[NYTr] Bomb, Bomb Iran: Dowd on Hillary the Hun

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

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The New York Times - Oct 10, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/opinion/10dowd.html

Bomb, Bomb Iran

By MAUREEN DOWD

Hillary seemed rattled.

Up until now, she has displayed remarkable imperturbability =E2=80=94 glidi=
ng
along with the help of good lighting, a hearty guffaw and a clever
husband.

But on Sunday in New Hampton, Iowa, Hillary lost her cool at last.
Sparring with a voter on Iran, she sounded defensive and paranoid.

A Democrat, Randall Rolph, asked Senator Clinton why he should back her
when she did not learn her lesson after voting to authorize W. to use
force in Iraq. He did not understand how she could have voted yea to
urge W. to label Iran=E2=80=99s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organizatio=
n,
possibly setting the stage for more Cheney chicanery.

Hillary said that =E2=80=9Clabeling them a terrorist organization gives us =
the
authority to impose sanctions on their leadership. ...I consider that
part of a very robust diplomatic effort.=E2=80=9D

Fearful that her questioner was an enemy spy creeping into her perfect
little world, she suggested that he had been put up to the question and
did not have his information right.

=E2=80=9CI take exception,=E2=80=9D Mr. Rolph insisted. =E2=80=9CThis is my=
 own research. ...
I=E2=80=99m offended that you would suggest that.=E2=80=9D

Hillary apologized and said that she had been asked =E2=80=9Cthe very same
question in three other places.=E2=80=9D She explained that she had signed =
on
to a rewritten version of the amendment that did not, as he claimed,
give a green light for combat.

In the original =E2=80=9Csense of Senate on Iran=E2=80=9D document, sponsor=
ed by Joe
Lieberman and the Republican Jon Kyl last month, there was a paragraph
that supported =E2=80=9Cthe prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of
United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic,
intelligence and military instruments, in support of the policy with
respect to=E2=80=9D Iran. That original draft, called =E2=80=9Ctantamount t=
o a
declaration of war=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9CDick Cheney=E2=80=99s fondest pipe=
 dream=E2=80=9D by Senator
Jim Webb of Virginia, was softened.

Even so, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd voted no, and Barack Obama would have
voted no if he had voted.

If you know the dingbat vice president is agitating for a conflict with
Iran, if you know that Condi is chasing after Cheney with a butterfly
net on Iran and Syria, if you know you can=E2=80=99t believe anything this
administration says, why vote to give them more backing on their
dysfunctional Middle East policy?

The schism in the administration is deepening in a way that should
alarm Hillary. Mark Mazzetti and Helene Cooper report in today=E2=80=99s Ti=
mes
that Cheney and his hawks are arguing that the Israeli intelligence
about Syria=E2=80=99s nascent nuclear capabilities that led to last month=
=E2=80=99s
Israeli strike on Syria was credible and should dictate a harsher
policy toward Syria and North Korea, while Condi, Bob Gates and calmer
heads =E2=80=9Cdid not believe the intelligence presented so far merits any
change in the American diplomatic approach.=E2=80=9D

Hillary=E2=80=99s hawkish Iran vote was an ill-advised move, especially giv=
en
her private view that Cheney is untrustworthy and given Sy Hersh=E2=80=99s =
New
Yorker report claiming that Cheney had pushed to devise a plan to
attack the Revolutionary Guard facilities in Iran.

She made a course correction on Oct. 1, co-sponsoring legislation
introduced by Mr. Webb to prohibit the use of funds for military
operations against Iran without explicit Congressional authorization.

Her opponents have sounded the fool-me-once-shame-on-you,
fool-me-twice-shame-on-me drumbeat. Obama chided Hillary for her
willingness =E2=80=9Cto once again extend to the president the benefit of t=
he
doubt.=E2=80=9D John Edwards wondered if in =E2=80=9Csix months from now he=
 goes to war
in Iran, are we going to hear her once again say if only I had known
then what I know now?=E2=80=9D

When Hillary voted to let W. use force in Iraq, she didn=E2=80=99t even read
the intelligence estimate. She wasn=E2=80=99t trying to do the right thing.=
 She
was trying to do the opportunistic thing. She felt she could not run
for president, as a woman, if she played the peacenik.

By throwing in with Joe Lieberman and the conservative hawks on the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard issue, she once more overcompensated in a
cynical way. She=E2=80=99d like to paint Obama as the weak reed who wants to
cozy up to dictators, while she=E2=80=99s the one who will play tough. It w=
as
odd, given her success in the debates conveying the sense that she is
the manliest candidate among the Democrats, that she felt the need to
man-up on Iran.

But maybe she knows that Rudy will hurl thunderbolts at her, as he did
in the debate yesterday, suggesting that she doesn=E2=80=99t have the guts =
to
use a military option to stop Iran from going nuclear.

Voters seem more concerned with Hillary=E2=80=99s political expediency =E2=
=80=94 which
the vote underscored =E2=80=94 than with her ability to be manly.

Her camp seems to think her vote was a safe one because W. and Cheney
do not have the time or support to bomb Iran, and that Bob Gates can
stop it. But she may be underestimating W. and Cheney. She should be at
least as paranoid about that pair as she was about an Iowa Democrat.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company