."
The Globe says that Hillary has done real damage to the reform effort in Iran:
While Clinton has hammered Obama for supporting military strikes in Pakistan, her comments on Iran are much more far-reaching. She seems not to realize that she undermined Iranian reformists and pragmatists. The Iranian people have been more favorable to America than any other in the Gulf region or the Middle East.
A presidential candidate who lightly commits to obliterating Iran - and, presumably, all the children, parents, and grandparents in Iran - should not be answering the White House phone at any time of day or night.