Promoted by Steven D. This represents all that is wrong in our politics since 9/11.
This morning on Fox News Sunday, New York Times columnist Bill Kristol recommended that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) employ the “politics of fear” to attack Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL).
KRISTOL: [Obama’s] riding a wave of euphoria. She [Clinton] needs to puncture it. The way you puncture euphoria is reality, or to be more blunt, fear. I recommend to Senator Clinton the politics of fear.
Kristol explained that his fear-mongering political strategy would focus on Iran. He recommended that Clinton say the following about Obama: “He wants to negotiate on January 21st with Ahmadinejad. Here’s what Ahmadinejad has said about blowing up Israel.”
Watch it:
As an uber-Neocon, Kristol has invested heavily in a strategy of convincing policymakers to bomb Iran. Here’s some statements Kristol made in the past in support of his Neocon strategy:
“We could be in a military confrontation with Iran much sooner than people expect.”
The Iranian people would embrace “the right use of targeting military force.”
President Bush “could easily build political support” for an attack on Iran “at the beginning of 2008.”
Because the concept of engaging Iran (Obama) is a threat to Kristol’s agenda, he appears ready to embrace Hillary’s candidacy in order to undermine the idea of negotiation. Kristol’s Fox News colleague Juan Williams has remarked that all Kristol wants is “war, war, war.”
So is Kristol correct in putting all of his hopes for an Iran attack on Hillary?
Not only is Hillary’s record in the Senate clearly compatible with Kristol’s Neoconservatism, she has taken up the war mongering rhetoric of Israeli politicians against Iran. In April 2007, Hillary announced that the US might have to confront Iran.
Democratic presidential candidate and New York Senator Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that it might be necessary for America to confront Iran militarily, addressing that possibility more directly than any of the other presidential candidates who spoke this week to the National Jewish Democratic Council.
(snip)
Clinton first said that the US should be engaging directly with Iran to foil any effort to gain nuclear weapons and faulted the Bush administration for “considerably narrowing” the options available to America in countering Iran.
In an earlier January 2006 article, Justin Raimondo said:
(Hillary) wants permanent bases in Iraq and threatens war with Iran.
The Bush administration, for all its bellicose rhetoric, has shown little stomach for directly confronting Tehran, and this has prompted Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton to take on the Bushies for supposedly ignoring the alleged threat from Iran. Speaking at Princeton University on the occasion of the Wilson School’s 75th anniversary celebration, Clinton aligned herself with such Republican hawks as Sen. John McCain and the editorial board of the Weekly Standard, calling for sanctions and implicitly threatening war:
“I believe that we lost critical time in dealing with Iran because the White House chose to downplay the threats and to outsource the negotiations. I don’t believe you face threats like Iran or North Korea by outsourcing it to others and standing on the sidelines. But let’s be clear about the threat we face now: A nuclear Iran is a danger to Israel, to its neighbors and beyond. The regime’s pro-terrorist, anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric only underscores the urgency of the threat it poses. U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal. We cannot and should not – must not – permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. In order to prevent that from occurring, we must have more support vigorously and publicly expressed by China and Russia, and we must move as quickly as feasible for sanctions in the United Nations. And we cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current leadership of Iran – that they will not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons.”
The phrase “Democrats taking up where the Republicans left off,” is a direct reference to Hillary Clinton.
In his article, Hillary Clinton and the Israel Lobby, Joshua Frank put it this way:
AIPAC’s hypocrisy is nauseating. The Goliath lobbying organization wants Iran to cease to procure nukes while the crimes of Israel continue to be ignored. So who is propping up AIPAC’s hypocritical position? None other than Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.
(snip)
During a Hanukkah dinner speech delivered in December 2005, hosted by Yeshiva University, Clinton prattled, “I held a series of meetings with Israeli officials [last summer], including the prime minister and the foreign minister and the head of the [Israel Defense Forces], to discuss such challenges we confront. In each of these meetings, we talked at length about the dire threat posed by the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran, not only to Israel, but also to Europe and Russia. Just this week, the new president of Iran made further outrageous comments that attacked Israel’s right to exist that are simply beyond the pale of international discourse and acceptability. During my meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, I was reminded vividly of the threats that Israel faces every hour of every day. … It became even more clear how important it is for the United States to stand with Israel….”
(snip)
As Clinton embraces Israel’s violence, as well as AIPAC’s fraudulent posture on Iran, she simultaneously ignores the hostilities inflicted upon Palestine, as numerous Palestinians have been killed during the continued shelling of the Gaza Strip over the past year.
Clinton’s silence toward Israel’s brutality implies the senator will continue to support AIPAC’s mission to occupy the whole of the occupied territories, as well as a war on Iran. AIPAC is correct – even President Bush appears to be a little sheepish when up against the warmongering of Hillary Clinton.
So now that Hillary has the open support of a right wing Neocon the likes of William Kristol, it is ever so much more urgent that she be defeated in the Democratic primary.