Clinton says US may shield Middle East
Warns Iran on nuclear weapons plan
PHUKET, Thailand - Stiffening the American line against Iran, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned yesterday that the United States would consider extending a “defense umbrella’’ over the Middle East if the country defies international demands that it not seek a nuclear weapons program.
While such a defensive shield has long been assumed, administration officials in Washington acknowledged yesterday that no senior official had ever publicly discussed it. Some of the officials said that the timing of Clinton’s remarks reflected a growing sense that President Obama needed to signal to Tehran that its nuclear ambitions could be countered militarily, and diplomatically. It also marked increasing concern in Washington that other Middle East states - notably Saudi Arabia and Egypt - may be tempted to pursue their own nuclear programs for fear Iran is growing ever closer to realizing its nuclear ambitions.
Clinton later clarified her comments on Iran, delivered in advance of a regional meeting here, saying that her warning that the United States would create such a “shield’’ did not represent any backing away from the Obama administration’s position that it must prevent Tehran from obtaining a bomb capability. But her words suggested the administration is already thinking ahead to what would amount to a containment strategy, should all efforts at negotiation fail.
Her statement also came when Iran’s internal divisions and crackdown on postelection protests have complicated Obama’s pledge to directly “engage’’ Iran. Iranian officials have hinted they will present new proposals on the nuclear program, and US officials have said their offers to negotiate still stand.
Speaking to an audience during a televised town hall meeting in Bangkok, Clinton said, “We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment that if the US extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to support the military capacity of those in the Gulf, it’s unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer, because they won’t be able to intimidate and dominate, as they apparently believe they can, once they have a nuclear weapon.’’
Asked about Clinton’s comments, Nigel Sheinwald, the British ambassador to the United States, said yesterday, “I don’t think it should be read as an acceptance of an Iranian nuclear weapon,’’ but rather as a statement designed to “reassure our partners in the Gulf.’’ A senior White House official said that he believed Clinton was speaking for herself and was, as she herself insisted, restating existing policy.
Clinton’s invocation of a defense umbrella is reminiscent of the so-called nuclear umbrella that Washington extends to its Asian allies - implicitly, the promise of a US reprisal if its allies are attacked by nuclear weapons. But she did not use the term nuclear, and a senior State Department official cautioned that her remarks should not be interpreted to mean that.
After meeting the foreign ministers of China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, Clinton also said the United States would not offer new incentives to North Korea to return to negotiations. She said all of the other nations that had engaged in talks with North Korea over the past five years were united in demanding that North Korea undertake a “complete and irreversible denuclearization’’ before receiving any economic or political incentives from these countries.
She did not detail the steps that would be part of such a process, though she confirmed they could include the disabling of the Yongbyon nuclear facility. Last year, North Korea began to dismantle that facility, where they run a nuclear reactor and reprocessing fuel rods to recover plutonium but now have declared they are restarting the facilities there.
