Devastating editorial on the dangers of a foreign policy that is always subordinated to domestic political interests.
Hillary seems willing to follow in the footsteps of the first Clinton presidency, where foreign policy statements/decisions are made in order to further some domestic interest. It's been well established that this was the case during Somalia, Rwanda, and even Kosovo. Hillary hasn't even occupied the Oval Office and she's already starting to create diplomatic dust ups. Here is the Boston Globe editorial, available at http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editor ial_opinion/editorials/articles/2008/04/ 27/hillary_strangelove/?p1=email_to_a_fr iend
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.
MORE POLITICAL COVERAGEThis 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.
Unfortunately this is just the latest in a series of important foreign policy statements and votes that Hillary has supported, in order to appear "strong" enough to pass the "commander in chief threshold."
Of course the first instance was voting for the AUMF - the vote granting the president the congressional authorization to begin the war in Iraq. If you've had any legal training, you will realize by reading the text of the this document, just how much power Congress handed over to the president by caving to Bush on this bill. The same argument can be made for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment.
Probably the most obvious example - since Hillary continues to suggest that she was duped into voting for war - is the recent Bosnia/Tuzla fabrication. What is so shocking about the lie she peddled was that there was really no rational reason for it. There was no marginal benefit to lying about her Bosnia experience, but she still did it! If she had never claimed to land under sniper fire, it's not like all of a sudden people would have thought "well, maybe Obama is more experienced in foreign policy!" Obama had essentially conceded the issue by trying to focus attention on judgment.
So why would she lie about Tuzla? If no one had ever heard of Tuzla, people would probably still have said she was more experienced.
The reason is, again, that Hillary's strategy is one of appearances - smoke and mirrors. If you can plant into the public consciousness that Hillary, the Wellesley and Yale Law grad, not only dodged sniper fire - but during the 1970s had actually tried to join the Marines, then it would make her look "tough." That is why she voted for the AUMF; that is why she voted for Kyl Lieberman; that is why she peddled the Tuzla lie; and that is why she says she is willing to "obliterate" Iran.
We're already suffering from the decisions of a president that is willing to sacrifice the best policy, for the most politically expedient. We don't need another.
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