Clinton's Iran strategy (a phone call)

From The New York Sun, May 7, 2007, by SETH GITELL [emphasis added].....

...Addressing more than 400 people at the Charles Hotel under the auspices of a Harvard Kennedy School of Government conference, "The Looming Crises: Can We Act in Time?" Mr. Clinton spoke Friday for more than an hour and a half, covering such subjects as nuclear proliferation, health care, and the environment. ....

....Mr. Clinton [also] talked ... about .....prospects for peace in the Middle East....

"If our long-term goal is to try to minimize the number of groups like Al Qaeda that want to conduct terrorism both within the Middle East or beyond, they wouldn't all go away if the Palestinians and the Israelis made a comprehensive agreement, but half of the energy behind this would collapse," Mr. Clinton said.

"I don't think there is anything that we can do today on the terror front in a preventive way that is more important. … We'll never ever really turn the tide on terror until it's done."...

....Mr. Clinton also spoke of the danger of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, saying he was more worried about a terrorist group obtaining an Iranian bomb than the Islamic Republic using it itself. "Maybe some Iranian leader would think, maybe I can nuke Israel … but we can handle that with a phone call," he said. "If a nuclear bomb ever exploded in the Middle East, even if it wiped out Israel, the main victims eventually would be all the Muslims around it who would be killed in the nuclear fallout."

Mr. Clinton's comments about Iran seemed at odds with those of Senator Clinton, who has spoken of having him serve as a kind of ambassador at large if she is elected president.

Addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in February, Mrs. Clinton said: "We cannot, we should not, we must not, permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. And in dealing with this threat as I have said for a very long time, no option can be taken off the table."
Mrs. Clinton's campaign did not respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment yesterday.