THE SAME OLD OBAMA STORY - AT 7:25 A.M. ET:  With all the attention paid to the health-care farce in Washington, we tend to forget that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (remember?) is on a trip to Asia, where policies are declared and positions announced.  Her latest, clearly reflecting what passes for deep thought in the Obama administration, should send us out to buy survival supplies:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Iran on Wednesday that the United States had a plan on how to safeguard the region should the Islamic republic go nuclear.

Whoops.  Nothing like letting the intellectual cat out of the bag.  I thought our policy was to prevent Iran from going nuclear.  A statement like Clinton's instantly sends a signal, consistent with the do-nothing foreign policy of this administration, that we've given up.

Speaking on a Thai TV talk show, she said "We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment: that if the United States extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to develop the military capacity of those [allies] in the Gulf, it is unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer."

"We will still hold the door open (for talks with Iran) but we also have made it clear that we'll take actions, as I've said time and time again, crippling action, working to upgrade the defense of our partners in the region," Clinton was quoted by Reuters as saying.

COMMENT:  This is pathetic, surprising for Clinton, who must know better.  It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the role, military and psychological, of nuclear weapons.  The mere possession of such weapons changes the attitude of every other nation on Earth toward the new nuclear power.  And building the "military capacity" of threatened countries is not much of an answer.  All it takes is one nuclear warhead to get through, either on a missile or in the hold of a cargo ship, to change the fate of the target nation.

Further, we are dealing with a theocratic, fanatical regime in Iran.  The Soviet Union was the evil empire, but it was run by rational people.  It could be deterred. 

And we are dealing with proliferation.  If Iran chooses, secretly, to share its nuclear technology with, say, Venezuela, we might never even know it, until we see a flash in the skies over some desolate Venezuelan wasteland.

The kind of thinking reflected in the Clinton statement is a relic of the Cold War, not the kind of thought needed in the 21st century, where proliferation can extend to unstable, reckless regimes.

This pretty much signals to Iran that Jimmy Carter is back in town.  As far as Clinton's threat of "crippling action," tell it to the Europeans, especially the Germans, who enjoy their bountiful trade with Iran.

North Korea is watching.  So is Chavez in Venezuela, and so is Al Qaeda.  What do you think they see?

July 22, 2009