Instead of the mumbo-jumbo insinuations, let's go to her words exactly. She's spot on and that's exactly what i was expecting but never heard from Obama.

"Well what we were talking about was the potential for a nuclear attack by Iran, if Iran does achieve what appears to be it's continuing goal of obtaining nuclear weapons, and I think deterrence has not been effectively used in recent times, we used it very well during the Cold War when we had a bipolar world, and what I think the president should do and what our policy should be is to make it very clear to the Iranians that they would be risking massive retaliation were they to launch a nuclear attack on Israel. In addition, if Iran were to become a nuclear power, it could set off an arms race that would be incredibly dangerous and destabilizing because the countries in the region are not going to want Iran to be the only nuclear power. So I can imagine that they would be rushing to obtain nuclear weapons themselves. In order to forestall that, creating some kind of a security agreement where we said, 'No, you do not need to acquire nuclear weapons if you were the subject of an unprovoked nuclear attack by Iran the United States and hopefully our NATO allies would respond to that as well.' It is a theory that some people have been looking at because there is a fear that if Iran, which I hope we can prevent, becoming a nuclear power, but if they were to become one, some people worry that they are not deterrable, that they somehow have a different mindset and a worldview that might very well lead the leadership to be willing to become martyrs. I don't buy that, but I think we have to test it. And one of the ways of testing it is to make it very clear that we are not going to permit them, if we can prevent it, from becoming a nuclear power, but were they to become so, their use of nuclear weapons against Israel would provoke a nuclear response from the United States, which personally I believe would prevent it from happening, and that we would try to help the other countries that might be intimidated and bullied into submission by Iran because they were a nuclear power, avoid that fate by creating this new security umbrella."

Deter Iran from what? Didn't the latest intelligence report indicate that Iran isn't anywhere close to having nuclear weapons?

Although with this kind of sabre-rattling from the US, I have to assume that getting them is the Iranian regime's #1 priority ...

I can't wait till President Obama restores some sanity to US foreign policy. (Knock wood!)

Can you say circular speak?

But to make a point:

"It is a theory that some people have been looking at because there is a fear that if Iran, which I hope we can prevent, becoming a nuclear power, but if they were to become one, some people worry that they are not deterrable, that they somehow have a different mindset and a world view that might very well lead the leadership to be willing to become martyrs. I don't buy that, but I think we have to test it."

If they become a nuclear power with have a martyr complex - YOU DON'T WANT TO TEST IT! That leads to unpredictable results in a very bad way.

For someone who presents themselves as the intellectual policy wonk this whole construction is so amateurish. It's so . . so . . . so . . . Bushesque.

It begs the question: "Have you really thought this through?" It reinforces the conclusion put forth over the original war vote - if she is guilty of warped logic and poor judgment in the first instance is she not not prone to repeat the same mistake. I think this postulation answers that question.

How do you test someones commitment to martyrdom by threatening to attack them? "We have to test it" How do you test someones commitment to martyrdom by threatening to attack them? By forcing their hands so they attack? How do you nuke Iran without causing damage to our "umbrella" nations? This isn't a deterrent to developing nuclear weapons, it's only a threat for if they were to be used.

"It could set off an arms race that would be incredibly dangerous and destabilizing because the countries in the region are not going to want Iran to be the only nuclear power."
There already are nukes in the region. Pakistan and India already have nukes.

It's bravado rather than diplomacy.

That's MAD.

Israel's problem with a possible nuclear Iran isn't any really fear of being nuked; that's just for the tourists.

The real strategic issue is than an arab or Farsi nuclear power in the middle east negates--again by MAD--the strategic advantage that being the missle east's only nuclear power gives Israel.

Once your neighbours or their patrons start having nuclear weapons, you can't--as Israel just did to Lebanon--carpet bomb them anymore. They get fed up and start muttering about massive retaliation, which have to take seriously because of MAD.

If Hillary wins the nomination, I'm voting for McCain.

At least he has the guts to be in the Republican Party for real.

Wow. So I guess the decision to vote for AUMF was not an aberration, after all.

Got it.

Heres a question: Does her nuclear umbrella apply to all ally countries? Does it apply to N.Korea vs. S.Korea and India vs. Pakistan? If not, why not? Inquiring minds want to know...

Senator You-Know-Her does not have the first clue about real life on planet earth. Only a completely unbalanced maniac would suggest putting America's very existence at risk for a transient crusader state of no strategic value to the United States. Zionist Israel does not vote in American elections, pay American taxes, or deploy its "army" to serve repeated stop-loss tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan (so a few American GIs can catch a break once in awhile). Some ally! So why does You-Know-Her threaten to nuke Iran or any other country on Israel's behalf? Such a threat, if taken seriously by potential targets of our Lunatic-Leviathan/Warfare-Welfare Mother, makes America a target instead of Israel! What a monstrously irresponsible position for any American president to take.

Personally, I don't give a shit about Apartheid, Zionist Israel and couldn't care less what happens or doesn't happen to the place. But that aside, some of us can remember the ecological disaster that Saddam Hussein's retreating army caused by lighting only a few oil wells on fire (with pathetically low powered explosives) as they retreated from Kuwait in 1992. Imagine dropping a "massive" ammout of explosives (of any type) on the world's greatest underground ocean of oil and setting it ablaze for a hundred years! Just try to imagine hurricane-sized columns of greasy black smoke rising up into the atmosphere to blanket the entire earth from the sunlight energy upon which all life depends. A "nuclear winter" of that magnitude wouldn't even require muclear weapons to set it off. A few hundred one-ton conventional bunker busters would do nicely. Adding nukes, of course, just adds long-half-life radio-activity to the already-fatal concentrations of smoke in the upper atmosphere. Again, what a complete and utter maniac to even hint at such a self-instigated apocalypse! And as naturally occurs in America when potential disaster looms, the critical question goes unasked: for what?

