Boston Globe lambastes Hillary Clinton over Iran

Another day, another editorial in a major newspaper that sternly takes Hillary Clinton to task.

Last Wednesday, while she reveled in her impressive Pennsylvania primary win, the New York Times (her hometown paper) put the blame mainly on her for what it deemed the unduly harsh and hollow tenor of debate in the Democratic presidential race (read that piece here).

The Boston Globe, in an editorial headlined "Hillary Strangelove," this morning calls her out for her recent comment that, as president, she would "totally obliterate" Iran if that country attacked Israel.

The paper noted that what it termed "this foolish and dangerous threat," uttered on ABC's "Good Morning America" the day of the Pennsylvania vote, received little attention in the U.S. But, the Globe added, "it reverberated in headlines around the world."

Those upset by Clinton's comment included the Arab News, which made a comparison that nowadays represents the cruelest critique many in other nations direct at a U.S. politician. Clinton's warning to Iran, the Saudi-based paper wrote, "demonstrates the same doltish ignorance that has distinguished (President Bush's) foreign relations."

The Globe sums up thusly: "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."

Which, looking ahead, makes us wonder: If Clinton ends up the Democratic nominee, will the leading journalistic voice in one of the nation's most liberal states endorse Republican John McCain?

-- Don Frederick

Photo credit: Associated Press

Comments

[John B Sheffield]

The Boston Globe are just telling the Truth, the UK Foreign Minister expressed concerns about Hillary's Iran comments and the UK and European Media are seeing Hillary as a Joke, her lies the bullets and snipers at Bosnia on her and Chelsea, the sad story of the berheaved woman and her unborn baby just to help her health care plans.

It is time that Voters wake up and see the Real Hillary, she is trying to Fool us, do we want more of "The Dynasty" - Hillary is a Loose Cannon which will lead the US to disaster.

[EZ Tempo]

She's dangerously glib about mass murder. As the Globe says, "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."

[Lynn]

Obama cannot help it if Pastor Wright says controversial things, but here is Hillary herself saying something so controversial that it will ignite the Islamic extremists in disparate groups against her. I guess, just like Bush, Hillary is a uniter, just of the wrong people. If Hillary were to become President, I think the extremist war against us would go into overdrive. She has just ruined her chances of making any progress in Iraq and getting anything resolved in the Middle East on any front.

[toby]

Didn't McCain sing "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" to the tune of Barbara ann by the Beach boys?

Now let me clear something up, now Iran is the country that keeps on saying that they will wipe Israel off the map? Right?

The leader of Iran is vocally pro-genocide towards Jews...and has many times publicly supported the total destruction of Israel and it's society.

That Iran right?

Yeah, damn anyone who gets tough with that country...they sound....pleasant.

[latinovoter1]

This is the type of OLD WASHINGTON politics we need to get away from. Her Remarks were HORRIBLE.

[hector J. vega]

the slant in this article reaffirms my feelings tha Fredrick, like Malcom, is a Clinton Hater. The latest polls show that the majority of us are not. She beats the other remaining candidates beyond all margins of error. I think at this stage of Iran's level of beligerences, the unequivical statement saying - Hands off Isreal-or else. is warrented.

[Skyler]

I would hope that if a hostile country launched a nuclear attack against us or our allies, that any president would wipe that country off the face of the earth.

That's what deterance is about, nitwits!

[Core Democrat]

One more time......
Obama supporters,
Do you recall the Pakistan comment? Obama said he was going to drop a nuclear bomb on Pakistan! And you are blogging this regarding Hillary Clinton!

Desperate because she is winning and he is losing.

[Brian]

If I'm not mistaken, Israel is one of our strongest allies.
If Iran attacked them, should we not retaliate? What is the point of the controversy?

[Sam]

The OBLITERATE PROMISE from the LIPS of Senator Clinton SHOCKED me to the CORE. Please do not FIGHT FOR ME Ms. Clinton.....and stop taunting Obama to debate with you. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Promising to OBLITERATE any country to attract votes has made me decide to VOTE NO ON HILLARY.....PERIOD. If HIllary WINS...we need a REPUBLICAN CONGRESS.

[cat]

I've been wondering when the media would call Billary on this thoughtful and articulate example of her foreign relations wisdom...sigh. And the "nitwits" who think this is an example of "deterance" are just as clueless as this...misstatement.

