[Peace-discuss] Not that Obama's any better

[C. G. Estabrook]

	GLOBE EDITORIAL
	Hillary Strangelove
	April 27, 2008

AMERICANS have learned to take with a grain of salt much of the rhetoric in a 
campaign like the current Democratic donnybrook between Hillary Clinton and 
Barack Obama. Still, there are some red lines that should never be crossed. 
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.

Responding with understatement to a question in the British House of Lords, the 
foreign minister responsible for Asia, Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, said of 
Clinton's implication of a mushroom cloud over Iran: "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."

A less restrained reaction came from an editorial in the Saudi-based paper Arab 
News. Being neighbors of Iran, the Saudis and the other Gulf Arabs have the most 
to fear from Iran's nuclear program and its drive to become the dominant power 
in the Gulf.

But precisely because they are most at risk from Iran's regional ambitions, the 
Saudis want a carefully considered American approach to Iran, one that balances 
firmness and diplomatic engagement.

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."

The Saudis are not always sound advisers on American foreign policy. But they 
understand that Rambo rhetoric like Clinton's only plays into the hands of 
Iranian hard-liners who want to plow ahead with efforts to attain a nuclear 
weapons capability. They argue that Iran must have that capability in order to 
deter the United States from doing what Clinton threatened to do.

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.

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