Israel Matzav

Krauthammer on Clinton's comments on a nuclear Iran

Here's Charles Krauthammer on Secretary of State Clinton's comments in Thailand on Wednesday about how the US would respond to a nuclear Iran.

On April 16 of last year in a presidential debate, George Stephanopoulos asked Obama and Clinton what they would do if Iran attacked Israel with a nuclear weapon.

She answered very strongly: [We] would retaliate. We would retaliate with nukes, and we would extend an umbrella of protection over Israel, and she added, over other states in the region.

Obama answered weakly and actually cluelessly.

She repeated that idea a few times in the campaign as a way to show how tough she was, as opposed to him. I think what happened today in this show in Thailand is that she was repeating that theme inadvertently.

It is one thing to do it and to say it as a candidate as a kind of a hypothetical. But once you say it as secretary of state, you are implying, as everybody thought she was implying, that America already accepts the reality of a nuclear Iran and is thinking about containment and deterrence, as we did in the Soviet example in the Cold War.

I think it was—if it was Obama policy—it's a hell of a way to actually announce it or imply it. I think it was a gaffe that she later tried to walk back.

The problem with this administration is that it's such an amateur hour that often you can't tell what's a gaffe and what's intentional.

For the record, in the campaign debate, Mrs. Clinton said such an attack would result in “massive retaliation from the United States,” while Mr. Obama said such an attack would be “unacceptable” and would lead him to take “appropriate action.”

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:28 AM