WikiLeaks' US diplomacy insights into Israel and Iran
Without time to report a full analysis, I instead link you to the relevant NY Times’ archives of U.S. State Department diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks. Most of the documents are from the past three years, although some are as old as 1966, and only 220 of a quarter million have been released. The documents lend behind-the-headlines reality to the sausage-making of foreign diplomacy and the business of getting America’s way in the world. They report everything from Page 6-like gossip of lavish weddings attended by the head of Chechnya to a 1990 report on the release of Nelson Mandela.
The Daily Beast has the top nine shocking revelations — meaning those most likely to reap repercussions in diplomatic relations. Meanwhile, Peter Beinart points out that while detrimental to certain diplomatic relations, the information is largely not new:
The latest WikiLeaks dump is to American foreign policy what the Starr Report was to presidential politics—fun, in a voyeuristic sort of way, revealing, but not about important things, and ultimately, more trouble than it is worth.
Relevant to fellow Middle East news junkies:
- Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries call for a strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, just as North Korea sold Iran long-range missiles.
- Briefings that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak delivered to two Congressional delegations, praising the US’ training of Palestinian security forces and its differences with the US over policy to Iran.
- A candid assessment of Libyan leader Qadaffi.
I anticipate the Israel war boosters will use this information to ramp up their “bomb Iran” campaigns, but I’m heartened to see overwhelming evidence that Obama’s diplomacy has accomplished what Bush’s sword rattling could not: a united and expanded global coalition against Iran’s nuclear proliferation. This involved everything from removing a Poland-based anti-missile system to win Russia’s support, to leveraging Saudi oil at cheap to wean China off Iranian energy dependence.
But at the very least, a cursory read of the summaries and source documents reveal a Middle East that is very unlike the version peddled by the right-wing. Instead of hostile Arab dictators fomenting hatred of America, we read reports of Arab nations clamoring for American action to halt an Iranian nuke. We read Israeli praise of Palestinian development and hopes of boosting their self-confidence. We remember that Pakistan has the nuke and is possibly the most unstable Muslim country near extremist take-over, not Iran.
The world is a more complicated place than the talking points provided by AIPAC. Add it to your recommended reading list this week.
Also, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, currently a visiting professor here at Drew University, is in wiki leaks now. He used to be an Egyptian political prisoner. So we’re all pretty excited about that around here.
To say that this is Obama’s anti-Iran coalition is really disingenuous. The documents released to date demonstrate that it’s more like a global anti-Iranian coalition pulling Obama along by the ears.
So China, Russia and the EU are just skipping into the coalition? Read the source docs, the story is Obama bargained them to the table.
Ok, let’s say you’re right. Everyone is on board now, can we agree? Now what?
Zeid Rifai, then president of the Jordanian senate, told a senior US official: “Bomb Iran, or live with an Iranian bomb. Sanctions, carrots, incentives won’t matter.”
Sanctions, carrots, incentives… all that matters in the end is whether Obama pulls the trigger, and everyone knows it, including the Iranians. I don’t think he’ll do it, and I think you don’t think he’ll do it either. So then why punish 80 million Iranians with increasingly crippling sanctions, when the policy of this government – of the entire international community – is a farce? Why not just build the Iranians the bombs ourselves. At least that way we’ll know the nukes are safe.
The one thing we’ve learned from this episode is that the world still runs the way some of us always knew it ran, which is to say, without a shred of “linkage”. Apparatchiks like Andrew Sullivan who spent the last two years making a case that another townhouse in Gilo was destroying the chance for Mid-East peace… well… it’s kind of like in Jurassic Park, where the guy hides from the Tyrannosaurus Rex in the port-a-potty, and the dinosaur knocks all four walls and roof down. That’s the “linkage” people now, crapping their pants and reaching for some toilet paper, just as the jaws close around their head.
@Victor.
This was posted less than 5 months ago!!!
Just read some of these words above–including the Wikileaks assessment of Colonel Qahdaffi.
Read KFJ’s words–he’s talking about the governments in Egypt, Syria, and Libya, among others:
I anticipate the Israel war boosters will use this information to ramp up their “bomb Iran” campaigns, but I’m heartened to see overwhelming evidence that Obama’s diplomacy has accomplished what Bush’s sword rattling could not:
But at the very least, a cursory read of the summaries and source documents reveal a Middle East that is very unlike the version peddled by the right-wing. Instead of hostile Arab dictators fomenting hatred of America, we read reports of Arab nations clamoring for American action to halt an Iranian nuke.
The world is a more complicated place than the talking points provided by AIPAC.
It sure is a lot more complicated. It really is.
@Victor.
The whole thing is just unbelievable.
What a crazy year we’ve had. First, Wikileaks explodes the “linkage” case, then Palileaks annihilates the case against building in settlements the Palestinians already conceded to Israel, then the Arab Spring bursts the dam of Arab resentment and anger and SURPRISE! it’s not against Israel but their own despotic regimes. Finally, Goldstone’s retraction pulverizes the “war crimes”, “crimes against humanity” charges against Israel.
And I have to be honest, most Jewschool writers, including KFJ, and President Obama, were on the wrong side of pretty much every one of those.
@Victor.
What’s shocking to me isn’t that KFJ, and JG, and at some points Justin, and others were so completely off base about the Arab regimes. Completely wrong! The entire West has been tragically wrong on this point.
(We all make mistakes, though–I’ve made plenty.)
What is shocking to me is that after years of you and me, and others pointing out that the neo-Cons had some good points, regardless of the mistaken Iraq War, and that the status quo in the Arab world is untenable . . .and having the patented response from KFJ, and JG, and at some points Justin that we were simply parroting what we heard in our troll training, in the right-wing echo chamber . . . after all that, everybody’s pretending like these arguments haven’t gone as they’ve actually gone. Complete denial.
What’s more, it does affect matters in the future–for instance, regarding the arguments over Hamas where, surprise, the usual suspects have no trouble calling out those of us who argue against engagement of Hamas for what we obviously are–trolls.
And I truly believe that they all meant well, but they just get it wrong, again and again. There’s no reflection, no introspection. Just more of the same, more “reframing” as if they never had the positions they had, and always with a cocky moral certitude and self-righteousness. It’s tragic.
From today’s NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/world/middleeast/11egypt.html?_r=1&hp
It’s a shame all of those AIPAC war-mongering types have prevented the U.S. from developing closer relationships with the Arab dictators. We see how well sitting in bed for 30 years with the Mubarak government has played out for the U.S., and for Israel.
Or, to put things more succinctly:
But at the very least, a cursory read of the summaries and source documents reveal a Middle East that is very unlike the version peddled by the right-wing. Instead of hostile Arab dictators fomenting hatred of America, we read reports of Arab nations clamoring for American action to halt an Iranian nuke.
Yep, no hatred was fomented under “hostile” Arab dictators.
Those damn American Jewish war mongers!
As they say:
The world is a more complicated place than the talking points provided by AIPAC
But at the very least, a cursory read of the summaries and source documents reveal a Middle East that is very unlike the version peddled by the right-wing.
Homs, Syria, February 2012:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jDtvyZ4Q_U
As they say:
The world is a more complicated place than the talking points provided by AIPAC.