[Peace-discuss] Not that Obama's any better
Jenifer Cartwright
jencart13 at yahoo.com
Mon Apr 28 21:11:45 CDT 2008
Good article, Carl. Thanks for posting it. However, the subject line should have read "Hillary Strangelove" as that's what the editorial is about. "Not that Obama's any better" is off-topic and soooo totally Rush Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly.
--Jenifer
"C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
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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