ISRAEL MATZAV: Assange claims Arab officials spy on their own countries for the CIA

In an interview with al-Jazeera's Arabic language network on Wednesday, Wikileaker Julian Assenge claimed to have names of Arab diplomats who are spying on their own countries for the CIA.

“These officials are spies for the U.S. in their countries,” Assange said, according to Qatar's Peninsula newspaper. More:

The interviewer, Ahmed Mansour, said at the start of the interview which was a continuation of last week’s interface, that Assange had even shown him the files that contained the names of some top Arab officials with alleged links with the CIA. [...]

Some Arab countries even have torture houses where Washington regularly sends ‘suspects’ for ‘interrogation and torture’, he said.

He then complained, "Washington is also projecting me as a terrorist and wants to convince the world that I am another Osama bin Laden."

Observers have long speculated about the massive "insurance" file that WikiLeaks posted on the Pirate Bay, which has by now been downloaded by thousand of people all over the world. Opening the file requires an encryption key that presumably would be released upon Assange's incarceration or untimely death. I guess it's the motherlode.

At Foreign Policy, Blake Hounshell doesn't believe it.

I have my doubts about these new claims, though. The CIA vigorously protects the identities of its sources, and would have no reason to let any old schmo at a U.S. embassy know their names. It is also highly doubtful that the cables would talk about "torture houses" -- the United States has always denied that it (knowingly) outsources rough treatment to foreign governments. Not everyone believes this, mind you, but I'd be surprised if any embassy cables said otherwise.

Maybe Assange and Mansour are confusing ordinary visits of Arab officials to U.S. diplomats with "spying," but it's hard to say for sure without seeing the cables themselves.

Hounshell is too quick to dismiss the stories of outsourcing torture. You can watch a CBS 60 Minutes report on outsourcing torture to Egypt and Jordan here, and there are reports that US was outsourcing torture of terrorists to those countries dating as far back as 2002. (To make it clear, I'm not criticizing that; I'm acknowledging the reality).

As to disclosing the names of Arab officials who are spying for the CIA, Hounshell knows this region well enough (he's based in Qatar) to know that ironclad evidence that would hold up in court is not a necessity. The accusation - especially coming from someone like Assange who is seen as somewhat credible - would be sufficient to put these peoples' lives in danger. I'd bet on the Qatari government telling al-Jazeera not to discuss this again. Because it's probably true.

Malcolm Hoenlein talks about UNESCO, Wikileaks, more

Steven Spielberg was target of Arab League boycott, WikiLeaks cable shows Leaked dispatch reveals diplomats from 14 Arab states voted to ban the director's films in response to his donation to Israel

Steven Spielberg was blacklisted by the Arab League's Central Boycott Office after making a $1m (£570,000) donation to Israel during the 2006 conflict in Lebanon.

A US embassy memo released by WikiLeaks reveals that during a meeting of the group in April 2007, diplomats or representatives from 14 Arab states voted to ban all films and other products related to Spielberg or his Righteous Persons Foundation.

At the confidential US briefing, the head of the Syrian regional office for the boycott of Israel, Muhammad al-Ajami, said that Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen had agreed to ban all Spielberg's works.

Malaysia, Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia were also present at the meeting and voted in favour of the boycott. The memo from the US embassy in Damascus to Washington says that "they and other countries will likely implement their own bans" similar to that adopted by the Arab states.

At the same meeting, cosmetics giant Estée Lauder was added to the blacklist while financial services behemoth Merrill Lynch was placed on a "watchlist".

The only Arab states which did not attend the meeting were those who have signed separate peace accords with Israel, namely, Egypt (which also has a thriving film industry and holds the annual Cairo film festival), Mauritania and Jordan. Djibouti and Somalia were not present at the meeting either.

Marvin Levy, spokesman for Steven Spielberg, said: "While we can't comment on a leaked cable, we know that the films and DVDs have been sold globally in the normal distribution through all this time."

But Chris Doyle at the Council for Arab-British Understanding said the boycott was an "understandable" reaction to Spielberg's donation.

"It would be consistent with other decisions in the past over boycotting both companies and people who have done something equivalent," he said. "The donation would have been seen as hypocritical, given the ethical stance Steven Spielberg has taken on other issues including Darfur, and would have caused a lot of anger.

"The depiction of Arabs in Raiders of the Lost Ark was very poor, cartoon-like and full of the usual stereotypes," he added. "In a broader context, this applies to so many Hollywood films where Arabs for decades have been ludicrously depicted."

The Arab League boycott is a systematic, pro-Palestinian effort by Arab League member states to economically isolate Israel and weaken the country's economic and military strength.

Israeli boycotts by the League are, however, inconsistently enforced across the member states, with individual states often going their own way. Only Lebanon and Syria now adhere to it stringently.

Steven Spielberg set up the Righteous Persons Foundation in 1994. Using his personal profits from the film Schindler's List and, later, Munich, the Foundation is dedicated to helping create a strong Jewish community in the United States.

