Why is Hillary Greasing the Skids for Another War?

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice once said.

While running for the White House on a pledge to end the war in Iraq, Senator Hillary Clinton has just voted to brand Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization -- even before the Bush administration has done so.

Well now, is she's racing to outflank the president on the right, or implicitly authorizing another war? Oh no, she assures us. When asked about her vote during a campaign stop in New Hampton, Iowa, on Sunday, she said that it simply gives the president authority to impose penalties.

Interesting. Back in 2002, when she voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq, she did so only ON HER OWN UNDERSTANDING that the president would first get approval from the United Nations. But she voted against an amendment -- moved by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan -- that would have required the president to do precisely that.

Now she claims that she's authorizing only penalties, not war.

A lovely distinction. But if Iran's Revolutionary Guard is indeed a terrorist organization, as Hillary's vote says, doesn't the War on Terror compel us to fight it with everything we have? Where are the brakes on the car that Hillary has just boarded?

There aren't any. But as Seymour Hersh has just shown in the NEW YORKER, Hillary's new car has a 500-horsepower engine all tuned up by Pentagon planners. Bored to tears with the futility of fighting in Iraq, not to mention Afghanistan (remember that one?), and overloaded with soldiers who have absolutely nothing to do after eighteen grueling months of combat, they're just itching to open a third front in Iran.

Even if sanity somehow stops us short of bombing Iran, invading it, or both, the Senate vote offers yet another example of what our Middle East policy has become. We have replaced diplomacy with demonization. Even though Hamas won the most recent election in Palestine and will be crucial to its future, we have branded it a terrorist organization. Even though we now know that the war against Iraq's insurgents cannot be won on the battlefield, and even though we must also see that Iran is absolutely crucial to any diplomatic or political resolution we might hope to achieve in Iraq, we are doing everything possible to demonize Iran.

Does it deserve to be demonized? Some say yes. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust and Israel's right to exist. He's reviled as a dictator by students at Tehran University, where students have been jailed and tortured for speaking out against him. And it may well be true that Iran's Revolutionary Guard is furnishing bombs to anti-American militia forces in Iraq, and are thus indirectly responsible for killing American troops.

Inconveniently, it's also true that the Shiite majority who now largely govern Iraq (insofar as it can be governed at all) have close ties to the majority Shiites of Iran, where many of the most influential Iraqis (such as Moktada al-Sadr) lived in exile during the reign of Saddam Hussein. In case you hadn't noticed, our very own man in Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, regards Ahmadinejad as a partner. But now General David H. Petraeus has accused Iran's ambassador to Iran, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, of membership in the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard. Thanks in part to Hillary's vote, that makes him a terrorist.

So what do we do now? Since killing him would violate diplomatic immunity, do we simply get the Iraqis to deport him? And just how would that help us?

In a recent debate, Hillary and Barack Obama both declared that in quest of peace they would talk to anyone, even our enemies. (The press made much of a minor tactical difference between them, but the main point was their common commitment to seek diplomatic solutions to international conflicts.) Within Iraq itself, our commanders have already been wooing men it once regarded as terrorists: Sunni shieks in Abnar and Diyala who have soured on al-Qaeda and are willing to help us fight it. Why then don't we try talking to the Iranian ambassador instead of simply branding him a terrorist?

Yes, I know the answer: we don't talk to terrorists. And we know they're terrorists because we've branded them as such, just as we know that Guantanamo detainees are "enemy combatants" -- and therefore ineligible for anything remotely approaching a fair trial -- because the president has branded them as such.

Branding is the worst possible way to reach a verdict on a suspect or to conduct foreign policy. As a Democrat who admires Hillary for many things, I'm dismayed to find her wielding a brand. If we want diplomatic solutions to international conflicts (which is what we finally seem to have achieved in North Korea, once part of the "axis of evil"), we will never get them by demonizing the very people who might be able to help us. Instead of branding the Iranian ambassador a terrorist, why don't we test the hypothesis that he might just mean what he said in a recent interview -- which is that Iran wants security and stability in Iraq?

