Hillary Clinton, on Good Morning America, had this to say on the U.S. response, if she were President, should Iran launch a nuclear attack on Israel:

I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran . . . In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.

My initial reaction? Good answer. But in a Democratic primary does this really help her? If–and this is a big if–there is a core of national security voters who worry about Hamas’s endorsement of Barack Obama and who are displeased with his predilection to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then yes. (This also may be of some benefit to the extent some independents and GOP voters with these concerns have registered to vote in the primary.)

Aside from the politics, however, this statement does, I’d argue, represent Clinton’s true worldview (just as her vote on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization did). Much as she might like to hide it from the Democratic party’s base, she is not above threatening the world’s miscreants. By contrast, I can’t imagine Obama saying anything nearly so definitive. And sure enough, on one of the morning shows, he said that Clinton’s attitude “doesn’t produce good results.”

So Clinton’s message may fail to resonate with a chunk of Democratic primary voters. But it’s hard to argue with the conclusion that she might scare the living daylights out of the Iranians.