Bloggers claim WikiLeaks struck deal with Israel over diplomatic cables leaks The lack of information damaging to Israel in the cables released by WikiLeaks has provided fodder for conspiracy theorists.

PARIS - It was only a matter of time before conspiracy theorists came out of the woodwork to suggest that Israel is behind the publication of the WikiLeaks trove - and is manipulating the information coming out to help Israeli interests.

"Where is the real dirt on Israel?" these conspiracy theorists - messaging back and forth in the blogosphere - are asking one another.

"The answer appears to be a secret deal struck between WikiLeaks' ... Assange ... with Israeli officials, which ensured that all such documents were 'removed' before the rest were made public," wrote Gordon Duff, an editor of the anti-war website Veterans Today, who frequently opines about what he believes is Israeli's secret influence over world events.

Speaking to Haaretz, Duff added that "it sticks out like a sore thumb that WikiLeaks is obviously concocted by an intelligence agency. It's a ham-handed action by Israel to do its public relations."

Meanwhile, Al Haqiqa, an Arabic language webzine, citing disgruntled WikiLeaks volunteers, adds more details to the conspiracy, suggesting that this "secret agreement" between Assange and "the Mossad," which allegedly took place in Geneva, involved Assange's promise not to publish any document that "may harm Israeli security or diplomatic interests."

"The Israel government, it seems, had somehow found out or expected that the documents to be leaked contained a large number of documents about the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza in 2006 and 2008-9 respectively," adds an anonymous blogger on IndyMedia. "These documents, which are said to have originated mainly from the American embassies in Tel Aviv and Beirut, were removed and possibly destroyed by Assange, who is the only person who knows the password that can open these documents, the sources added."

Remy Ourdon, who is in charge of the WikiLeaks project for Le Monde - one of the five international newspapers that were given advance copies of the cables by Assange - counters that it is incorrect to claim there are no cables of interest about Israel.

"Not everything has come out yet," he tells Haaretz. "There are tens of thousands of cables and many surprises still coming. There is almost no country which does not have some cables emanating from it."

Moreover, stresses Ourdon, contrary to the conspiracy theorists' charges, Assange is not in control of which cables WikiLeaks publishes - that is determined solely by what the person who obtained the cables was able to access and pass along.

Other observers offer an alternative explanation for the lack - so far - of many insightful cables out of Israel. For example, Ed Abington, a former U.S. consul general in Jerusalem (1993-1997 ) suggests, on facebook, that it might have something to do with the level of information being offered out of the country.

"The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv has been so out of the loop for the last six years that their reporting is about what you read in the Israeli press (probably where they get most of their information ). .

"There's a channel U.S. embassies use for very sensitive information and I don't think WikiLeaks has those cables. As for Tel Aviv, the last two ambassadors have not been risk-takers and have had a very low profile. I doubt they have been willing to rock the boat, and may not have had much, if any, inside information."

What would be more interesting, Abington persists, is the reporting from the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem. "Where is that reporting?" he asks.

"Stay tuned," says Ourdon.

Wikileaks: The Suha Arafat Affair; A pair of interesting cables from Wikileaks concerning Suha Arafat, Yasir Arafat's widow.

From 2006:

The Government of Tunisia's Official Journal of September 26 published a notice that Suha Arafat, wife of the late Palestinian Authority president, and her 11-year old daughter Zahwa had acquired Tunisian nationality. Mrs. Arafat and her daughter have been living in Tunisia since the 2004 death of Yasser Arafat, and Zahwa Arafat attends the American Cooperative School of Tunisia. Suha Arafat's presence in Tunisia long predates that, however. She had been a resident of Tunisia prior to her marriage, and, after residing in the Palestinian Territories from 1996-98, she returned in 1998, alternating between residences in France and Tunisia.

...We remain puzzled as to why Mrs. Arafat would want Tunisian citizenship...One possible motivation is that under Tunisian law, foreign participation in a totally non-exporting service industry cannot exceed 50 percent. Several months ago, Mrs. Arafat set up one such company -- to
build an international school in Tunis. Tunisian citizenship will allow her to control this company.

And then things went downhill. From 2007:

The GOT's decision last summer to revoke Suha Arafat's Tunisian citizenship, which had only been granted less than a year earlier, made international headlines. Since the appearance of the official register notice on August 7, the chattering class in Tunisia has not ceased to speculate about the reasons behind the decision. In a mid-October telcon with Ambassador Godec, Mrs. Arafat attributed her ouster to the personal animus of First Lady Leila Ben Ali, following a dispute over the forced closure of the Bouebdelli School, a well-respected private school. Had
it remained open, the Bouebdelli School would have represented serious competition to the new Carthage International School, a joint venture between the two First Ladies. It is doubtful that we will ever know all of the facts in this affair, but the stories of corruption swirling around the Carthage International School have a ring of truth to them.

