Re: [Marxism] Obama toes the line, denounces Carter for meeting with Hamas

[Eli Stephens <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Fred:

The Iran discussion in last night's debate was typical. In the event of "an
attack" on Israel or other countries by Iran (translation: a conflict
between Iran and anybody else), Clinton will favor "massive retaliation."
Obama gets criticized in the media for being less "specific."

Eli:

I think you're grasping at straws for a difference here, Fred. Clinton said she 
favors "massive retaliation" against Iran in the event of "an attack on 
Israel," 
while Obama said the U.S. would take "appropriate action" in the event of an 
attack on Israel. That might be less specific, but a few sentences before he 
also said that he would "take no options off the table when it comes to 
preventing them from using nuclear weapons or obtaining nuclear weapons, and 
that would include any threats directed at Israel or any of our allies in the 
region." "No options" is a code-word for "massive retaliation" even including 
nuclear bombs, and he's now threatened to do that not just in response to an 
attack on Israel, but with regards to Iran "obtaining nuclear weapons" and even 
making "threats directed at Israel" (which, according to U.S. politicians and 
media, they already have done).

Personally I'd call that a STRONGER statement, though in reality, both have 
absolutely identical positions.

The real operative fact of that section of the debate started with the question 
from Stephanopoulos: "Iran continues to pursue a nuclear option. Those weapons, 
if they got them, would probably pose the greatest threat to Israel." "Nuclear 
option" might be charitably interpreted as pertaining only to nuclear power, 
but 
since the very next words are "those weapons," it's rather clear that's not 
what 
"a nuclear option" means, but rather, "Iran continues to pursue nuclear 
weapons." Unlike Kucinich in an early debate, and similar to their own 
performance in that same debate, neither Clinton nor Obama challenged the 
fundamentally false premise of the question, and noted that not only is their 
no 
evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program (even according to U.S. 
intelligence agencies), not only has Iran forsworn nuclear weapons repeatedly 
and publicly, but the Supreme Ayatollah of Iran has even issued a fatwa against 
having nuclear weapons (which, considering the influence of religion in the 
politics of Iran, is surely a significant fact).

Here's the transcript:
  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/us/politics/16text-debate.html


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