The Arabs, Iran, and WikiLeaks

The American Thinker ^ | December 01, 2010 | Daniel R. DePetris

[Scanian]

World leaders from Washington to Islamabad are increasingly engaged in a frantic attempt to contain the political damage of the WikiLeaks disclosures. The fact that many of the leaked cables expose U.S. foreign policy in a seemingly negative and contradictory light -- officials saying one thing in public and doing something entirely different in private -- has embarrassed an administration that has made multilateralism a key component of its grand strategy.

But what is less clear, particularly in media coverage of the leaks, is what the new WikiLeaks documents say about the policies and behavior of foreign governments. Indeed, just as Julian Assange and his cohorts exposed controversies in the U.S. diplomatic establishment, the organization has also uncovered significant amounts of information on how foreign dignitaries view the world and conduct state business.

The Middle East, the region that many policymakers have been concentrating on for the past ten years, is particularly prominent in the latest WikiLeaks document dump. Arab leaders are painted in a light that statesmen would rather like to avoid -- elitist, disconnected from the citizenry, and extremely zero-sum when deciding policy. A segment in one cable between Qatari Prime Minister al-Thani and U.S. Senator John Kerry serves as an example:

"HBJ observed that President Mubarak of Egypt is thinking about how his son can take his place and how to stave off the growing strength of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian government, said HBJ, has jailed 10,000 Muslim Brotherhood members without bringing court cases against them. The Egyptian "people blame America" now for their plight. The shift in mood on the ground is 'mostly because of Mubarak and his close ties' to the United States."

In other words, Hosni Mubarak's main priority is maintaining his grip on power...

[gotribe]

Good post! I continue being more and more in favor of these Wikileaks. They give us tremendous insight into the nuances of the various world players and that’s important for all of us to understand, if for no other reason than to call BS to our government’s claims. None of this has actually weakened our position globally as so many allege; the elite has known what all of us now know for years. Never trust governments, ever.

[Scanian]

There is considerable value in them but I am concerned with cover being blown off secret operations in Yemen(their prez has agreed to finger Al Qaeda operatives in that country-—against their parliament’s wishes) and Pakistan(an agreement for the Pakis to turn nuclear material over to the US instead of peddling it to terror states or organizations).

[samtheman]

The writer has completely left out any discussion of what the Arabs think of the Palestinians. Everywhere else I’ve read that the leaks show that the other Arabs in the region don’t waste much thought on the “Palestinian problem” at all, and that such “concern” is a public posture only. And yet this entire article fails to even mention the one issue that a) all the leftist have told us for decades is the only issue that matters to the Arabs and b) all the other analysis I’ve read of the leaks claims is not an issue to the Arabs at all.

So how could someone write an article about what the leaks show us about Arab thinking and not mention either a) the decades-old claim that all they care about is “Justice for the Palestinians” or b) the newly revealed truth: that they don’t care about that “justice” at all?

It’s a pretty glaring omission.

[Scanian]

Since I am “Captain Obvious” most of the time, let me suggest this: Assange held back documents from the dump that he didn’t want revealed.

Did you also notice, as I did, that there wasn’t anything unflattering about either Iran or China in the published material (at least in the articles about them)? Yet most every other power took hits. I found that very curious. Downright suspicious, even(i.e., one or the other or both have a hand in the operation?).