[Isaac]

Sure, you are all right and Hillary is wrong, let's have coffee with Ahmadinejad and everything is going to be fine...you are all a joke and a bunch of appeasers just like Chamberlain with Hitler..good luck with Obama!

[Mark]

The view of ex-pats here in the UK is Hillary needs a reality check!

www.Americans-Away-From-Home.com

We know what the world thinks of us and it isn't pretty!

[Concerned citizen]

That very reckless comment should disqualify her from presidency. That statement is condoning genocide.

Regardless, last time I checked it is Israel who has hundreds of nukes not Iran. So question would be what to do if Israel attacks Iran?!

[Jeff Cronin]

All of you apologists for HRC (say anything, do anything...), Israel is already the world's fifth largest nuclear power, and it has nuclear submarines off the coast of Iran. They don't need our nuclear protection. Iran has over 70 million people. Don't you people have better instincts than to support reckless statements by a has been?

[James]

Hillary should just shut-up about Iran. Let Israel, who has been directly threatened with total annihilation by the leaders within virtually every Iranian Government
and Religious appartus many times handle the threat.

I have never once heard any elected leader of Israel call for the total annihilation of any other country, not
even Iran. It's always about deterrence, and to ensure that Iran or other anti-semitic countries, or groups can
never attadc Israel with weapons of mass destruction.

This juistg isn't our job. The Israelis have everything they'll ever need to protect themselves, and make no
mistake they will do so.

[JackJ]

Actually, if Clinton was being sincere, then I'd be forced to agree with her comment. If Iran attacked Israel, given Ahmedinejad's comments about wiping Israel off the map, that action would justify the USA, Israel's close ally, retaliating very harshly indeed! However, as so often with Clinton, she was dissembling and probably lying. I don't think she has the faintest idea what should be done in this situation! I think she went for a macho reply in order to impress certain audiences about her "toughness and readiness for such a crisis." She also wanted to demonstrate "support" for Israel. The truth is its all bluff, smoke and mirrors. She has never been a great supporter of Israel and couldn't be relied on to act appropriately. Israel knows this, and wouldn't look to her for anything, let alone decisive action.

[Jorge]

I agree with the Boston Globe and her stance on another war with Iran costed her the vote of my family and me. We can't nuke every nation that the Jewish lobby doesn't approve of. Iraq is a clear and good example of Murphy's law and we don't need another propganda how easy the victory will be. If the most powerful nation in the world can't handle the militia in Iraq and considering that Russia or China has not meddled into the war, what can makes us believe that Iran will be a piece of cake and not another worse debacle than Iraq. We need another war with Iran like we need the plague.

[ali kafi,MD]

What is troubling is first she assumes Iran is going to attack Israel with atomic bomb that they don,t have. She may use the same reasoning for pre-emptive attack as we did in Iraq.
This is Bush doctrine and a lot of innocent people will die.
What has happened to us,are we a paranoid nation with
military power and Atomic bomb that don't care about other nations?

[jennifer potenciano]

with all due respect to the great american press, this student of political science has an altogether different take (that disputes the boston globe’s stand & that of other equally nervous foreign press) on hillary’s recent “iran” pronouncement, flush as she was with her days’ old obama rout at the pennsylvania primary.

on the surface, it looks like there’s no excusing hillary for such a spur-of-the-moment, “erroneous” (for boston globe) pronouncement. but there’s a mitigating factor to this. you do have to see it from a prexy nominee’s viewpoint. as a perceptive american journalist saw it a day or two after hillary made her “iran” remark, this journalist opined that hillary was just trying to endear herself to the macho americanos & the powerful jewish americans by assuring israel that iran will definitely rue the day if ahmadinehad ever tries to “nuke” israel. hillary tried to strike a macho pose herself, & more importantly, tried to win the confidence of the very influential jewish sector of the american population--& in the private business sector as well. to this end, you have to grant that hillary’s remark made sense.

but seen at its face value, hillary could have been basically correct in her seemingly knee-jerk reaction to the reporter’s question on iran. discounting the hyperbolic extrapolation of the certified anti-hillary boston globe (“obliterating all the sons, daughters, grandparents, et. al in iran,” or words to that effect), such hillary warning could have sent the necessary shivers down the spines of the seemingly war freak faction of iran’s present ruling regime.

