Hillary Echoes JFK

"It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear attack upon a nation in this hemisphere launched from Cuba as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union."
President John F Kennedy, October, 1962

" (If Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons) we will attack Iran....we would be able to totally obliterate them."
Senator Hillary Clinton, May, 2008 (1)

"It is not the language we need right now."
Senator Barrack Obama, May, 2008 (1)

For those pundits who have said that there are no real policy differences between Democratic candidates Clinton and Obama, the real difference cited above must have come as a shock. Mrs. Clinton, who once promised retaliation as her first response to another terrorist attack on the US, is clearly positioning herself as the more hawkish contender. Perhaps she is overcompensating for the presumption that a female president would be less likely to use military force. If so, it is working.

Despite the obvious similarity to the warning made by President Kennedy, Barrack Obama characterized her threat as "language reflective of George Bush." To have compared her to fellow Democrat John F Kennedy might have solidified her standing with those Democrats who never accepted the McGovern/Carter preference for appeasement over confrontation. The Illinois senator, who favors a dialogue with Iran, Syria and other Middle East powers, has aligned himself with the dovish wing of his party.

Obama should have pondered the consequences of President Kennedy's threat to retaliate upon the Soviet Union. Like many Americans of the time, I was apprehensive during the week following the Kennedy speech. But then the missiles were withdrawn from Cuba, within a year the US concluded a treaty with the Soviets banning tests of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, then the architect of the Cuban missile initiative (Nikita Khrushchev) was deposed, and an era of detente followed. As it turned out, Kennedy's threat was precisely "the language we need(ed)" at that time.

Iran, to paraphrase the late Lloyd Bentsen, is no Soviet Union. At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union had rough parity with the US in both nuclear weapons and missiles. (2) Today, Iran has no nuclear weapons, and its nuclear development program is about where the Soviet Union's was around 1947. Moreover, Iran's efforts are under close scrutiny by both the US and Israel; it is more likely that Iran's nuclear facilities will be destroyed than it is that Iran will actually build atomic weapons.

Even if Hillary Clinton is not nominated for President, her threat to Iran is likely to become an issue in the presidential election; the nominees are sure to be asked about it during the debates. I believe that the ultimate powers in Iran (the Guardian Council and Grand Ayatollah Ali Khameini) are now paying close attention to the American presidential campaign. If either John McCain or Hillary Clinton is elected President, look for the Iranian powers to dump President Ahmadinejad in 2009 in favor of a less bellicose leader. He is just too dangerous.

If the vitriolic Iranian President could get his hands on an Indiana Democratic primary ballot, I bet he would cast it for Barrack Obama.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1) Associated Press, May 5, 2008.

(2) Before being elected President, Kennedy claimed that the Soviet Union was actually ahead of the United States in missile technology.