Left I on the News

Everyone seems to be talking about Hillary's Clinton's comments on Iran on ABC and Countdown. Asked what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, she claimed "we would be able to totally obliterate them" [Evidently her aversion to answering hypothetical questions doesn't apply when Israel is involved]. By the way, just in the interest of accuracy, she didn't say she would obliterate them, as many people have written, she said we would be able to obliterate them, which isn't the same thing. But close enough, I'll grant.

As I've already explained in a post on the most recent debate, the idea that Clinton and Obama (and McCain, for that matter) have different positions on this question is nonsense. Anyone who thinks President Obama or President McCain wouldn't respond to this absurdly unlikely hypothetical situation with the identical "massive retaliation" that President Clinton would use is smoking something.

Meanwhile, a far more significant statement from an important political figure has flown under the radar. This one, from Defense Secretary Robert Gates:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he believes Iran is "hell bent" on acquiring nuclear weapons.

Not just planning to acquire them, but "hell bent" no less! This despite the collective judgment of the U.S. intelligence community expressed in the latest NIE, which said Iran has no nuclear weapons program. Rather a curious way for someone "hell bent" on acquiring nuclear weapons to behave. The group that is really "hell bent" is the American establishment, hell bent on convincing the American people that Iran is a dangerous threat to the American people that must be confronted.

Yes, Gates did say we shouldn't go to war with Iran because of their alleged development of nuclear weapons, but not for any principled reason, only because "another war in the Middle East is the last thing we need."