Awful Truth About Hillary, Barack, John... and
Whitewash
By Norman Solomon
04/12/07 "ICH"
-- -- The Pentagon’s most likely next target is Iran.
Hillary Clinton says “no option can be taken off the table.”
Barack Obama says that the Iranian government is “a threat to
all of us” and “we should take no option, including military
action, off the table.”
John Edwards says, “Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed
to have nuclear weapons.” And: “We need to keep all options on
the table.”
A year ago, writing in the New Yorker, journalist Seymour Hersh
reported: “One of the military’s initial option plans, as
presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls
for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as
the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites.”
For a presidential candidate to proclaim that all “options”
should be on the table while dealing with Iran is a horrific
statement. It signals willingness to threaten -- and possibly
follow through with -- first use of nuclear weapons. This raises
no eyebrows among Washington’s policymakers and media elites
because it is in keeping with longstanding U.S. foreign-policy
doctrine.
This year, with their virtually identical statements about
“options” and “the table,” the leading Democratic presidential
candidates -- Clinton, Obama and Edwards -- have refused to rule
out any kind of attack on Iran.
If you’re not shocked or outraged yet, consider this:
On Feb. 22, the national leaders of MoveOn sent an e-mail letter
to more than 3 million people with the subject line “War with
Iran?” After citing a need to give UN sanctions “a chance to
work before provoking a regional conflict,” the letter said
flatly: “Senator Hillary Clinton has provided some much needed
leadership on this.”
The MoveOn letter quoted a passage from a speech that Clinton
had given on the Senate floor eight days earlier: “It would be a
mistake of historical proportion if the administration thought
that the 2002 resolution authorizing force against Iraq was a
blank check for the use of force against Iran without further
congressional authorization. Nor should the president think that
the 2001 resolution authorizing force after the terrorist
attacks of 9/11, in any way, authorizes force against Iran. If
the administration believes that any, any use of force against
Iran is necessary, the president must come to Congress to seek
that authority.”
But, while quoting Hillary Clinton’s speech as an example of
“some much needed leadership,” MoveOn made no mention of the
fact that the same speech stated: “As I have long said and will
continue to say, U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We
cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or
acquire nuclear weapons. And in dealing with this threat, as
I've also said for a long time, no option can be taken off the
table.”
Earlier this year, David Rieff noted in the New York Times
Magazine on March 25, “Vice President Cheney insisted that the
administration had not ‘taken any options off the table’ as Iran
continued to defy United Nations calls for it to abandon its
nuclear ambitions. The response from Democrats was not long in
coming. Senator Clinton helped lead the charge, reminding the
president that he did not have the authority to go to war with
Iran on the basis of the Senate’s authorization of the use of
force in Iraq in 2002.
“But what Senator Clinton did not say was at least as
interesting as what she did say. And what she did not say was
that she opposed the use of force in Iran. To the contrary,
Senator Clinton used virtually the same formulation as Vice
President Cheney. When dealing with Iran, she insisted, ‘no
option can be taken off the table.’”
To praise Hillary Clinton for providing “much needed leadership”
on Iran -- and to mislead millions of e-mail recipients counted
as MoveOn members in the process -- is a notable choice to make.
It speaks volumes. It winks at Clinton’s stance that “no option
can be taken off the table.” It serves an enabling function. It
is very dangerous.
The stakes are much too high to make excuses or look the other
way.
Norman Solomon: Author and media critic -
http://www.normansolomon.com/
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