Speaking today before the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a dramatic proclamation that a “new American moment” has arrived and that the State Department will be asserting America’s “global leadership” in a number of new ways.
In Still, it seems this “substantial progress” is based primarily on unflappable US optimism about the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, even as those talks appear poised to collapse in the weeks ahead over the settlement construction issue.
Beyond that Clinton reiterated her previous claims that Iran is becoming a “military dictatorship,” insisting that there isn’t “any doubt” that Iran’s status as a Shi’ite theocracy amounts to “sort of religious ideological veneer.”
Clinton’s comments on Iran over her 20 months in power have varied wildly, including demands that Iran prove it isn’t making nuclear weapons, proclamations that Iran could never prove that it isn’t making nuclear weapons, and threats to launch an attack on them. She has also openly said that the diplomacy toward Iran was never meant to work, but was aimed at convincing the world to accept more sanctions against them.