Comments

[neomonkey]

"President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust and Israel's right to exist."

No he doesn't, these are both lies. Why are they still being repeated, an excuse for war? Did we not learn from the lies leading to the invasion of Iraq?

[Plowboy]

Hillary is disgusting. She cannot claim to be intelligent and to have been tricked and fooled as often as she says. The truth is that she is going to try to outBush Bush!
She was always a Neocon. Not from conviction but from convenience. She would sell her soul -- if she had one -- to gain an advantage.
The highest bidder has her now. The People cannot compete with that.

[rmreddicks]

"But now General David H. Petraeus has accused Iran's ambassador to Iran, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, of membership in the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard."

Well, we certainly don't have to worry about current u.s. administration figures or their media toadies being members of an elite military element.

Please look deeper into your understanding of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statements regarding the Holocaust and Israel's right to exist. He did not quite say what the U.S. media states he said.

As Thomas Pynchon once wrote: "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers."

[EspressoAtNoon]

I suspect that if Bush were to bomb Iran before the primaries, Hillary will be finished as a candidate. That's why she's attaching her name to the Web bill - to use as cover in case Bush runs with the new tools she provided him.

[OldManOnFire]

As any good presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton has simply said that regarding Iran, or any nation, if there is a reason for US intervention, the US will do so.

The difference between Hillary and insane-Bush is that Hillary will not do an unprovoked preemptive strike against a sovereign nation based on cooked data without consensus from the UN and a significant coalition involvement.

I don't think many people can understand the importance of running for president? Most of you believe it is some game of politics and money and slanderous advertising, etc. But in reality, if a candidate is dead serious about running for this position, then they must act presidential during the campaign. And in doing so, regarding Iran, without providing specifics, any great candidate must send a message to the world that the US will act when necessary!

If you believe Hillary Clinton is as stupid as insane-Bush, and that she is as reckless and arrogant and self-serving as insane-Bush, and that her guiding light comes from an imaginary gawd and a pet dog Barney, then why not say this? If you don't, then stop with your nonsense!!

[Pdubya]

And Hillary is an enemy combatant. With a stroke of the pen, Congress and the House and the Bush Administration change definitions of words to push their agendas and coddle to the lobbyists who own them. Vote Dr. Know.

[blackjack]

This just proves that H.Clinton is just a sock-puppet for LIE-berman

[massimo1]

Is there still any lingering doubt about Hillary's inability to represent the democrat party or the people of the United States of America. She is bad ju-ju.

[JoAnnCr]

Lingering doubt?!? Some of us who have seen Clinton's true colors for months are incredulous that anyone believes her at all. Haven't we had enough of presidents who say one thing and do another--all at our expense?

Sadly, she will take Wesley Clark down with her.

[Raster]

Hillaryspeak...surpassing Billspeak in triangulation and obfuscation. Depending on what the real meaning of "is" "is", of course.

[TIME]

If your confused; then you have been sucked in, like millions of others. Now that the left has made her the uncontested candidate, it will not be a war Bush left to her, it will be HER war.

[argeec]

How could Hillary do anything else, if she wants to kep the support of AIPAC and the DLC?

[queenie]

This vote by Hillary was the final straw for me. When "W" begins his bombing of Iran, she'll again say, "Oh that's not what I meant." She has evidently learned nothing from the Iraqi debacle. Obama didn't even vote so he's not far behind in my disdain.

[OrvilleHLarson]

Excellent, Mr. Heffernan.

Why is Mrs. C. greasing the skids for war? Well, my theory--and I think it's a good theory--is because the Israel lobby wants it. Mrs. C. is,
as you know, controlled by AIPAC. Their cash pipeline to her is wide open.

Despite the fact that Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons, and despite the fact that Iran isn't threatening the U.S., Israel doesn't like Iran.
And that's all that matters to "The Lobby."

[EspressoAtNoon]

Excellent Post!!!

[fact finder]

Why is Hillary greasing the skids?. three words; MONEY ,POWER AND CONTROL.

She is as two faced as the others.