Clinton vs. Obama: Nuke, Nuke, Nuke Iran?

American presidential candidates blow a lot of hot-air on the campaign trail. But what they say before an election, about foreign policy, for instance, doesn't necessarily predict their future actions. If you remember back during the 2000 campaign, George Bush was opposed to "nation-building" exercises, only to later launch a region-building scheme in the Middle East.

Nonetheless, the issue of Iran seems to be exposing an interesting shade of difference in the mindsets of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Both of them spoke on the topic during ABC television separate appearances on April 22, the day of the important Pennsylvania primary. Obama's relatively measured comments hardly drew any notice. But Clinton made headlines with her warning to Iran's leaders that she could "obliterate" Iran if they were foolish enough to attack Israel with nuclear weapons.

It's worth parsing their comments on ABC a little further, given that Iran's nuclear program has prompted the Bush administration to repeatedly if implicitly threaten an attack on Iran, and is certain to be one of the most difficult foreign policy challenges facing the next U.S. president.

Clinton was on the program first, and said this:

The question was, if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, what would our response be. I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran. I want them to understand that. It does mean that they have to look very carefully at their society. Because whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program, in the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. That's a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that. Because that, perhaps, will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic.

Then Obama was asked about Clinton's remarks, reminded that she had been "very clear" in using the term "totally obliterate...she is very forceful and very exact in what she would do."

If Iran used nuclear weapons on Israel or any of our allies, we would respond forcefully and swiftly. In some ways this hypothetical presupposes a failure to begin with. We shouldn't allow Iran to have nuclear weapons period. I have consistently said that I will do everything in my power to prevent them from having it. I have not ruled out military force as an option. One of the things that we've seen over the last several years is a bunch of talk using words like obliterate doesn't actually produce good results. and so I'm not interested in sabre ratling. i think the Iranians can be confident that I will respond forcefully and it will be completely unacceptable if they attack Israel or any other of our allies in the region with conventional weapons or nuclear weapons.

Here's what the comments tell me:

Clinton is quick to wave the threat of military force. Once again, as with her "3 a.m. White House telephone call" campaign ads, and her use of Osama bin Laden's image in another TV spot, she seems intent on stressing that her toughness makes her better fit to be the next commander in chief. The problem is that in helping shape a context in which she can demonstrate her toughness, Clinton frames the Iranian danger and makes Iran an easy bogeyman with simplistic, exaggerated characterizations. She unquestioningly accepts the proposition that Iran may launch an unprovoked nuclear attack on Israel within the next 10 years, depicting Iran's leaders as capable of "reckless, foolish and tragic" actions. First, Iran would have to resume work on a bomb, which the National Intelligence Estimate recently said was halted in 2003. Then it would presume that Iran's leaders would be capable of committing indiscriminate mass murder against Jews, Muslims and Christians alike (no nuclear attack on Israel would spare the Palestinians living there and nearby), whereas there is nothing, in Iran's Islamic and national culture or behavior, to support such a presumption. Of course, we do have the threat of President Ahmadinejad to "wipe Israel off the map." But there are no signs that his bombastic rhetoric is accompanied by policies, intentions, plans or Iranian political support to carry out such a threat. (If Iran does have clear policies, intentions and plans to destroy Israel, then what on earth are Israel's leaders waiting for?) Iran's leaders are no angels, but they have hardly been reckless or foolish. It was Saddam Hussein that started the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War that Iran survived. Iran's calculating policies have greatly strengthened its strategic position since then. Iran has stood by as its most powerful enemy, the U.S., gave it a gift by overthrowing the two regimes in the neighborhood that gave Iran the most difficulty, Saddam and the Taliban. Iran would like a nuclear weapon to project its influence, but mainly for deterrence. In a war in which the U.S. backed Iraq, Saddam Hussein's regime killed tens of thousands of Iranians with weapons of mass destruction. Given Iran's carefully calculated foreign policy, it is highly doubtful that Iranian leaders would be unaware that any move to launch a nuclear strike against Israel would result in--or perhaps be preempted by--an Israeli or American nuclear strike on Tehran. There is no reason to think that the deterrence doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) that prevented a nuclear exchange during the Cold War is absent in the calculus of Iranian leaders and policymakers. Whether Clinton spoke in all sincerity, naivete or for political expediency, her "terrible" threat against "those people" to "totally obliterate" Iran, as she put it, displayed a striking insensitivity toward Iran's 80 million people that seems unworthy of an American president.

Obama took the bait, too, and warned that he would respond "forcefully and swiftly" against Iran. He also noted that he had "not ruled out" military force as an option to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet he was clearly uneasy with the Hey-Iran-might-actually-nuke-Israel premise of the question and pointedly declined to use Clinton's bombastic rhetoric and echo her sabre-rattling. In contrast, he framed the Iran issue with more nuance and measure. He extended the hypothetical question to include "any of our allies" rather than focusing on Israel, seemingly using the opportunity to show that Arab Muslim countries also have their problems with Iran, and that his posture on Iran is not some knee-jerk reflex in support of Israel or against Islam. Obama went on to question the hypothetical proposition that Iran will be capable of launching a nuclear strike on Israel, thereby taking the focus off the simplistic bombast-inviting issue of what to do if Iran nukes Israel and putting it on the complex issue of how to prevent Iran from getting a bomb in the first place. Obama notably shied away from repeating his proposal for engaging in personal diplomacy with Iranian leaders, vaguely referring to doing "everything in my power." But he declined to use the question to take an easy, cheap shot at Iranian leaders, giving their intelligence the benefit of the doubt by saying he was confident they well understood that the U.S. would respond forcefully if Iran launched a nuclear or conventional attack on any American ally in the Middle East. What was notable about Obama's comments was how he seemed at pains to speak with a different, moderate language to Iran, arguing that "using words like obliterate doesn't actually produce good results."

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo