During a Wednesday speech on the nuclear deal with Iran, Hillary Clinton bashed the Republican candidates who have pledged to tear up the Iran deal if they are elected president.
“That’s not leadership, that’s recklessness,” Clinton said, noting that it would be riskier to walk away from the deal than it would be to accept and enforce it.
The former secretary of state also took a swing at former Vice President Dick Cheney, a fierce critic of the Iran deal. Clinton said that “Cheney may hope that the American people may forget” that Iran was “racing toward a nuclear capability” by the time President Obama took office. She said that U.S. sanctions alone did not prevent Iran from working toward a nuclear bomb, and boasted about her efforts to ramp up global sanctions on Iran.
Clinton, who has already expressed support for the Iran deal, laid out how she would implement the agreement as president. She said that she understands “skepticism” about the deal.
“There is absolutely no reason to trust Iran,” she said, but said that the deal is a “strong” agreement that will keep Iran from building a nuclear bomb.
Clinton said she would take a “distrust and verify” approach to enforcing the deal. She said that as president, she would penalize Iran for small violations and would be willing to reinstate sanctions on Iran if they violate the deal. She also said she make it clear to Iran that the U.S. will not let them build a bomb.
“The United States will never allow you to acquire a nuclear weapon,” she said.
The presidential candidate added that she would be willing to take military action against Iran if the country attempts to make a nuclear weapon.
Finally, some discussion of important public policy. Of course I’m sure the NYT and WaPo etc will follow up quickly with more tabloid journalism about emails. What HRC would actually do as POTUS seems of less interest to them.
Of course it isn’t leadership. Then again, the GOP often confuse punching people in the face with leadership.
My guess is she will make this statement once and move on. She should be making this argument over and over again, all day and maybe all week. She was SOS, none of the Republicans nor Bernie Sanders has Hillary’s foreign policy chops. She needs to make that point over and over again until we get tired of hearing it.
Well what the NYT did this morning was predictable. They placed Cheney’s remarks at AEI next to hers, paragraph by paragraph–with Cheney in the lead! As if that guy had any shred of credibility left… Last night, Wilkerson said he thought that Cheney had literally gone insane–or that the millions he made in profits off the wars he helped launch had made him incapable of seeing reality.
Cancel your subscription to the NYT. You will be happier.