I am sure you have by now heard of Hillary Clinton's remarks to ABC about "obliterating Iran".
Imagine the uproar that would have resounded in the United States, and around the world, if Barack Obama had been the one to make the remarks about wiping out every man, woman, and child in a country in the Middle East.
Instead, it was Hillary Clinton who made the "obliterate Iran" remarks and the media has not held her accountable. What amounts to a Neocon threat against Iran has gone virtually unnoticed in the media.
There is just now appearing a smattering of reaction in the U.S., but her remarks were very startling to those outside the United States, particularly our allies.
Hillary Clinton has already voted once for war with Iran, as she did for Iraq. Her excuse for voting for the Iraq War was that George Bush deceived her.
Yes, he did. He deceived many of us, but many of us learned from that experience. Either Hillary did not learn from that experience enough to vote against the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, labeling the Iranian Republican Guard Corps Qods Force as a terrorist organization, or she has secretly harbored pro-war tendencies.
The fact that there was a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that cast doubt on George Bush's weapons of mass destruction claims about Iraq, which Hillary failed to read, leaves Hillary with no excuse.
Now that there there has been an NIE saying that Iran does not have nuclear weapons ambitions, Hillary is not apologizing for her Kyl-Lieberman vote. She says that her vote was a vote for "increased diplomacy toward Iran."
The following is the transcript of Hillary's remarks to ABC's Good Morning America. Note that she said she would obliterate Iran for even "considering" attacking Israel!
CHRIS CUOMO: You said if Iran were to strike Israel, there would be 'massive retaliation." Scary words. Does 'massive retaliation" mean you'd go into Iran? You would bomb Iran? Is that what that's supposed to suggest?
CLINTON: Well, the question was, if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, what would our response be? And I want the Iranians to know that if I am president, we will attack Iran.
And I want them to understand that. Because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their society. Because whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program, in the next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.
That's a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that. Because that, perhaps, will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish, and tragic.
Hillary does not understand how pro-American the Iranian people are. We do not want to discourage these pro-United States factions in Iran. Like Bush, and other Neocons, Hillary fails to understand that Ahmadinejad is not the equivalent of George Bush in the U.S. government. He could be more likened to the Queen of England, if both he and the Queen will pardon that example. He does not dictate Iranian policy.
Despite that, Hillary has been encouraging the saber-rattlers in the Pentagon to go ahead and attack Iran, both with her Kyl-Lieberman Amendment vote and her recent remarks to ABC's Good Morning America.
After all, if we attacked Iran, the United States military would only be guilty of killing a few thousand Iranians, not "totally obliterating" them. So, in fact, the U.S. military could consider that it had been in fact, lenient with Iran based on the fact that we did not "obliterate" them.
Her votes and recent remarks reveal how shallow Hillary Clinton is in her foreign policy thinking. In order to pick up a few Jewish votes, she has demonstrated a willingness to condemn an entire nation to death. I'm not sure if the word "obliterate" in regards to another nation has been used by a potential powerful Western world leader in public before.
The Boston Globe notes that the Saudis equate her remarks to being like those of George Bush and his Neo-cons:
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."
Hillary Clinton’s remarks not only encourage hard-liners within Iran, but give terrorists an excuse as to why they need to attack us. They can also point to these remarks as the reason why a nuclear bomb is needed.
After seven years of Bush’s nightmarish foreign policy blunders, why do we have two out of the three Presidential candidates wanting to "bomb, bomb Iran"? The "politics of madness" indeed.
Cross-posted to my blog, Stop Hillary McClinton.com.