mondoweiss | Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton expressed great pride in making enemies of “the Iranians” during this week’s Democratic Party debate. When asked “which enemy are you most proud of?” by CNN debate moderator Anderson Cooper, Clinton listed the NRA, health insurance companies, drug companies, and – finally – “the Iranians” as the actors she’s most pleased to have antagonized. This may strike some as a strange statement from the country’s former chief diplomat – particularly in light of her support, albeit tepid, of the recent Iranian nuclear agreement.
Why would a past Secretary of State – a position dedicated, at least in part, to improving the United States’ relations with other nations – boast of an adversarial relationship with a key Middle Eastern geopolitical power in the aftermath of a historic diplomatic breakthrough?
Insight into that question may be gleaned from just a cursory look at the Clinton campaign’s principal donors. Israeli-American entertainment mogul Haim Saban, and his wife Cheryl, have contributed approximately $2 million to Priorities USA Action – a SuperPAC financing Clinton’s presidential bid. Saban is a self-proclaimed “one-issue guy” and, according to him, his issue is Israel. Describing a conversation he had with then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008, Saban relayed the following anecdote to New Yorker staff writer Connie Bruck:
“Obama was asked the same question Hillary was asked —‘If Iran nukes Israel, what would be your reaction?’ Hillary said, ‘We will obliterate them.’ We . . . will . . . obliterate . . . them. Four words, it’s simple to understand.
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