If there were any doubt that if she made it to the Oval Office, Hillary Clinton’s term would be George Bush Mark III, the lady made it plain on the eve of Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary.

Her campaign had already run TV advertisements featuring pictures of Osama Bin Laden and asking voters who they would really trust as their commander-in-chief, Clinton or Obama. Then Monday night, Clinton drove home her “toughness” by threatening to “obliterate” Iran if it launched an attack on Israel. Given the kind of foreign policy advisers she has (the same as those who paved the way for Iraq war), she may not wait for Iran to “attack” Israel. It can be a pre-emptive “obliteration.”

This is the foreign politics of the madhouse. It demonstrates the same doltish ignorance that has distinguished Bush’s foreign relations. It offers only violence where there should be negotiations and war where there could be peace. At a stroke, Clinton demonstrated to everyone in this region that if she were the next occupant of the White House, Iraq-like death and destruction would be the order of the day.

Even the Republican candidate, John McCain, has not been so war-like in his views of Iran. This experienced politician has at least had the good sense to leave open as many options as possible. And there is now a strong sense that if he were president, Barack Obama’s inclination would be to try to pick up some of the many opportunities for negotiation and peace-making that have been discarded by the belligerent Bush administration.

The pity of it is that Hillary Clinton’s last-minute fighting talk may have chimed in with the views of Pennsylvania’s voters. Her expected narrow victory has turned into a ten-point triumph over Obama. This said, when the two Democrat contestants began these hustings, Clinton was thought to hold a 20-point lead. Did she rescue her campaign with her rash talk or did she convince many potential supporters that she was not to be trusted with the direction of American foreign policy?

There is little or no consideration of how simplistic Washington analysts actually plunged the region into chaos in the first place. America’s world outlook remains disturbingly black and white. Hillary Clinton has demonstrated that even if she knows better, she is prepared to ride and exploit this mulish ignorance.

The threat to “obliterate” Iran is dangerous folly. What though has this woman given to the implicit threat Israel makes to the rest of the region with its own nuclear arsenal? How does she imagine that such talk will play to those Iranians who want rapprochement with Washington? Clinton’s is ill informed and amoral politicking of the worst kind, even assuming that in the US Israel is a domestic, not foreign, policy. Faced with defeat in her bid for the Democrat nomination, she is prepared to up her already dirty political tactics by threatening with destruction another state in the Middle East that poses no threat to the US. This is a person who is barely fit to run for office, let along sit behind the most powerful desk in the world.