CLINTON ON TERROR – AT 10:15 A.M. ET:  There is considerable speculation that Hillary Clinton may leave the administration to take a different route to a possible presidential run in 2016, or even 2012, if Obama goes completely off the rails. 

She is talking tough on terror, which she should be .  Associating with this administration's softness may get her votes in the Iowa caucuses, but not beyond.  From The Washington Times:

Obama administration figures took to Sunday's political talk shows to rebut charges of White House weakness on Islamist terrorism, with the nation's top diplomat saying such networks pose the greatest threat to national security.

While one of the White House's top national security advisers criticized lawmakers for politicizing national security threats, including the Christmas Day attack over Detroit, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said even a nuclear-armed North Korea or Iran isn't as great a threat to the U.S. as al Qaeda and allied jihad groups.

"The biggest nightmare that any of us have is that one of these terrorist member organizations within this syndicate of terror will get their hands on a weapon of mass destruction," she said in a Sunday appearance on CNN. "So that's really the most threatening prospect we see."

COMMENT:  In that she's correct.  A nuclear weapon in the hands of a terror group is the most severe threat because no jihadist group would acquire a nuclear weapon for any purpose other than using it.  And we might not be able to trace the source.

With all the talk of ICBM's, the most probable means of delivery of a nuclear device to an American city is a small truck, if the weapon can be smuggled to this continent.  Another means would be to mount it on a crude missile fired from a rogue freighter 50 miles off our shore. 

It's more than unlikely that a terror group could develop a nuke on its own.  It would have to acquire one from a friendly regime, or subversive elements within some other regime.  The most likely suspects are Pakistan and Iran., which is why it's imperative that the Iranian nuclear program be stopped. 

I suspect we may see Ms. Clinton making her own foreign-policy statements independent of the White House, as long as she doesn't stray too far.  She knows a sinking ship when she sees it, and she'll secure her own lifeboat.

February 8, 2010