remember that iran’s extremist religious fundamentalist ruling regime is hell-bent on having their own nuclear expertise, even at the cost of sacrificing their people’s welfare. unlike one of its neighbors, saudi arabia, which takes care of its people so well (to the point of engendering a welfare state), iran leaves much to be desired. yet, realizing to the fullest its nuclear capability--& in the process, building its own arsenal of powerful nuclear missiles—against its perceived enemies (where israel tops the list) remains the abiding goal of this hegemony-obsessed ruling clique, as typified by its president, mr, ahmadinejad. (to be fair, some middle east experts in america believe there are still a great number of sober-minded iranian leaders who aren’t sold to the idea of iran “obliterating” israel first, but are even more open to peaceful coexistence than to a “quick, short war” via nuclear extinction.)

hillary’s “obliterating” pronouncement hopefully served just enough warning that as commander-in-chief, hillary will have no compunction employing everything necessary to make the iranian hawks toe the line: “ you, ahmadinejad & the rest of you boys, better behave, or i’ll sock it to you. this is the american commander-in-chief, hillary rodham clinton speaking.”

in any case, did boston globe hear what obama said of the nobel laureate jimmy carter’s meeting with the hamas top guns? obama disapproved of the former american president’s latest diplomatic move, a peace overture to israel itself. seen from hindsight, mr. carter’s latest middle east trip did much to avert even greater loss of lives in the further escalation of the war of nerves between the hamas & israel. did we hear a peep or read an obama chiding from boston globe? nada. but why the bias for obama?

having said all these things, this is precisely the reason why i am persuading obama to engage hillary in a one-on-one lincoln-douglas type of debate before the indiana primary, so that their respective stands on these monumental foreign issues will be clarified & made known to the world audiences—but more so their original constituency, the great american people.

if only to calm the jittery nerves of the old fogeys at the boston globe, such a no-nonsense, one-on-one debate between hillary & obama is well worth it. stop being a sissy, barrack, & show you’ve got balls, figuratively speaking. debate Hillary.****

[Isaac]

To answer Concerned Citizen's question about what to do if Israel attacks Iran?!
Here is the answer: just say "Good Riddance!!!!"

[Tom J]

Yes, it's an important story that says a lot about her judgment (or lack thereof). If you want to keep it in the public eye, I suggest you Digg it, Reddit, or whatever else you can think of:
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Hillary_Clinton_Wants_to_Totally_Obliterate_Iran_

[Truthseeker]

First of all let's get something clear:

1. The President of Iran never said he wants to "wipe Israel off the map". His statement was totally mis-translated and manipulated to read as such to further demonize Iran and Ahmadinejad.

He said the Zionist regime (he didn't mention Israel, he never mentioned map, and never said wipe out ) like the Pahlavi regime, like the Soviet union will fall apart by its own self destruction. Not that Iran would destroy it If Iran wanted to destroy Jews, it has its own Jewish Population and could start with its own!!

2. Israel has 200 to 500 nuclear weapons; and not a signatory to the NPT, and refuses to have any IAEA inspection.

3. Israel has the 4th largest and most sophisticated military arsenal at its disposal, thanks to our tax dollars; Iran doesn't.

4. Iran has asked for a nuclear free zone Middle East; Israel has refused.

5. Iran has not attacked or invaded any country for the past 300 years, while Israel has.

6. Iran is not suicidal, if it ever had any nuclear weapons which it does not; and if it attacked it might as well shoot
itself.

After all it has been Israel who has been threatening to wipe Iran off the map and not Iran for many, many years:

• Israel has as early as 1992 prepared public opinion in Israel for the prospect of a war with Iran. In this respect it has also continuously used propaganda to provoke the U.S. and the West to take action against Iran. (Open Secret: Israeli Nuclear and Foreign Policy by Israel Shahak – February 24, 1993)

• Guardian Unlimited – Straw rejects Israeli call for attack on Iran – Tuesday November 5, 2002

“The Foreign secretary, Jack Straw, today dismissed an Israeli call to attack Iran immediately following a strike on Iraq, and called a war on Iran the “gravest possible error.”

