WikiLeaks: What Really Worries the Arabs

Contrary to the myopic view that concern for security in the Middle East is simply a thinly veiled excuse for “Israeli aggression”, the recently leaked US diplomatic cables reveal that stable Arab regimes in the area are not only worried about Iran’s nuclear programme and aggressive posturing but that some of their rulers and officials are rather more enthusiastic than the present US Administration about taking drastic action against what they consider an ‘existential threat’ and a regime that ‘cannot be trusted’.


The leaks highlight how seriously the issue is viewed in countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain and Egypt. If Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, others in the area might want to follow suit either by developing their own or by allowing third parties to base them in their countries, causing an arms race that could lead to ‘the biggest threat to non-proliferation efforts since the Cuban missile crisis’.

According to the secret memos revealed by WikiLeaks, some of the rulers and senior officials in Middle Eastern countries privately consider that ‘sanctions, carrots, incentives’ will not work and that ‘the programme must be stopped. The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it’. As expected, the reaction to these revelations in the Arab media has been muted or hostile, recourse even being made to the hackneyed accusation that it is all a vast Zionist conspiracy.