A nation dumb and subservient enough to twice acquiesce in letting Deputy Dubya Bush and Buffaloed Girl anywhere near the country's government probably has terminal problems in any event. I agree with Chalmers Johnson and so many other informed observers that the corruption and rot of militarist-imperial America has gone too far for rational redress. The crazy people have escaped Bedlam and now busy themselves madly working the convoluted levers of the biggest Rube Goldberg doomsday machine ever imagined.

I just have to say that this is the most distorted post and comment thread I've ever read in the echo chamber. You guys have burrowed to new depths. When I read posts and comments like this I have to wonder if you really understand why Muslim extremists hate Israel. In the echo chamber, Iran is transformed into a reasonable state and the US into a monster. I'm really sick of it.

I don't think there is anyone in this country that looks back and thinks that Hiroshima was a good thing.

I know many who do. I know others who think it was a bad decision but a close call. I think on balance it was a good call because even more Japaneese would have died in an invasion not to mention the the tens or hundreds of thousands of American slodiers who would have died invading. The Imperial army was teaching grade schoolers to be Kamikazi anti tank weapons and issuing them sachel charges for the job.

Acting like it is a given that it was a bad thing marks you as a person who has never seriously considered the issue and has zero knowlege of the debate surrounding it.

How about we demand Israel give up their nukes?

Follow Hillary's approach and it would hard to count the number of countries in the Middle East and Eastern Europe that would then be attacking both Israel and the US, covertly and otherwise.. its a silly move.

We should have learnt something from GWB's wonderful escapades in Iraq.

Oh, let's just nuke everybody and see what happens. It's the year of living dangerously.

Yaaaaawn......

Iran IMO isn't going to nuke Israel in the near future...or distant future. I wish we had a prez who wanted to create more nuclear disarmament.

And if anything the Israel and Palestinian conflict needs to get resolved. This issue is used to rile folks up, stir up anti-American sentiment etc.

As far as Arabs joining this alliance, they would do what the US said. Didn't you see how hardly any Arab nations went to the recent summit on the Iraq war, suffering of the Iraqi people....The US told them not to go and they didn't. These Arab nations have turned a blind-eye. Sure, they help the refugees but they don't want to make the US look bad.

People who refer to a discussion as "an echo chamber" really ought to stop denigrating themselves by offering more echoes.

Iran has never attacked or threatened to attack America. On the other hand, America has in the past violently overthrown democratically elected Iranian governments and substituted dictatorial regimes in their places. Such unnecessary and counter-productive behavior makes America a rogue pariah among nations and not much of a country worth counting as a "friend," let alone an "ally."

As an ambassador from a south-asian country once told me: "If the Americans come, they will just draw an arbitrary line through a temporary problem and make both permanent." America doesn't solve problems for the rest of the world. America creates and exacerbates them.

Naked imperial-military aggression against non-belligerent sovereign nations normally engenders blowback counter-alliances against the fascist aggressor. Hence the increasing isolation of America because of its own native fascism and unthinking support for right-wing Israeli apartheid zionism.

Leaving aside the highly questionable wisdom of Hillary's stated nuclear strategy, the whole scenario is moot.

There is ample evidence that Israel has a stockpile of nuclear weapons (see http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/). With these in hand, what do you think the Israeli response to a nuclear attack on Israel would be?

By the time the US government decided on a response, the Israelis would have obliterated the most likely target(s), and begun the followup: all-out conventional war to utterly wipe out any political organization deemed responsible for the original attack.

Exactly as we ourselves would do.

I'm not saying this would be the proper or the only possible response, but if they deemed such a response necessary, Israel will certainly get around to doing it before the US weighed in.

Our job after a nuke attack on Israel would be to limit the global damage, not to lob more nukes at what would already be a shattered ruin.

This entire issue is bogus. Look at reality:

1. If Iran -- which doesn't have nukes -- did have nukes, and were to nuke Israel, the nuclear fallout woulde fall also on Iran as result of proximity. Clue: if you bomb your neighr's house with a nuke, your house is gone too.

2. If Iram -- which doesn't have nukes -- did have nukes, and were to nuke Israel, Israel would nuke them in return.

3. The US would do the same in behalf of Israel.

The purpose of having nukes in the Middle East if one isn't Israel is to deter Israel -- which has uukes but has remained in violation of nuclear treaties and international law by refusing to declare them -- and the US, from going to the ultimate extreme in defense of Israel.

That's all there is to it.

Those who believe the hysterical BS about Iran and nukes are the same stoopid faction who hate Muslims simply because the Bushit criminal enterprise, and Israel, instruct them to.

It's amazing the number of right-wing Republican haters who post here, dishonestly pretending to be Democrats.

"I don't think there is anyone in this country that looks back and thinks that Hiroshima was a good thing."

Two points:

1. There are many in "this country" who assert that the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were good things.

2. "I don't think". Thank's for admitting that right up front. Those three words could be your autobiography.

I'm sorry, the fact that she said this is the issue. Of course there is no issue about Iran nuking Isreal. But that she would say this -- now that's scary!!