Massive retaliation: Susan Rice, Barack Obama’s chief spokesperson on foreign policy, confirmed today that if Obama is elected president, he would treat a nuclear attack by Iran on Israel as if it were an attack on the United States. Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” broadcast, Rice made it clear that Obama would continue the United States’ longstanding pledge to protect the state of Israel from aggressors.
For 50 years it has been the policy of the U.S. to respond to a nuclear attack on Israel with “massive retaliation,” also known as “obliteration.”
On Jan. 12, 1954, John Foster Dulles, secretary of state for Pres. Dwight Eisenhower, warned the Soviet Union that the United States would respond to a nuclear attack on Israel with what has come to be known as “massive retaliation”:
Dulles stated that the U.S. would respond to military provocation “at places and with means of our own choosing.” This was interpreted to mean that the U.S. could respond to any foreign challenge with nuclear weapons. Dulles also said that “Local defense must be reinforced by the further deterrent of massive retaliatory power.” This quote forms the basis for the term massive retaliation, which would back up any conventional defense against conventional attacks with a possible massive retaliatory attack involving nuclear weapons.
A similar formulation of U.S. policy regarding nuclear attacks on its allies is “mutually assured destruction.”
It was this policy that Hillary Clinton was referring to when she said recently that if Iran launched a nuclear attack on Israel, her administration would “obliterate” Iran.
Despite the fact the massive-retaliation policy regarding Israel has been operative under presidents ranging from Kennedy to Nixon to Carter, Obama characterized Clinton’s threat against Iran as George Bush-style “cowboy diplomacy.”
Apparently Obama’s response caused agita among national security experts and supporters of Israel, so Rice was sent out today to confirm that if Iran vaporized Israel, Pres. Obama would, indeed, respond with massive retaliation.
