One Middle East but two very different views on the way to deal with its problems, one from an ex-President and one from a Presidential pretender.
Jimmy Carter flew out to the area to sit down with the main players and actively seeks bringing peace to the region while Hillary is pledging to obliterate a large part of it.
Ex-President Carter has been given a rough ride for his trip to the Middle East where he has met with Hamas leaders to try and broker some kind of peace in the conflict between Palestine and Israel that has dragged on for over 40 years. As the only other alternative is a continuation of the killing, i cannot give the man enough credit for trying and shake my head in confusion at anyone who attacks him for it.
While Carter was speaking of being encouraged by his talks with Hamas leaders, crass and idiotic statements like those that issued from Hillary Clinton today just make us realise how important this upcoming US election is for all of us.
When asked in an interview with ABC News what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons Clinton responded "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."
Am i the only one that finds her words chilling and very disturbing?
Despite no evidence whatsoever that Iran has any intention of attacking Israel or possesses nuclear weapons, a potential President of a nuclear power threatens to obliterate an entire nation and it 70 million inhabitants.
I realise that this is meant for home consumption but does she really think that considering the current debacle in the Middle East by the current President, she will gather votes from the Democratic voters with more of the same hyperbole?
What if Israel attacks Iran first and Iran retaliates? Israeli government ministers have already threatened a pre-emptive attack on Iran and Israel have an excellent previous record of attacking its neighbours pre-emptively. Would Clinton then be bound by her words to retaliate massively against Iran though Israel was the aggressor? How more of a green light would they need to stoke it up?
During a debate last week Obama was asked about Iran's nuclear ambitions and his plans for dealing with them.
His reply was "I have said I will do whatever is required to prevent the Iranians from obtaining nuclear weapons. I believe that that includes direct talks with the Iranians where we are laying out very clearly for them, here are the issues that we find unacceptable. I believe that we can offer them carrots and sticks, but we've got to directly engage and make absolutely clear to them what our posture is."
It is clear to me which one should be kept as far away as possible from red phones in the Oval Office no matter what time of the day or night it was.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/23/hillaryclinton.iran
15 comments:
Hil C. just won PA.
I never can understand why everyone over here is so quick to pledge military support for Israel. I mean, we are talking about a country that has dozens of nuclear weapons needing the US to act as their nuclear defense shield. What!? Frankly, all of Hildog's rhetoric is moot since Israel, if attacked, would probably have 20 nukes over Iran before we could find the firing button. My money is on an Israeli pre-emptive strike if Iran starts to go after the bomb.
As for ole'Jimmy, you've gotta feel sorry for the guy. He's obviously sincere, but every peace deal he brokers, whether it's with the Arabs/Israelis, North Koreans, etc..., always falls through. It's as if the bad guys meet homely old Jimmy and just can't turn him away. So, they agree to some token deal that they simply ignore once they don't have to look Jimmy in the face anymore.
Though it would still be very bad if those Mullahs got Nukes.
And for better or worse it doesn't look as if Obama can lose the nomination at this point seeing as how a landslide was Hildog's** last best chance at keeping Obama's nomination from becoming a mathematical certainty. After her poor victory spread in Pennsylvania Obama would have to murder someone to lose the nomination.
**Hildog is a comical, though not quite pejorative, term for Hillary Clinton. I think it originated in the South Park Episode "Snuke".
hillary plays by the rove playbook.
good times. she will be dragged kicking and screaming from this never-ending race-she will not go quietly. what a disgrace.
Obviously the NIE report in December that said Iran had ceased any ambitions of a nuclear missile program in 2003 are being ignored.
I agree with you effay, just what does America get out of its blanket support for Israel apart from lots of aggrevation, hatred and a drain on your economy?
Lucy,
I'm shocked. I didn't see her say that. Did she mean that "she wouldn't take that option off the table?"
I've never heard anybody say they want to get into a scrape with Iran. Iraq is more than enough. It isn't going to get her any votes. I'm shocked that she didn't lose huge numbers of voters - especially since the Dems are the anti-war leaders.
It makes me wonder if what you heard was taken out of context before it was presented to you...
Q
Copy and paste this link Q. I hope it works depsite although it is about to be broke up when i press enter.
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=139820
I heard it on the radio on the way home and thought they may have spiced it up but they hadn't.
I put a link at the bottom of the post Q, couldn't get them to work in here.
it's unfortunate that more americans do not pay attention to goings-on the way that you do, lucy.
To be fair annie, it's part of my job to keep up to date with current affairs but there have been occasons where people have argued with me about things that have not made the news there but made it here.
Case in point: The Valerie Plame story. It made the news in the UK (and in New Zealand for that matter) about a year before the MSM broke it in the States. For real. The American media knew all about it, but for reasons best known to themselves (about which we can only speculate) they sat on it.
Annie,
Be default I vote Republican based on the "general policies" of the party. Likewise I vote against Dems based on their "general policies". I thought Hillary's policies were pretty obvious so I didn't watch her closely - being an advocate of war isn't going to win my vote. I watched Obama closely at first, but it quickly became obvious that he is true to the Dem "general policies" as well - as one would expect. So I stopped watching his statements.
I'm still shocked by the Hillary position.
Q
Annie,
Be default I vote Republican based on the "general policies" of the party. Likewise I vote against Dems based on their "general policies". I thought Hillary's policies were pretty obvious so I didn't watch her closely - being an advocate of war isn't going to win my vote. I watched Obama closely at first, but it quickly became obvious that he is true to the Dem "general policies" as well - as one would expect. So I stopped watching his statements.
I'm still shocked by the Hillary position.
Q
I had a couple of Americans arguing with me on a blog about special rendition flights just before Xmas and how i was making it all up because they read the papers and watch the news all the time and they hadn't heard anything about it.
Israeli government ministers have already threatened a pre-emptive attack on Iran and Israel has an excellent previous record of attacking its neighbors pre-emptively.
Post a Comment