...In a mid-October telcon with the Ambassador, Ms. Arafat blamed her ouster on the personal animus of First Lady Leila Ben Ali. "I can't believe what she's has done to me," Arafat exclaimed, "I've lost everything!" She charged that all of her properties in Tunisia had been confiscated, even by falsifying documents transferring ownership. (Note: It is rumored that Mrs. Arafat had invested -- and lost -- some 2.5 million euros in the Carthage International School. End Note.) In addition, she said, her friends and colleagues in Tunisia, including her banker, had also come under pressure. "Anyone who supports me is punished."

...Plenty of other theories have stoked the rumor mill in the Suha Arafat affair. One well-connected Palestinian resident in Tunisia told EmbOff that what sealed Mrs. Arafat's fate was that on a recent visit to Tripoli, she had asked Libyan Leader Qaddafi for money. Qaddafi had readily provided a hand-out, but he reportedly subsequently called President Ben Ali to chastise him for failing to provide adequately for the widow of the late Palestinian President. Ben Ali's acute embarrassment, so the story goes, quickly turned to wrath. It was not long before Mrs. Arafat's citizenship was revoked. Another theory holds that Suha Arafat was ousted because she had absconded with a significant amount of the first family's assets. Finally, in the face of persistent rumors that Mrs. Arafat had secretly married Belhassen Trabelsi, brother of the Tunisian First Lady, some commentators chalked up the whole ordeal to the failure of that relationship.

Some other juicy parts of that latter cable, including Suha's accusations of corruption towards the ruling family and the fact that the for-profit school had enjoyed great governmental largesse.

It seems that her Suha learned a bit about corruption during her marriage.

SERAPHIC SECRET: Deadly Diplomatic Fictions

At Tablet, Lee Smith reviews the Wikileaks documents and compares them to The Pentagon Papers, except in this case Conservatives have been vindicated in their assessment of the geo-political landscape—especially in regard to the Mideast.

The left has lectured endlessly—and Barack Obama continues the fiction—that the Palestinian conflict with Israel is priority in the Arab world. Solve the Arab Israeli conflict and presto, unicorns will rain from the sky.

This is, of course, nonsense, dangerous nonsense, because such fiction derails America—the only super power—from dealing with reality.

The Palestinians are just an annoying—if particularly blood-thirsty—side show, paying lip service to their lunatic brand of Islamofascism is simply a method whereby Arab Muslim leaders gain credibility in the noisy Arab street.

For years Seraphic Secret, along with other Conservatives, has argued that the true existential issue is nuclear Iran. The Gulf Arabs are terrified of the Mullahs and practically beg the U.S. to take out the Iranian nuclear program.

1. While the Israelis are deeply concerned about Iran's march toward a nuclear program, it is in fact the Arabs who are begging the United States to "take out" Iranian installations through military force, with one United Arab Emirates official even proposing a ground invasion. Calling Iran "evil," King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia repeatedly urged the United States to "cut off the head of the snake" by attacking Iranian nuclear installations.

2. It is not just Israeli leaders who believe Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is reminiscent of Hitler; U.S. officials think so too, as do Arab leaders, who use the Hitler analogy to warn against the dangers of appeasing Iran.

3. North Korea, an isolated country that enjoys substantial diplomatic and economic backing from China, is supplying Iran with advanced ballistic missile systems that would allow an Iranian nuclear warhead to hit Tel Aviv--or Moscow--with a substantial degree of accuracy. Taken in concert with the North Korean-built nuclear reactor in Syria, it would appear that North Korea--acting with the knowledge and perhaps direct encouragement of China--is playing a significant and deliberate role in the proliferation of nuclear equipment and ballistic delivery systems in the Middle East.

4. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not a model Middle Eastern leader who has found the right admixture of religious enthusiasm and democracy, as U.S. government officials often like to suggest in public, but "an exceptionally dangerous" Islamist. U.S. diplomats have concluded that Erdogan's anti-Israel rhetoric is not premised on domestic Turkish electioneering or larger geo-strategic concerns but rather on a personal, visceral hatred of Israel.

5. Tehran has used the cover of the ostensibly independent Iranian Red Crescent—a member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, whose pledge of neutrality allows it access to war zones—to smuggle weapons and members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Qods Force into Lebanon during the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war, and into Iraq, to fight against U.S. soldiers.

6. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his intelligence chief Omar Suleiman are more worried about Hamas than about Israel and are staunchly opposed to the expansion of Iranian influence in the region.

Smith's conclusion is devastating and should send a collective shudder from Washington to Jerusalem.:

What comes through most strongly from the Wikileaks documents, however, is that U.S. Middle East policy is premised on a web of self-justifying fictions that are flatly contradicted by the assessments of American diplomats and allies in the region. Starting with Bush’s second term and continuing through the Obama Administration, Washington has ignored the strong and repeated pleas of its regional allies—from Jerusalem to Riyadh—to stop the Iranian nuclear program. Perhaps the most disturbing revelation in the documents is the extent to which both the Bush and Obama Administrations have concealed Iran’s war against the United States and its allies in Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, and the Arab Gulf states, even as those same allies have been candid in their diplomatic exchanges with us. U.S. servicemen and women are being dispatched to combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan where they are fighting Iranian soldiers and assets in a regional war with the Islamic Republic that our officials dare not discuss, lest they have to do something about it.