“In an interview in today’s Times, the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon identified Iran as a “centre of world terror”. Mr. Sharon advocated military strike against the country as soon s the U.S. and Britain had completed their proposed attack on Iraq.”

• In early 2002, a senior Israeli delegation arrived in Washington D.C. which included both Ariel Sharon and his defense minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer. Ben-Eliezer met with VP Cheney on February 8, and emphasized that Israel’s number one concern was Iran, not Iraq; and Ariel Sharon met with President Bush and indicated that Iran is the greater threat and upon attacking Iraq he should finish the job by invading Iran. (Scott Ritter - Target Iran)

• … In late April 2003, [the Israeli daily] Ha’aretz reported that the Israeli ambassador in Washington was calling for regime change in Iran. The overthrow of Saddam, he noted, was ‘not enough’. In his words, America ‘has to follow through. We still have great threats of that magnitude coming from Syria, coming from Iran.’ The neo-conservatives, too, lost no time in making the case for regime change in Tehran … As usual, a bevy of articles by prominent neo-conservatives made the case for going after Iran.

Is War With Iran Imminent?
This time, it's more than a rumor…
by Justin Raimondo

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12755

"In an interview with the Times of London, Ariel Sharon declared that Washington had better start threatening to march on Tehran "the day after" Baghdad was secured. By late April 2003, the Israeli ambassador to Washington was complaining that the demise of Saddam's regime was "not enough." Those indolent Americans must be made to "follow through" by taking action against "great threats of that magnitude coming from Syria, coming from Iran."

Shimon Peres rallied the faithful with an op-ed in the War Street Journal titled "We Must Unite to Prevent an Ayatollah Nuke." The neoconservatives convened a special all-day conference devoted to inciting war hysteria aimed at Tehran, with all the usual suspects – Michael Ledeen, Bernard Lewis, Reuel Marc Gerecht – in attendance. The cry went up: "Regime change!" The only question was which exile faction we were going to support: the royalists, or the cult-like neo-Marxist Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) and its numerous well-connected front groups in the U.S. and Europe.

The leaders of the latter have energetically vied for the role of the Iranian Chalabi, coming up with reams of "intelligence" detailing Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program. Their "revelations," however, have been definitively debunked by the latest national intelligence estimate, which says Tehran abandoned its nuclear program some time ago. All those diagrams and documents coming from MEK by the truckload were evidence of a nuclear program that no longer existed.

If any of this sounds familiar, then it should."

[JackJ]

To "truthseeker". Either you're naive, or your name is utterly inapt! The NIE that proclaimed that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003 was written by disaffected elements who used to be in State, and moved to Intelligence. They are known pacifists. Their report was effectively repudiated by the administration shortly thereafter. Apparently, either the program was never stopped, or it was recommenced later. There is no doubt whatsoever that Iran is energetically pursuing atomic weapons. As is Syria, if you keep up to date. I assure you Israel is treating Iran as a country on the verge of not only having n-weapons, but also the missile technology to deliver them. And Syria is not that far behind. AQ Khan (remember him?) provided most of N Korea's nuclear technology and NK has provided fast breeder nuclear reactor technology to Syria. This type of reactor produces plutonium relatively quickly, thus avoiding the tedium of enriching uranium. Incidentally, most of Israel's n-weapons use plutonium not uranium, for this very reason. Now Israel has bombed the Syrian reactor, but that might not be the end of the matter. Iran still pursues the enrichment of U238 to U235, but recent Mossad intelligence indicates that Iran also has access to plutonium. The threat of a nuclear armed Iran and Syria is very real, even imminent! Unfortunately, there are many naive Americans who prefer not to know these things, but reality will soon overtake them. By the way, the administration is fully cognizant of all these matters.

[Gaias Child]

Somebody has got to hold this woman responsible for the reckless pandering promises pouring out of her for the votes she wants.

We are being as hurt by some of her careless smug comments as we are already being hurt by some of the policies of the current administation. One example is C. Rice reprimanding Jimmy Carter recently and being responded to by Carter that she, Rice, is not being truthful. Well, anybody who watched the run-up to the Iraq pre-emptive "liberation" (occupation) knows that we have not been told the truth by the current administration. We are already not being told the truth by Senator Clinton and we need some kind of values for integrity in government.

These people who hold such power need to be accountable, responsible, thoughtful, sane.