Stop Me Before I Vote Again

There's been some discussion about just what Hillary Clinton meant to say in a recent TV interview. Here's a transcript of the problematic exchange:

CLINTON: If Iran is seeking security, if they believe -- and, you know, you have to put yourself into the shoes of the other party when you negotiate -- if they believe that the United States might attack them the way that we did attack Iraq, for example...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Before they attack, as a first strike?

CLINTON: That's right, as a first strike, or they might have some other enemy that would do that to them, part of what we have to make clear to the Iranians is that their pursuit of nuclear weapons will actually trigger greater insecurity, because, right now, many of the nations in the neighborhood, as you know very well...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Because Israel will strike before they can finish?

CLINTON: Well, but not only that. I mean, other countries, other Arab countries are deeply concerned about Iran having nuclear weapons. So does Iran want to face a battery of nuclear weapons countries...

She brought up sua sponte the notion of a preemptive first-strike attack on Iran; she wasn't asked about it.

To my ear, the money line was "their pursuit of nuclear weapons will actually trigger greater insecurity," situated solidly in the context of a hypothetical "first strike... the way that we did attack Iraq."

Looks to me like she wants to say it without actually saying it: somebody -- either the US or Israel, of course; who else is conceivable? -- is likely to attack the Iranians if they don't submit. What else could "greater insecurity" mean in this context?

It's hard to make any other kind of sense of this exchange, unless you assume that she experienced a minor subclinical brain aneurysm during the course of the interview. In which case one can only regret that the incident wasn't much more grave.