Read the entire article.

Meanwhile, someone is taking the Iranian threat seriously and are in the process of eliminating Iranian nuclear scientists one by one. And then there's the Stuxnet virus that is creating havoc.

Wikileaks and the Arabs

One of the highlights of the most recent Wikileaks release has been the focus on Arab attitudes toward Iran. The headlines suggest Arab unanimity in support of a U.S. or Israeli military attack on the Islamic Republic, as long as Arab governments are allowed to keep their heads low to the ground. There was much evidence, and many colorful quotations, to make the case, especially from Saudi, Bahraini, and United Arab Emirates' leaders. And although some of the quotations were jaw-dropping, in truth it was all a bunch of stuff we’ve heard before. But analysis by the media that followed, and the sweeping conclusion that "Arabs support attacking Iran," is misplaced and ignores significant differences among Arab governments about how to deal with Iran—and especially missed the boat on true attitudes of the Arab public.
As I pointed out [3] in an analysis on this site in September most Arab governments are

suspicious of Iran and worry about rising Iranian power and influence, the degree of concern varies, and the sources of concern vary even more. . . . Most Arab governments would like Iranian power trimmed, with some supporting a potential attack on its nuclear facilities by either Israel or the United States. But Arab governments' calculations cover a broad spectrum.

In fact, while Wikileaks showed the extent to which Arab leaders almost universally worry about rising Iranian influence, their attitudes toward military action were far from unanimous —even in the Gulf region. Leaders in Oman counseled against a war with the Islamic Republic, and the same goes for any number of Saudi officials. While Qatar expressed suspicion of Tehran’s intentions, Israel's Mossad chief, Meir Dagan, reportedly worried about Qatar's cozying up with Iran; so much so that he recommended that the United States close the American base there, which he saw as Qatar's security insurance policy. And, at least in the foreseeable future, Syria is an ally of Iran. In many Arab countries, there was significant concern about the repercussions of an attack on Iran. This was the case for Kuwait and Jordan. And while there was much focus on a cable from Jordan describing Jordanian wariness about U.S. engagement with Iran and comparing Tehran to an "Octopus," what was missed is that the same cable also noted that "they believe they can be severed if Iran is deprived of hot-button issues that make it a hero to many on the Arab street, such as its championing of the Palestinian cause." Indeed, Most of Jordan's—and of Egypt’s—expressed concerns focused on Iranian influence and meddling in Arab affairs, particularly in their neighborhoods, rather than being distinctly related to a U.S. or Israeli attack.
But the biggest gap in the recent coverage of the story has been understanding Arab public opinion toward Iran and how this affects government calculations. In fact, Iran has the ability to play the Arab-public-opinion card and reach out to groups that threaten the control of Arab governments. And there is evidence that they have succeeded in doing just that, even beyond the rising power of their allies, particularly Hezbollah in Lebanon. In large part, Tehran benefits from Arab public anger toward Israel and the United States, and from the perceived paralysis of their own leaders: consistently, in the past several years, all the polls I’ve conducted at the University of Maryland with cooperation from Zogby International show that in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Morocco and Lebanon, the Arab public expressed views about Iran that highlighted just how different the public feels when compared to the elites. Last August, I released the 2010 Arab public opinion poll results [4], which indicated that Arabs polled were more open to Iran’s nuclear program, including the possibility of nuclear-weapons production, than ever before. In an open question about the world leader Arabs admired most, Ahmadinejad was chosen by 12 percent of those questioned—landing him in third place, behind only Turkish leader Recep Erdoğan and Venezuelan demagogue Hugo Chavez. My own analysis of the results suggested that Iran is benefiting from the sentiment that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This was particularly visible when those polled were asked to identify the two states that posed the biggest threat to them: 88 percent identified Israel, 77 percent identified the United States and 10 percent identified Iran. While the results on this latter issue varied somewhat from country to country, the trend held across countries polled.
These results seemed surprising to some, particularly given the known animosity of Arab governments toward Iran, even before the release of the Wikileaks documents. But when it comes to public opinion at least, the results should hardly raise an eyebrow, as they are supported by broader evidence in the Arab discourse. Polls aside, one gets a good flavor of the type of Arab public reactions from reader comments on popular web sites. These do not provide scientific evidence in the same way as do polls, but they provide texture.
In the wake of Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon last October, for example, I conducted an analysis of online reader comments on two popular web sites: Aljazeera.net and Alarabiyya.net. The Saudi-funded Alarabiyya and the Qatari-funded Aljazeera have different editorial policies, including on Iran. But the results are telling: The visit generated considerable reaction not only in Lebanon but also elsewhere in the Arab world and beyond. And it seemed to play into all the issues: the Sunni-Shia divide, Iran's rising influence in the Arab world and its animosity to Israel. Having translated the first twenty-five comments on each site, here is a snapshot of reader feedback (for the complete list of reader reactions click here):

Aljazeera.net:
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Iran has always stood against Israel and with Arab rights. Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon is a message that says “we are here.”
God bless the Iranian nation and I hope God makes it the most powerful on earth and may America fall.
God be with you Ahmadinejad who is with those in Palestine and fights the Americans and the Zionists.
I don’t like the Shi’a and I am against the visit at this point BUT we should thank Iran for its support of the resistance. So I don’t know which camp I belong to??? 
Alarabiyya.net:
If only the Lebanese people would take care of their own problems, they wouldn’t bicker about this inconsequential visit (Saudi Arabia)
Ahmadinejad is a hero like no other! He is the shepherd of the resistance and we thank God for you.
How can those who are against the visit call for the liberation of Palestine?!!! How can you object to his visit when he is championing the Palestinian cause? 

