Washington briefing: Clinton indicates shift in U.S. thinking on Iran nuclear program

by Emil Sanamyan

Published: Saturday August 01, 2009

Hillary Clinton at the State Department in May 2009.

Washington - With chances for a new government in Tehran quickly receding, American leaders have renewed warnings over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, news agencies report.

The Obama administration is unhappy with the lack of Iranian response to its offer of dialogue, with the president and secretary of state hinting that the offer might expire before the end of the year. U.S. officials also insist that they find a nuclear-armed Iran "unacceptable."

Secretary Hillary Clinton has in the past threatened fresh "crippling sanctions" as a form of pressure on Iran should it continue policies that bring it close to acquiring nuclear weapons.

But in an apparent verbal slipup, Ms. Clinton referred last week to a "defense umbrella" that the United States might extend to its Middle East allies, The Associated Press reported. Although Mrs. Clinton denied it indicated U.S. acceptance that Iran will eventually become nuclear-armed, that is how the comment was taken by most observers.

During her presidential election campaign, Mrs. Clinton used the term to describe a policy that would call for a U.S. commitment to retaliate against Iran should it use nuclear weapons against Israel or other regional allies of the United States, and thus theoretically deter Iran.

The concept had been articulated by the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, including its former senior staff member Ambassador Dennis Ross, who is now the Obama administration's point man on Iran.

The apparent shift in U.S. thinking has worried Israel, whose officials argue that deterrence cannot be effective against Iran. In recent weeks, Israeli leaders from the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have renewed claims Israel might launch a military strike against Iran in an attempt to postpone its progress toward nuclear weapons.

U.S. reaction to Israeli threats has been mixed.

Vice President Joe Biden said in early July that the United States could not tell Israel what it could do to safeguard its security; but President Barack Obama then denied that the comments were a "green light" for an Israeli attack on Iran.