Former NATO commander Wesley Clark is hitting the airwaves for Hillary Clinton, who he endorsed earlier this year. In a new TV ad airing in Iowa, the ex-presidential candidate says “I’ve known Hillary Clinton for 24 years. I know she has what it takes to end the war in Iraq, avert war with Iran, and restore our country’s standing in the world.”

Iran is a major issue in Iowa, where Hillary is still asked about her months-old vote calling on President Bush to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. Her critics have accused her of aiding and abetting the president’s “rush to war” with Iran; she says the resolution promotes more aggressive diplomacy.

Since the National Intelligence Estimate revealed that Iran dismantled its nuclear weapons program in 2003, her rivals have turned up the heat on her vote. This ad, though planned before the NIE was released, could help on that front.

The RNC, meanwhile, points out that Clark once advised a candidate for the House to vote for the Iraq resolution in 2002, saying “it is only fitting Hillary Clinton would run an ad with someone that has a stance on Iraq as inconsistent as her own.” Spokesman Danny Diaz also points out that Clark may not have much sway in Iowa — he skipped the caucuses when he ran for president in 2004.

To be fair, Hillary Clinton actually rolled into Des Moines’ Drake Diner with General Wesley Clark this morning to court voters and to enjoy some decaf and a fruit cup before heading out on a long 4-stop swing through East Central Iowa today. Chatting up the breakfast crowd, Clinton sounded genuinely excited to hear that one booth would support her on caucus day, and personally passed out supporter cards to each of them.

Bellied up to the counter with Gen Clark and fmr IA Gov Tom Vilsack’s wife Christie, the trio talked about the early caucus date and the difficulty of campaigning over the holidays — though Christie pointed out that since the University of Iowa’s embarrassing loss on Saturday put them out of bowl contention, more fans and students would probably be around on January 3rd to participate.

Hillary also discussed Global Warming with Gen Clark, who’d just been to a conference on the issue in China and said the Chinese were begging for American leadership on climate change. Clinton said she’d hold meetings on emissions with China as President. “You can’t turn and point a finger at China and say ‘oh, just because you missed the industrial revolution we dont want you to grow.’ That’s not the way you actually get their cooperation,” she said.

Later in Knoxville, IA,  she rolled out some new energy policies to help ease the credit crunch in the housing market, and deal with the spike in energy costs during the winter. But she also took the opportunity to take some broad swipes at Barack Obama on his inexperience and on his Social Security plan.

While she didn’t mention Obama by name, she said “there is one job we can’t afford on-the-job training for — our next president… every day spent learning the ropes is another day of rising costs, mounting deficits and growing anxiety for our families.” And she dissed his plan to raise the cap on income taxed for Social Security, which she says amounts to a massive tax hike. “We don’t need more Republican scare tacticts about a ‘Social Security crisis,’” she said. “And we don’t need a trillion dollar tax increase.”

But spokesman Jay Carson was more specific after the speech. On her economic plan, Carson said Hillary “is rolling out policies that he (Obama) doesn’t have.” And on Social Security, he said Obama continues to “spend most of his energy fighting to fix a long term challenge,  and playing into the Republicans hands in the process.”