In all, the results were telling: of the fifty comments on both sites, 60 percent were positive about Ahmadinejad’s visit, 30 percent were negative and 10 percent were neutral. Alarabiyya’s readers were almost evenly divided between those who were positive and those who were negative, while 70 percent of Aljazeera’s readers were positive about the visit.
In the past week, my team and I also reviewed the first forty reader reactions on each of the same two sites to the stories about what Arab leaders had said in the leaked Wikileaks documents. A quick analysis showed varied reaction, but hostility toward Iran was hardly the most prominent, and very few expressed support for military action against Iran. In fact, the most apparent reader reactions were to see the leaks themselves as a U.S.-Western conspiracy and confirmation of what they already thought they knew about their own governments’ attitudes.
All this should provide a note of caution about the blanket interpretation that a few select quotations from Wiklileaks documents provide evidence that "the Arabs" are anxious to see a military attack on Iran. Some governments are, others aren't, but their publics are far less worried about the Islamic Republic than they are about Israel and the United States.

More from Al Jazeera: [5]
Readers Feedback
1. Ahmadinejad the man of freedom, liberation, justice and wise management. God be with you the hero of Islam (Egypt)
2. Huge popular reception which he deserves. He is a hero who has given Arab societies what no Arab ruler has thanks to the Islamic Republic of Iran (Bahrain)
3. It is an honor for Lebanon to have a good relationship with Iran and with President Ahmadinejad (Sudan)
4. He is the flower of the South, you are most welcome to Lebanon, you exceptional President! (Southern Lebanon)
5. If Arab rulers were half as good as Ahmadinejad we wouldn’t be here (no country)
6. I am watching on Al Manar the reception and my heart is filled with joy! (France)
7. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Iran has always stood against Israel and with Arab rights. Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon is a message that says “we are here” (Egypt)
8. Few are the real men. He is one of them. (London)
9. Blessed is the land that welcomes you, if only you could visit Gaza as well (Australia)
10. May there be jihadis like you who will succeed in the name of God. God be with you (no country)
11. All pride and honor go to all free people and to you Mr. Ahmadinejad (Bahrain)
12. God be with you Ahmadinejad who is with those in Palestine and fights the Americans and the Zionists (Saudi Arabia)
13. I don’t like the Shi’a and I am against the visit at this point BUT we should thank Iran for its support of the resistance. So I don’t know which camp I belong to??? (Amman)
14. Imagine if we had this hero, along with Nasser, Boumidyan, and Nasrallah, who would have dared stand up to the Arabs? (Palestine)
15. Lebanon stands against the Shiite marja’iyya of Iran (no country)
16. This visit is a message that Lebanon is an Iranian colony. Lebanese should revolt! (Riyadh)
17. This visit has huge implications for Lebanon most important of which is to get Nasrallah out of trouble with regard to the tribunal (Sudan)
18. You are most welcome, the leader of all Muslims, to Lebanon (Lebanon)
19. It is very sad, his visit should have never been allowed (Canada)
20. Those who object to his visit are enemies of Lebanon (Morocco)
21. Ahmadinejad is not a real man, he is all show (Saudi Arabia)
22. In honesty, I am very happy for his visit. God bless the Iranian nation and I hope God makes it the most powerful on earth and may America fall (Kuwait)
23. I respect all the comments above, may God bless Ahmadinejad, Berri, and Nasrallah (Dubai)
24. Many leaders visited Lebanon but have any of them visited the Palestinian refugee camps? Only he and the British queen in 1982 have, so praise both of them (Ireland)
25. Welcome to Ahmadinejad and we hope you will visit Gaza as well.
More from Al Arabiya: [6]
Readers Feedback
1. You are not welcome (Saudi Arabia)
2. You are not welcome in Lebanon, the Paris of the Orient (Saudi Arabia)
3. Why is the visit a problem? Didn’t he visit Iraq with the blessing of the most powerful countries in the world? (Saudi Arabia)
4. If only the Lebanese people would take care of their own problems, they wouldn’t bicker about this inconsequential visit (Saudi Arabia)
5. Welcome to the hero of Arabs and Muslims! Welcome to your second home Mr. Ahmadinejad (Saudi Arabia)
6. Welcome to President Ahmadinejad and we hope that the Lebanese government would ask for military and energy assistance from Iran. Instead of accusing them all sorts of things, ask them for assistance and if they don’t deliver, then you can say whatever you want! (Saudi Arabia)
7. Welcome to Ahmadinejad the hero in his second home Lebanon! (Saudi Arabia)
8. This is an Iranian show! In front of Arabs, he is saying that Lebanon is our backyard. (Saudi Arabia)
9. Lebanon will never be an Iranian colony! You are not welcome by the majority of the Arab Lebanese because you are coming as a colonizer not as a friend (Saudi Arabia)
10. Hezbollah has the right to welcome its important guest regardless of what other Arabs think of him (Saudi Arabia)
11. Why didn’t he visit Syria? He who wants peace should be there (Saudi Arabia)
12. You are most welcome to Lebanon Mr. Ahmadinejad (Saudi Arabia)
13. Ahmadinejad is a hero like no other! He is the shepherd of the resistance and we thank God for you (Saudi Arabia)
14. Welcome to the hero of all Muslims (Saudi Arabia)
15. Iran is and will always be an infidel nation (Saudi Arabia)
16. I heard he was going to throw a rock at the Israelis on the other side. Welcome Mr. Resistance! (Saudi Arabia)
17. Syria considers Ahmadinejad as its biggest mentor (Saudi Arabia)
18. Arabs are tribes and they keep fighting against each other. So this visit will change nothing about that (Saudi Arabia)
19. I think his visit is better than any other visit by a European leader but that is up to the hosts to decide (Saudi Arabia)
20. Lebanese should rise and fight the Iranian stream and its agents! (Saudi Arabia)
21. How can those who are against the visit call for the liberation of Palestine?!!! How can you object to his visit when he is championing the Palestinian cause?
22. Why have Arabs allowed Ahmadinejad to go this far? Cut off Syria from him so you can stop the Iranian stream! I loved you Mr. Hassan Nasrallah but please don’t let the Iranians have a presence in Lebanon (Saudi Arabia)
23. You are not welcome (Saudi Arabia)
24. You are not welcome at all, only by the minority (Saudi Arabia)
25. We are tired of bogus leaders who keep promising but end up doing nothing for the Palestinian cause (Saudi Arabia)

