Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has written a letter to Iowa voters defending her vote for a Senate resolution branding Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization.
Democratic rivals Barack Obama and John Edwards have skewered Clinton over the vote, and many critics charge that the resolution could give President Bush the authority to attack Iran.
But Clinton says she decided to support the resolution after Democrats removed language that according to Hillary could have given Bush the green light for military action, the New York Post reports.
“Only then did I and a lot of other Democrats vote for the resolution in order to pressure Iran by clearing the way for sanctions and pushing the President to get them to the negotiating table,” Clinton wrote in her Iowa letter.
“I was there, and I exercised leadership, and I explained my vote at the time,” she said, in an apparent reference to Obama, who missed the vote.
Clinton came under attack from an audience member during a campaign stop in Iowa in early October.
As Newsmax’s Insider Report disclosed, the audience member in New Hampton charged that the Revolutionary Guards resolution gave Bush the O.K. to strike Iran. Clinton said “it does not,” referring to the earlier version of the resolution that contained “what was considered very bellicose and very threatening language.”
Ironically, Hillary – who is evidently now opposed to military action – said in February that "no option can be taken off the table" when dealing with Iran.
"U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal,” she told a crowd of Israel supporters. “We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table."
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