Fear and obliteration are the two words that currently define the Clinton campaign and mark the substantive difference between a possible Clinton and Obama presidency.
First, taking a page directly out of the Karl Rove playbook, Clinton has consistently deployed fear tactics in the final days before a primary to motivate people to vote. We have already experienced the violence and destruction that results when people vote their anxieties. And with the appeal to fear, as we have also witnessed, comes the foreign policy of irresponsible bombast.
Thus, it is no surprise that when asked how she, as President, would respond to a hypothetical scenario in which Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, she said that we would “totally obliterate them.” This is, as discussed in a previous post, consistent with a foreign policy driven by Lee Feinstein who has criticized the Bush Administration’s strategy of preemption for not going far enough.
Robert Scheer has intelligent things to say in criticizing Clinton’s statement, as does Dorothy Wickenden.
See the immediate context of her comment here:
Great. I am at the end of my rope with all of this. I am not interested in another 4 years of Rovian politics and fear production. I want out.