More by

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Source URL (retrieved on Dec 3, 2010): http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/wikileaks-the-arabs-4504

Links:
[1] http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=nationalinterest
[2] http://nationalinterest.org/profile/shibley-telhami
[3] http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-arabs-iran-4109
[4] http://www.sadat.umd.edu/
[5] http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/07A76CAE-F132-44B2-AF20-B5460AE5157E.html
[6] http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2010/10/11/121828.html

WikiLeaks cables: The Middle East fallout could be grave The disclosure of Arab views on Iran's nuclear plans has made a military strike more likely

Former US secretary of state Henry Stimson famously declared that "gentlemen do not read each other's mail", referring to Japanese diplomatic cables the US had uncovered by breaking Japan's military code. Today, everybody reads everybody else's diplomatic mail, if they can get their hands on it.

Mostly, this is a bad thing because secrecy – when properly used – can serve the interest of peace and security. Nations have the right to keep secrets from other nations, although they generally overdo it. But individuals do not have the right to decide for themselves when to reveal state secrets. The soldier who broke into governmental computers committed a serious crime and will be punished for it. The question is whether those who released the secrets to the press, namely WikiLeaks, are complicit in the crime.

The newspapers that published leaked material make a compelling case for the decision to select certain items for publication while withholding others. The press is, after all, part of our informal system of checks and balances.

But secretary of state Hillary Clinton is surely correct when she warns that WikiLeaks poses a danger not only to the US but to international diplomacy, while at the same time trying to minimize the actual harm done by these particular disclosures.

The disclosure that virtually every Arab country, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, would favour a military attack, as a last resort, to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons could have a discernible effect on the policies of several countries. Israel, of course, has long insisted that the military option be kept on the table. The disclosure that North Korea has delivered missiles to Iran may well frighten European countries into considering the option of military action, if sanctions don't work.

There is additional information, not revealed by WikiLeaks, suggesting that although sanctions are having some effect on Iran's economy, Tehran has decided to move forward with its nuclear weapons programme. Computer bugs and the assassination of nuclear scientists may be slowing the process, but are not likely to stop it.

The leaks confirm the US has made two disastrous decisions in dealing with Iran. The first came in 2007, when it released a misleading National Intelligence Estimate conveying the impression Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons programme. The second was the more recent statements by secretary of defence Robert Gates that appear to have taken any military option off the table. These mistakes have encouraged Iran to move ahead with its programme.

A third mistake is to believe that there can be real peace in the Middle East with an Iranian nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over the head of Israel. Even if Israel were to continue the settlement freeze and negotiate borders with the Palestinian Authority, the Iranians could ruin any prospect of permanent peace by unleashing Hezbollah and Hamas – which oppose any peace with Israel – to target Israeli civilians.

