Hillary Clinton three weeks ago was on her way to a secret meeting with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in regard to those negotiations. The plane carrying her from Bahrain logged its destination as Baghdad, but  is described as having changed direction in midair and headed for Ahvaz, capital of the south Iranian province of Khuzestan. There, it was said, the Iranian president was awaiting her arrival. But then the plane ran into technical trouble and made an emergency landing and that was when she was injured, according to this theory.

The unexplained death of Commander Job Price, 42, SEALs commander in Afghanistan is tied by some of the speculation to that incident. At the time, the Pentagon reported that his sudden death on Dec. 22, in Uruzgan, Afghanistan, was under investigation. It is now suggested that Commander Price was head of the security detail attached to Clinton for her Iran mission and he was one of the casualties of the accident.

In the nature of things, the impact these kinds of rumors have lingers even when they are officially denied – especially given Secretary Clinton's unusually long absence from the public eye. The medical report promised Wednesday after she is monitored at the hospital for 48 hours to assess her condition, “including other issues associated with her concussion,” is tensely awaited.  After that, said the hospital announcement, “her doctors will determine if any further action is required.”

Clinton, known as the most traveled Secretary of State in US diplomatic history, has been in the international spotlight since 1992 when her husband Bill Clinton was elected president and she became first lady. She then served in the US Senate and later ran for the presidency against Barack Obama.