May 11, 2008 10:56

James Rubin: "Obliterate" in Context

James Rubin, State Department spokesman in Bill Clinton's second term, emails to argue that some of the reporting on Hillary Clinton's remark about obliterating Iran has been out of context and has contributed to an ill-informed discussion. Here's what Rubin has to say:

For those who have focused on the "obliterate" controversy, two points seem relevant. First, Senator Clinton was responding to a hypothetical question about what the United States should do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, which would mean the probable destruction of Israel.

Second, for those of you who may remember the Cold War, we talked a lot in those days about mutual assured destruction which is pretty much the same as mutual obliteration. Those kinds of things were commonly said as part of deterrence.

More important, if you read the entire quote you will see that she is saying we are able to obliterate, which is a statement about capabilities analagous to many things said during the Cold War. When describing this, she went on to point out that such a thing is terrible to think about, a comment that I don't remember made all that often by the eight American presidents who regularly discussed America's capability to completely destroy the Soviet Union.

Both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton chose to respond to a hypothetical question about an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel. In doing so, there was inevitably going to be misinterpretation. The Iranian government has chosen to misinterpret the remarks in order to play the victim. I don't think they should be encouraged in their diplomatic games.

Rubin calls attention what Clinton's said in the Democratic candidates' debate in Philadelphia on April 16. A reporter set the stage by asking the candidates whether the U.S. should consider an Iranian attack on Israel as if it were an attack on the U.S. Here's how Clinton responded:

I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course, I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States.

But I would do the same with other countries in the region. We are at a very dangerous point with Iran. The Bush policy has failed. Iran has not been deterred. They continue to try to not only obtain the fissile material for nuclear weapons, but they are intent upon using their efforts to intimidate the region and to have their way when it comes to the support of terrorism in Lebanon and elsewhere.

And I think that this is an opportunity, with skillful diplomacy, for the United States, to go to the region and enlist the region in a security agreement vis-a-vis Iran.

It would give us three tools we now don't have. Number one, we've got to begin diplomatic engagement with Iran. And we want the region and the world to understand how serious we are about it. I would begin those discussions at a low level. I certainly would not meet with Ahmadinejad because even again today he made light of 9/11, and said that he's not even sure it happened and that people actually died.

He's not someone who would have an opportunity to meet with me in the White House. But I would have a diplomatic process that would engage him. And secondly, we've got to deter other countries from feeling they have to acquire nuclear weapons. You can't go to the Saudis or the Kuwaitis or UAE and others who have a legitimate concern about Iran and say, well, don't acquire these weapons to defend yourself unless you're also willing to say we will provide a deterrent backup. And we will let the Iranians know, that, yes, an attack on Israel would trigger massive retaliation. But so would an attack on those countries that are willing to go under the security umbrella and forswear their own nuclear ambitions. And finally, we cannot permit Iran to become a nuclear weapons power. And this administration has failed in our efforts to convince the rest of the world that that is a danger, not only to us, and not just to Israel but to the region and beyond.

Therefore, we have not to have this process that reaches out beyond even who we would put under the security umbrella, to get the rest of the world on our side to try to impose the kind of sanctions and diplomatic efforts that might prevent this from occurring.

--By Scott MacLeod/Dubai

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