Re: [Marxism] NYT: "Have we already lost Iran?"

[Eli Stephens <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Much as I hate to defend Hillary Clinton, I do have an aversion to seeing false 
information continually propagated. The otherwise good article by Leverett and 
Leverett posted by Fred includes this statement:

"As a presidential candidate, then-Senator Clinton ran well to the right of Mr. 
Obama on Iran, even saying she would "totally obliterate" Iran if it attacked 
Israel."

No, she did not (http://lefti.blogspot.com/2008/04/clinton-on-iran.html). What 
she said was  [emphasis added]: "we would BE ABLE TO totally obliterate them 
[if they attacked Israel with nuclear weapons]". Hardly different from Obama's 
own "all options are on the table" statements, and those statements weren't 
even in response this absurdly hypothetical question about Iran attacking 
Israel with nuclear weapons, but just in response to Iran continuing to enrich 
nuclear fuel.

Leverett's distortion of the quote isn't as bad as the media at the time 
("Clinton threatens to obliterate Iran", leaving out the hypothetical), but 
still inaccurate.

Their characterization of Dennis Ross is spot on.
 http://lefti.blogspot.com/2009/02/dennis-ross-and-iran-more-of-that-obama.html

And the quote (unfortunately an indirect quote) they obtained from him is 
absolutely priceless as a weapon against the Obama (ruling class) policy and 
maybe, just maybe, to enlighten some more Obama supporters on the similarity 
between Obama and Bush (think Iraq):

"Because, he told us, if Iran continued to expand its nuclear fuel program, at 
some point in the next couple of years President Bush's successor would need to 
order military strikes against Iranian nuclear targets. Citing past "diplomacy" 
would be necessary for that president to claim any military action was 
legitimate."



Eli Stephens
 Left I on the News
 http://lefti.blogspot.com


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