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Hillary on Iran: "No Option Must Be Taken Off the Table"

Raw Story reports that Hillary Clinton gave a speech at an event by the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC Friday night in which she refused to rule out using miltary force with Iran.

Clinton told some 1,700 AIPAC supporters that the US must take any step to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

"U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons," she said. "In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table."

"To deny the Holocaust places Iran's leadership in company with the most despicable bigots and historical revisionists," she added. Clinton excoriated the Iranian administration's "pro-terrorist, anti-American, anti-Israeli rhetoric."

"We need to use every tool at our disposal, including diplomatic and economic in addition to the threat and use of military force," she added.

More...

She didn't say we're going to war with Iran. She said she's not ruling it out. If, as New Yorker investigative reporter Sy Hersh reported last April, a classified CIA report has found there is no "firm evidence" Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons, and that doesn't change, I don't think Hillary would initiate a war with Iran.

As Hersh said last week in a speech he gave, it's Bush we need to be worried about because there's two years left on his term.

Let's keep our eye on the ball. It's Bush, not Hillary, who presents the clear and present danger.

Update: Iran and Bush related: Joe Conason:

Whatever George W. Bush may tell us about his intentions toward Iran, every action and order indicates that he will seek to expand the war eastward from Iraq. Despite the warnings voiced by wiser military and diplomatic advisors, the President still seems to be listening to the same discredited neoconservatives whose fantasies and falsehoods drove us into the Iraqi quagmire.

Also check out Larisa at At-Largely who follows all things Iran-related.

And, Tapped's Ezra Klein talks to John Edwards on Iran.

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  • Display: Sort:
    Lies (none / 0) (#1)
    by Edger on Sat Feb 03, 2007 at 12:19:28 PM EST
    "In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table."

    Bush keeps saying the same thing. And Bush keeps taking the diplomatic option... off the table.

    AIPAC (none / 0) (#2)
    by squeaky on Sat Feb 03, 2007 at 12:26:47 PM EST
    I read another version of the story which reported that she toned down the warmongering toward Iran and the crowd did  not applaud. In other words she got an icy response because she did not deliver the required warmongering, no holds barred tough talk.

    Our elected leaders are afraid of pissing off AIPAC and that is a big problem:


    Despite her thinly veiled support of the Bush Doctrine, the AIPAC people at the dinner at which Hillary spoke did not feel she was bellicose enough, according to the NY Post:

    Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton drew grumbles at a pro-Israel dinner in Times Square last night when she encouraged "engaging" with Iran before taking stronger action to keep it nuke-free.....

    .....Clinton's remarks at the Marriott Marquis were met with little applause , and after she left the stage, several people said they were put off by the presidential candidate.

    "This is the wrong crowd to do that with," said one person at the dinner, noting the pro-Israel crowd wanted to hear tougher rhetoric.

    digby