There is a bank of television sets out in the newsroom here at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. All three sets seem to be on all the time, except perhaps Sundays, holidays and in the dead of night. It’s the visual equivalent of a tale told by an idiot, or rather three of them, signifying nothing. Mercifully, the sound is usually off as one meaningless segment of “news” follows another.

But the other day, a familiar figure appeared on the tube in triplicate: the former first lady of Arkansas and current head of the U.S. State Department – Hillary Rodham Clinton herself. She looked well, I was happy to note, and seemed to be addressing some meeting or other at the United Nations. Then I made the mistake of turning on the sound, and realized her subject was the spread of nuclear weapons.

Words detract from such scenes. Without them, one could at least entertain the possibility that some politician on the tube was saying something that might make a difference, even a difference for the better. The Hon. Hillary Clinton was saying something to the effect that it was less important to insist on our rights than to accept our responsibilities….

It was one of those sentences you don’t finish listening to. Just another political platitude. You wouldn’t want to swallow it any more than you’d want to bite into one of those plastic confections bakers put out for display purposes only.

Apparently our secretary of state was referring to the clear and ever more present danger presented by Iran’s growing nuclear capacity. But at this point words aren’t likely to make any difference. Since it’s an open secret that this administration is prepared to accept Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s getting his own nuke, complete with the rockets to deliver it. Even as our leaders strut and fret on the stage, making idle threats and taking up good air time.

It was Harold Macmillan, the last scholar and gentleman we are likely to see at No. 10 Downing, who once observed that a foreign minister is “always poised between a cliché and an indiscretion,” which is just where Hillary Clinton finds herself now – and has to be aware of it. She herself warned that Barack Obama would prove a weak president when she was running against him in the Democratic primaries, but it would be a grave indiscretion for her to admit it now. She, too, must pretend that this country might use force to deny Iran a nuke, but surely no one, least of all Iran’s rulers, can believe her.

And she can’t believe it, either. For at this stage in her life and career, which may be the same thing to a Hillary Clinton, she has joined what Anthony Powell called The Acceptance World in his great series of novels, “The Music of Time,” about the English upper classes as they were slipping from relevance. Whatever her tough talk, she and the administration in general seem to have given giving up any hope of preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East – for that is just what Iran’s nuke or even the prospect of one will set off. This country is going to accept Teheran’s having the Bomb, just as Washington has accepted North Korea’s nukes.

In years past the most effective nuclear disarmament program in the Middle East has been the Israeli air force, as demonstrated by its obliterating Iraq’s and, later, Syria’s capacity for developing nuclear weapons. But that was in a different and more vigilant world. Any such initiative on Israel’s part now would surely bring more than just the wink and nod that earlier American administrations bestowed on Israeli actions even while issuing purely pro forma protests.

For the Israelis to act against this looming threat, with this administration in power, would be to invite the loss of not just American diplomatic support but Israel’s vital supply line to this country.

By now Iran’s nuclear arsenal is an all but accomplished fact. For what used to be called the free world is doing little to prevent such an eventuality except make speeches at the United Nations, that great echo chamber of futilities.

This time it was Hillary Clinton’s turn to fill the air with blather – which has never been much of a defense against any danger, let alone a lethal one.

Welcome back to the Thirties. Only with nuclear weapons.

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