Posted on 02/24/2010 4:23:47 PM PST by seanmerc
WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is finding her voice in the world of foreign affairs -- and it’s the sound of hawk-speak, filled with threats and warnings.
She has warned that Iran is becoming a military dictatorship. She is trying -- with some success -- to persuade U.S. allies to support stronger sanctions against Teheran.
There’s no sign that the U.S. is about to invade Iran but there’s tons of speculation that the Pentagon has been tasked to figure out what bunker-buster bombs would do to Iran’s underground nuclear industry and whether such an attack would help or hinder efforts to neutralize Iran as a nuclear threat.
While a massive bombing would certainly delay Iran’s nuclear development, it would not stop it. The cost of such a military option would be grave: Iran’s hard-liners would be fortified politically; the growing domestic insurgency there would be silenced; and anti-American terrorists everywhere would see such an attack as justifying their own violence.
There’s not much doubt that Iran is heading toward nuclear weapons, the kind of arsenal that makes any nation a military force. Iran’s neighbors have those terrible devices and so the Iranians ask: Why not us, too? That’s the definition of an arms race.
On a recent trip to the Middle East, Clinton told students at Qatar University that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have become more powerful than the government and are heavily involved in oil exports, gasoline imports and defense contracts. Apparently, the hard-line mullahs were easier to deal with. Clinton also was tough on the Palestinians during her tour in the region. She said the Palestinians -- who have seen most of their land annexed or occupied by Israelis -- have to make more "concessions" to the occupier to get peace talks going.
The word "peace" has not been exalted in the White House for years and neither President Barack Obama nor his secretary of state seem to aspire to it. They fret that some conservative critic somewhere will accuse the administration of being "soft" on something.
Democrats continue to labor to prove they are tough, tough, tough, so that they don’t have to deal with a contemporary version of the old "Who lost China?" rant that conservatives used to their political advantage in the 1940s and 1950s.
The rhetoric from the Obama administration is framed in terms of "winning" and "victory" while a war-weary nation searches for an end to the war in Afghanistan, which has been going on for nine years and is gaining new momentum in the form of thousands of additional American troops being sent there.
In the Israeli-Palestinian front, former Sen. George Mitchell has been shuttling back and forth with not much success in trying to bring leaders from both sides to the peace table. Obama was not much help in breaking the stalemate when he buckled to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s refusal to impose a total freeze on settlement building. Instead, the Israeli leader offered a 10-month halt in expanding settlements. Such settlements -- colonies in reality -- are illegal under international law.
Unlike his domestic proposals where the president faces so much Republican opposition, Obama is in sync with the GOP in treading along the belligerent footsteps of his predecessor.
His hawkish secretary of state takes her cues from the boss.
Yoo-hoo, Helen Thomas ping list members! FReepmail me if you'd like to be added to the list.
Thanks for the warning, I think my retinas are on fire!
MUST HAVE BRAIN BLEACH!!! NOW!!
What a joke. Hillary was more threatening when she was standing in front of Bill holding a lamp than she is now at State.
Why do you want me to pour gas on myself, light a match and jump throught my glass door from my 3rd floor apartment?
Space aliens couldn’t look scarier than that woman.
Now that’s funny.Very,very nice job.
I’m amazed that nobody has posted a picture of the Hildebeast yet. Grateful, but amazed.
Would love to take credit for it but I can’t. I stole it from somebody else. Glad you enjoyed it!
It takes more than a few pictures of a grotesque alien from the Pigswill Galaxy to scare me.
Liar. ;0)
I’ll never love again.
UPI & Hearst must have the world’s suckiest retirement plan, ever. “Tell you what. Just keep working until you die.”
Hey that is a blob fish isn’t it???
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