CLINTON, DITCHING OBAMA'S APPROACH, APPEALS DIRECTLY TO IRANIAN PEOPLE – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  Another small sign that Hillary Clinton, in some respects at least, is going her own way.  While Barack Obama shows little interest in the opinions or plight of the Iranian people, Clinton has appealed directly to them.  From AP:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is urging the people of Iran to reject what she says is an expansion of the Iranian military's role and power.

Clinton said Washington is increasingly concerned about the rise of military power in Iran, the main U.S. adversary in the Middle East.

In an interview for broadcast Sunday on ABC's This Week, Clinton said many Iranians are also worried and she hopes they find a way to head off the military drift.

Clinton said she has "grave disagreements" with the Iranian Revolution.

"But the early advocates of it said this would be a republic. It would be an Islamic republic, but it would be a republic. Then we saw a very flawed election and we've seen the elected officials turn for the military to enforce their power," she said.

She said that many Iranians, even those who were originally sympathetic to the revolution are starting to have serious second thoughts about the direction their government has taken.

Without elaborating she said, "I can only hope that there will be some effort inside Iran, by responsible civil and religious leaders, to take hold of the apparatus of the state."

COMMENT:  Hmm.  Notice that last line.  Is that a call to revolution?  Is Clinton aware of something through intelligence circles?  This is clearly not the kind of comment that her boss would make.  (But does Hillary really consider him her boss?)

Slowly, the secretary of state has been taking a tone at variance with the Obamans.  While Clinton couldn't challenge Obama directly for the 2012 Democratic nomination – she'd alienate the black vote permanently – she could hope that Obama might decide to be a one-termer, giving Clinton a clear shot at the nomination.  Stranger things have happened in politics...like Obama becoming president in the first place.

September 19, 2010