In the debate last week Hillary warned that an Iranian attack on Israel "would incur massive retaliation from the United States." In response to the same question, Obama offered a lame threat of "appropriate action." So yesterday Hillary upped the ante in an interview with ABC. Her response to a hypothetical Iranian first strike on Israel:
"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next ten years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."
Ben Smith says she's "almost daring Obama to criticize her as going overboard." I often wonder if Hillary really isn't the most likely of the three to launch a preemptive strike on Iran (a different question, but there's little doubt Iran would be obliterated on way or another if they started it). You'd expect any president that pulls troops out of Iraq to compensate by projecting power somewhere else--maybe Afghanistan, maybe elsewhere--and there's something about Hillary that makes me think she's more likely to overcompensate than most. Of course, Howard Wolfson says Clinton wasn't referring to nukes at all...he then announced the campaign had raised 50 million doll hairs over the last month.