President Obama understated the threat when he said a nuclear Iran would be "a game changer". It would be a disaster, threatening Middle East peace, putting an end to any hope of nuclear non-proliferation, and engendering the greatest arms race in modern history.

Now that it has been made public that Arab nations favour a military attack, it will become more difficult for these countries to condemn Israel if it was to decide on a surgical strike. This public disclosure might embolden Israel to consider such a strike as a last resort.

So the leaking of secret information may have grave, even if unintended, consequences. We need new laws and new technologies to cope with the apparent ease with which low-level functionaries can access and download the most secret of information. But there will always be those willing to break the law and suffer the consequences for what they believe is a higher purpose; and it is always just a matter of time until the techno-thieves catch up to the techno-cops. We will have to learn to live with the reality that there is no absolute assurance that "gentlemen" (and others) will not be reading each other's mail.

WikiLeaks exposed the true Mideast conflict He is not merely undermining the world order - Assange is dangerous because he has shattered accepted dogma the Middle East.

Julian Assange is a dangerous criminal. This strange man with his long blond hair and misanthropic expression is not merely a cyberterrorist of a new kind. He is not merely a delusory anarchist humiliating the greatest power on earth. He is not merely an uninhibited megalomaniac disrupting modern diplomacy and undermining the world order. Assange is a dangerous criminal because he has shattered the accepted dogma on the understanding in the Middle East in the 21st century.

This dogma stated the following: The main problem in the Middle East is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The main problem in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the occupation. The main problem in the occupation is the settlements. Therefore if we just stop the settlements, the occupation will begin to end, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be solved and the Middle East will be stable.

In the last decade, this dogma became fixed and was sanctified. It became a kind of core belief that cannot be questioned. This was the truth they swore to in the White House, the Elysee Palace and 10 Downing Street. This was the truth they reported in The Washington Post, Le Monde and The Guardian. This was the truth that incorporated the supreme moral gravity that formed the worldview of enlightened elites in the West and directed the policies of the Western powers.

Then along came Assange and shattered the dogma. The secret documents that WikiLeaks published proved that the settlements, the occupation and even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were not the main problem in the Middle East. The confidential e-mails proved that the world they were talking about in Washington, Paris and London was an imaginary world. Assange proved that there was no connection between the real Middle East and the Middle East they talk about in The Washington Post, Le Monde and The Guardian. He revealed that the entire Arab world is currently busy with one problem only - Iran, Iran, Iran.

There is no doubt about it - Assange is a dangerous criminal. But he is dangerous not because he penetrated the Pentagon's information systems but because he revealed the Western intelligentsia's lack of intellectual integrity. Assange is dangerous not because he leaked state secrets on an unprecedented scale but because he revealed to us all that the West's hegemonic discourse is superficial and mendacious. Assange is dangerous not because he embarrassed the West's allies but because he proved that the West is contaminated by political correctness that cuts it off from the diplomatic reality. Assange placed a giant mirror in front of us all and proved the extent to which we had been duped in recent decades. A false dogma has prevented us from looking logically at the historic challenge facing us.

But let's not confuse things. The settlements are indeed a disaster. The occupation is intolerable. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is dangerous. But now that the blond misanthrope has opened our eyes, we must no longer shut them. The confidential e-mails must be read and reread so they can be understood. There is no chance for the current diplomatic process, they say. There is no chance of signing an Israeli-Palestinian agreement as long as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is living under the menacing shadow of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. There is no chance of regional peace as long as the Arab world is living under Tehran's incessant threat.

After all, just as the Egyptian president, the Saudi king and the Gulf emirs whisper, Iran is the heart of the problem. Iran is the source of the poison and the source of the consternation. As long as Iran is growing stronger, is seeking nuclear weapons and is terrorizing the Middle East, there is no chance for peace.

The lesson is a bitter one. If Iran develops nuclear weapons, peace will disappear. A nuclear Iran will deal a final blow to the chance of achieving a compromise between Israelis and Arabs. Therefore the dove of peace has to be extremely hawkish toward Iran. The peace-seeker must deal with Iran.

The opposite is also true. Anyone who wants to appease Ahmadinejad is betraying peace. Anyone who takes a lenient view of the ayatollahs is abandoning Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Abu Mazen. It's true that a moratorium on the settlements will help in the struggle against the centrifuges. But only such a moratorium will make it possible to dismantle the settlements. When we rise from the ruins of the dogma, the strategic order of things is utterly clear - Iran first.

Exposed by WikiLeaks By DAVID HOROVITZ; Obama, we now know, had the diplomatic cables to prove that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was no obstacle to wide Arab backing for the toughest possible measures against Iran. What’s the president going to tell Israel now?

After the first meeting between newish President Barack Obama and new Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in May of 2009, I wrote in these pages about the “acutely uncomfortable clash of divergent outlooks” so readily evident at their media conference.

I noted that while the Netanyahu camp had “rushed to talk up a purported meeting of minds over Iran,” it was plain that there was a gulf between the two men on the issue. Specially, I wrote, it had been Netanyahu’s hope that he would persuade Obama of the imperative to halt the Iranian nuclear drive “as a precondition for encouraging Arab moderation and thus enabling progress with the Palestinians, and on this he failed.”

