If you would have told me, a year ago, that I would be praising Hillary Clinton for something she said; I would have asked you what kind drugs you were on and to share some of it with me! (I kid about the drugs, but this still is a very good story.)
First the Video:
Quote:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that Iran will never achieve its goal of obtaining a nuclear weapon, declaring to Tehran: “Your pursuit is futile.”
“What we want to do is to send a message to whoever is making these decisions, that if you’re pursuing nuclear weapons for the purpose of intimidating, of projecting your power, we’re not going to let that happen,” Clinton said.
“First, we’re going to do everything we can to prevent you from ever getting a nuclear weapon. But your pursuit is futile, because we will never let Iran — nuclear-armed, not nuclear-armed — it is something that we view with great concern, and that’s why we’re doing everything we can to prevent that from ever happening. … We believe, as a matter of policy, it is unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons.”
As a security summit in Thailand earlier this week, Clinton raised the possibility of a “defense umbrella” over the Middle East to protect other nations from a nuclear-armed Iran, marking the first time a senior administration official has publicly broached the prospect of the Persian nation succeeding in building a nuclear weapon.
Clinton said the Obama administration might still engage with Iran’s regime, even though she thinks the people there “deserve better than what they’re getting.”
via Hillary Clinton: Iran’s pursuit of nukes ‘futile’ – Mike Allen and Daniel Libit – POLITICO.com.
The only question that I might have is this; Does President Obama agree with this position? Another concern that I have is that this could be a signal of War drums beating. I am sure that the Secretary knows, that our forces are still fighting in Afghanistan and that we do still have forces in Iraq and that the job there is still not entirely done yet.
However, I do commend Secretary Clinton for her tough stance towards Iran’s terrible President and Islamic Oligarchy.
I just hope that President Obama agrees with Secretary Clinton and does not try and back-peddle that stance and play the role of terrorist appeaser. If he does, it would mean the total discrediting of Secretary Clinton and further more of America’s leadership role in the World.
Update: No Quarter, who is a Pro-Hillary liberal Blogger; links in. Hey, we might not agree on politics. But I’ll any kind of linkie love that I can get! 😛 😀
Update #2: John over at Powerline disagrees:
In other words, negotiating with Iran at this time would indeed betray the protesters, but we’ve done this before and want to do it again now.
Fair enough, perhaps. Our experiences with the Soviet Union and China do establish that we have at times negotiated with repressive regimes. But it doesn’t follow that we should negotiate with Iran at this time.
In any event, this much is certain: our negotiations with the Soviet Union and China did not cause either power to eschew nuclear weapons. Indeed, to my knowledge negotiations have never induced any nation that was aggressively pursuing nukes to change its mind. That kind of persuasion takes a massive show of force (Libya and arguably Iraq) or regime change.
Thus, while the administration may have its own motives for negotiating with Iran, there is no reason for Israel to believe that such negotiations will protect Israel’s interest (potentially a life-and-death one) in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Clinton’s case that Israel should rely on U.S. attempts to pursuade Iran not to go nuclear, rather than taking matters into its own hands by attacking Iran, is not a powerful one.