On Primary day in Pennsylvania, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told Good Morning America that she would “totally obliterate” Iran if they attacked Israel.

“”I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran (if it attacks Israel),” Clinton said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”" (@)

I, for one, am appalled at a statement like this, especially from somebody who wants to solve some of the problems in the US initiated during the Bush administration. What the Hell is she thinking? We already had a bunch of talk and “rhetoric” about having a huge conflict with Iran (I believe the words “World War 3″ were used) when Bush-Cheney were trying to get the country hyped up about Iran’s supposed nuclear arms race. Ok, so the intelligence reports are in, and our own governments intelligence agencies have stated that Iran is not building nuclear weapons (nor will they be able to within the near future). Score one for the people. So why is Clinton using very aggressive words against Iran, especially in defense of Israel? Sure, the US and Israel are chummy, but is Iran really going to nuke Israel? Especially since Israel actually HAS nuclear weapons, when Iran doesn’t. Is this war mongering? Probably. But that seems to be a norm in our country these days…

So what I don’t understand.

From an American standpoint, Iran isn’t the best country in the world to be friends with. The Iranian government is rather oppressive and yes – there is some radical Islam. But there are also massive movements for secular democracy in Iran. Let’s not take out the people for the sins of the regime. And once again, Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons. And Iran, for all of it’s problems, is a pretty stable country. A large stable country. If we attempt to “totally obliterate” them, what kind of repercussions will that have? We need a leader who will take action, but who wont rush into war-mode. How is that bringing change to America?

And what prompted Hillary to even make a comment like that? Well, it seems to me that she is responding to a remarks made by Iranian officials who have said that they will take military action against Israel if they initiate an attack against them. Does that seem justified? This could be the end of the world. Israel attacks Iran (and really, I’m more worried about Israel setting off their nukes than I am about Iran nuking anyone else. Hell – we should be talking about Pakistan for God’s sake!) and Iran attacks Israel back. In response to this, the United States, led by President Clinton, nuke Iran. Wow. Happy ending world.

When faced with the same question, Obama told reporters that in response to an attack against Israel (or any other US ally) by Iran, he would act “forcefully and swiftly”. Well, that’s a bit vague, but it’s certainly better than immediately saying “we will obliterate them!” We need a leader who will be forceful and swift, but we also need to know that Obama won’t immediately rush into military attacks or outright war like President Bush did.