I think Clinton is talking about nukes because she thinks it will deter Iran from any plans they might have to attack Israel. She’s not suggesting that we use them necessarily… yet.

should be: “threat”

Imagine if Mahmoud Ahmadinijad were to deploy the Revolutionary Guard against our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that America should not have a military presence in neighboring nations until it was able to go for a decade without talking about bombing Tehran. Would you be OK with that? Or would you demand we unleash enough firepower on them to level Mount Damavand?

Ah, but the difference is, we have not attacked (directly ~ as far as we know… Iran yet, also, I have heard Bush and Ahmadinejad described as equally fanatic and dangerous.

I think this is a gross mischaracterization of Bush and a trivialization of Ahmadinejad. Let me know when Bush says we have to wipe Persia off the map.

Since the United States does not have a Death Star, nukes are pretty much the best we can do.

“I just think their nuclear facilities should be bombed until they can go a decades without talking about wiping Israel off the map and inciting their people to chant ‘Death to America!!!’”

If you want people to stop hating you, it’s generally not a very good idea to drop bombs on them. Imagine if Mahmoud Ahmadinijad were to deploy the Revolutionary Guard against our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that America should not have a military presence in neighboring nations until it was able to go for a decade without talking about bombing Tehran. Would you be OK with that? Or would you demand we unleash enough firepower on them to level Mount Damavand?

Regarding the no more “Marg bar Amrikâ!”, that’s just cultural imperialism.

“Presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons,” Clinton said. “Presidents since the Cold War have used nuclear deterrence to keep the peace. And I don’t believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons.” http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=3441342&page=1

Still - even back during that discussion - Hillary does not take the lead, she attacks Obama for the statements and then goes on to basically take the same position as Obama in regards to Pakistan. Now with this whole thing - she’s doing exactly what she used to attacked Obama for in the Pakistan discussion.

Obama started with talk about going nuclear with Pakistan as an option last summer and she just had a little hissy fit about it.

I know he said he would ignore the Pakistani gov’t if they not permit us to track down terrorists on there land. However, I’m not sure he said nukes.

I think that both Hillary and Obama were trying to reassure the more realist Democrats (referred to above as “thinking people” as opposed to the idealist leftists (the far-left anti-Americans). This latter group includes the BAFC and the TTIC. With all the pandering to anti-Bush and so-called anti-war groups, not to mention the yearly Kos convention, it would have been foolish for the candidates to leave it at that and not clarify how they would respond in a military situation.

What worries people is not what she would do in that situation, but the fact that she feels the need to announce it.

She’s acting like she’s the President already; if she doesn’t announce things like this (when President) then Iran will not be deterred.

Also, what she is talking about is using the treat of nuclear retaliation to deter Iran, this is still a relatively mild answer to people’s fears about the IRI. I don’t think that we need to bring nuclear weapons on the table at all, I just think their nuclear facilities should be bombed until they can go a decades without talking about wiping Israel off the map and inciting their people to chant “Death to America!!!”

Of course, international support will be required for any preemptive strike. But this won’t be a problem because Iran’s been pissing off a lot of people (e.g. kidnapping British Soldiers, seething about the French/UAE partnership).

That’s irrelevant. What worries people is not what she would do in that situation, but the fact that she feels the need to announce it.

“Obama started with talk about going nuclear with Pakistan as an option last summer”

He did? I know that he talked about a military strike against Waziristan, but I don’t recall him saying anything about nukes. (Incidentally, nukes wouldn’t be very effective in Waziristan, because there aren’t any really big targets and the mountainous terrain would greatly reduce the area affected by the blast. If you’re going to use weapons of mass destruction against the Waziris, something like napalm (and maybe a little dabbling in the weather, assuming that we still have that technology) would make a lot more sense.)

She seems more like a follower than a leader. She’s not willing to make any statements that could lose her votes - everything is assessed. Obama’s statements last year caused an uproar and they were controversial for a party that’s looking to get out of war but he took his chances and stated them. Having a harsh stance on Iran - yeah, that’s a no brainer - yippee.