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May. 1st, 2008 01:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mahnmutIRAN: Hillary's threat to "obliterate" in war reverberates
Better be careful what you say in the heat of a political campaign. It could have global repercussions.
Presidential contender Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's vow to "obliterate" Iran, presumably with nuclear weapons, if it attacked Israel on her watch was duly noted in the U.S.
[UPDATE: To see a video and full transcript of the comment, click here.]
Jaded American insiders shrugged off the remark as typical campaign season bluster, filed away with myriad other exaggerations and gaffes.
But it prompted shock overseas as well as headlines from Bulgaria to New Zealand.
The statement triggered alarm bells in the Persian Gulf, which would likely suffer the consequences of any war between Iran and the U.S. In a harshly worded editorial, the Saudi-based daily Arab News trashed Clinton's comment today as insane:
This is the foreign politics of the madhouse. It demonstrates the same doltish ignorance that has distinguished Bush’s foreign relations. It offers only violence where there should be negotiations and war where there could be peace. At a stroke, Clinton demonstrated to everyone in this region that if she were the next occupant of the White House, Iraq-like death and destruction would be the order of the day.
The paper generally stays true to the line of the Saudi government, which is a key U.S. ally. But criticism of the remark also came from even friendlier quarters.
In the United Kingdom, which has been a steadfast U.S. ally in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as on the issue of Iran, Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, a ranking British diplomat, criticized Clinton's remark as gratuitous:
While it is reasonable to warn Iran of the consequence of it continuing to develop nuclear weapons and what those real consequences bring to its security, it is not probably prudent ... in today's world to threaten to obliterate any other country and in many cases civilians resident in such a country.
—Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
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Russia warned that it would regard any U.S. military strike against Iran as an attack on Russia itself -- raising the threat of Russian retaliation.
Putin is stepping down as president in May, but there's no guarantee that his successor, Dimitry Medvedev, won't maintain Putin's tough stance on Iran.
http://www.skeeterbitesreport.com/2007/11/putin-russia-may-strike-back-if-us.html