In an interview with the BBC, she casts doubt over the Islamic Republic readiness to respond to Washington's offer of engagement.
Last March Clinton told her UAE counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan on the sidelines of the Egypt-hosted international conference on rebuilding Gaza that the US “was doubtful Iran would respond" to calls for an international dialogue.
We've certainly reached out and made it clear that's what we'd be willing to do, even now, despite our absolute condemnation of what they've done in the election and since. But I don't think they have any capacity to make that kind of decision right now.
On the other hand, while Clinton acknowledges that "the nuclear clock is ticking", her old-new statements on US's willingness to erect a "defense umbrella" over the Middle East if Iran continues its nuclear program, were read as another sign the Obama administration is preparing for the reality of an Iranian bomb.
Clinton had to elaborate later at a news conference that the administration was not abandoning current U.S. policy, which involves a combination of diplomatic outreach and sanctions to press Iran to give up a nuclear-weapons program.
However her statements are rather new nor personal.
During April's presidential hopefuls debate between Clinton and then Sen. Barack Obama, she said the following:
In addition, some senior figures in the Obama administration have suggested that the United States might have to live with a nuclear-armed Iran, writes Paul Richter of the LA Times.
(The US) should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel.
A report released Last February by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy raised the idea of extended deterrence as a possible counter to an Iranian threat. Dennis Ross, a former Washington Institute fellow and now the Obama administration’s special adviser for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia, signed the report.
Defense Undersecretary Ashton B. Carter wrote before joining the administration that if diplomacy failed, the fallback was a policy of "containment and punishment."
Gary Samore, the chief of nonproliferation at the National Security Council, wrote before Obama was elected that Iran would probably act like other nuclear-armed states and was not likely to give terrorists the bomb.
Earlier in September 2008, Ross wrote the following in a report published by the Center for a New American Security.
Maybe, even if we engage the Iranians, we will find that however we do so and whatever we try, the engagement simply does not work. We will need to hedge bets and set the stage for alternative policies either designed to prevent Iran from going nuclear or to blunt the impact if they do.
The traces of the idea of a containment "nuclear umbrella" and what it implies of US readiness to live with a contained Iranian bomb, however, goes beyond statements and thoughts floated by people prior to joining the administration. In fact Haaretz Aluf Ben in December 2008 broke the news that the Obama administration will offer Israel a "nuclear umbrella" against the threat of a nuclear attack by Iran.
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's administration will offer Israel a "nuclear umbrella" against the threat of a nuclear attack by Iran, a well-placed American source said earlier this week. The source, who is close to the new administration, said the U.S. will declare that an attack on Israel by Tehran would result in a devastating U.S. nuclear response against Iran. According to the same source, the nuclear guarantee would be backed by a new and improved Israeli anti-ballistic missile system.
The merits of the above deterrence strategy were hard tested yesterday. Israel and the United States scrapped on Thursday tests of the Arrow anti-missile system, under development by the two countries, due to last-minute technical problems.
In April, Israel reported successfully testing the system at home, intercepting and destroying a ballistic missile similar to Iran's Shahab-3, which can reach its soil.
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