Home pagePress CenterIn the Media Jon Alterman, director of the CSIS Middle East Program, was quoted by the Washington Post, "Analysts Divided on Clinton's Arab Defense Plan."
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Jon Alterman, director of the CSIS Middle East Program, was quoted by the Washington Post, "Analysts Divided on Clinton's Arab Defense Plan."
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has ratcheted up her rhetoric against Iran, pledging recently to extend U.S. nuclear protection to friendly Arab nations against Iran's nuclear ambitions and asserting that if Tehran considers attacking Israel, "we would be able to totally obliterate them."
The Iranian government lashed out last week in response, with an Iranian diplomat at the United Nations condemning Clinton's statement as "provocative, unwarranted and irresponsible." In a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Iran's deputy U.N. ambassador, Mehdi Danesh-Yazdi, also referred to Clinton's threat as a "flagrant violation" of the U.N. Charter. Clinton's campaign dismissed the letter.
Jon B. Alterman, a Middle East specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called Clinton's proposal "a lose-lose-lose proposition."
Alterman, who is not affiliated with any candidate, said: "I don't think it changes Iranian thinking. I don't think it changes Arab thinking. And it obligates the United States and puts U.S. decision making in a corner without any appreciable benefit." Read the article
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