Instead, I pointed out, “Obama insistently placed tackling the Palestinian issue – which has defeated even the most generous and flexible Israeli governments – on the road to fixing Iran.”

While Israel had argued internationally that stopping Iran would enable headway with the Palestinians, and other foreign heads of state, senior ministers and diplomats had politely suggested it was best to try to chivvy both processes along simultaneously, Obama, I observed, “has gone all the way over to the other side, and done so in public.”

I was referring to the president’s assertion, publicly contradicting Netanyahu, that, “If there is a linkage between Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, I personally believe it actually runs the other way. To the extent that we can make peace with the Palestinians – between the Palestinians and the Israelis – then I actually think it strengthens our hand in the international community in dealing with a potential Iranian threat.”


To my mind, the president’s thinking defied common sense. Now we know, however, that it also defied the concrete information he was receiving from his own diplomats.

THE OBAMA administration, it is now clear for all to see, was not pressing a reluctant Netanyahu to make settlement-freeze and other concessions to the Palestinians in part because it truly believed this would be helpful in generating wider support for tackling Iran.

Not at all. The United States, we now know courtesy of WikiLeaks, was being repeatedly urged by a succession of Arab leaders to smash an Iranian nuclear program they feared would destabilize the entire region and put their regimes at risk. Their priority was, and is, battering Ahmadinejad, not bolstering Abbas.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, in 2008, had not urged the US to chivvy those recalcitrant Israelis toward concessions to the Palestinians as a pre-condition for grudging Saudi support for a firmer US-led position against Iran. Anything but. Never mind the Palestinians, the king simply implored Washington to “cut off the head of the [Iranian] snake.”

Likewise, with minor variations in the course of the following year, the rulers of Bahrain and Abu Dhabi.

We are now starting to hear, courtesy of WikiLeaks, what Jordan and Egypt had to say on the matter too.

Obama, that is, was not the prisoner of a misconception, convinced in absolute good faith that if he could deliver Israeli concessions at the negotiating table he might stand a greater chance of getting the Arabs on board for the battle with the mullahs. No, he had the diplomatic cables to prove that the Israeli- Palestinian conflict was no obstacle to wide Arab backing, indeed wide Arab entreaties, for the toughest possible measures against Iran, emphatically including military action.

Either the president, it can be concluded, was so attached to his misconception that he refused to let the concrete information he had on Arab leaders’ thinking get in the way – sticking to his view of the region in defiance of the facts.

Or, more plausibly, he had internalized full well that he didn’t actually need the cover of a substantive Israeli-Palestinian peace process to generate Arab support for tackling Iran’s nuclear program, but chose to pressure Israel just the same, as a tactic, because he felt Israel was not being sufficiently forthcoming on the Palestinian front.

Neither explanation sits well, to put it mildly.

TELL NETANYAHU – who at the time of their first meeting had yet to endorse the two-state solution, and who is extremely unlikely to repeat the peace offer that Ehud Olmert had spurned by Abbas – that you feel he should be doing more? That’s fair enough.

What’s not fair enough is to indicate to the Israeli prime minister, when it’s patently untrue, that he ought to put aside some of his skepticism and take risks for peace because otherwise Israel might impede the US’s capacity to thwart the genocidal enemy, Iran.

In that May 2009 column, I noted that “If building international, and more specifically regional pressure on Iran is perceived to be contingent on dramatic progress toward resolving our vexed conflict with the Palestinians, the outlook may be bleak indeed. To judge by the fate of Israel’s peace overtures since the early 1990s, the Iranians, one can only fear, would be up to their eyes in enriched uranium before there’s a breakthrough here.”

So now here we are 18 months later. The peace process is deadlocked and Iran is indeed a good deal closer to the bomb. And the Obama administration has been pressing Israel for a second settlement freeze, even though Abbas wasted the last one, even though Netanyahu has demonstrably sought to encourage reconciliation by improving the economic climate on the West Bank, and even though Israel’s uncertainty about its Palestinian partner is magnified every time Fatah derides the legitimacy of a Jewish nation-state or the PA endorses “research” denying Jewish sovereign history here.

Until WikiLeaks, the US was presumably still reminding Israel of its view that the “linkage between Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process… runs the other way.”

That the route to thwarting Teheran runs via Jerusalem. That, whatever Israel’s misgivings, it should consider giving ground on the Palestinian front in part because of the demands of the wider struggle against Iran.

What’s the president going to tell Israel now?

Saudi Arabia urges US attack on Iran to stop nuclear programme • Embassy cables show Arab allies want strike against Tehran • Israel prepared to attack alone to avoid its own 9/11 • Iranian bomb risks 'Middle East proliferation, war or both'

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme, according to leaked US diplomatic cables that describe how other Arab allies have secretly agitated for military action against Tehran.

The revelations, in secret memos from US embassies across the Middle East, expose behind-the-scenes pressures in the scramble to contain the Islamic Republic, which the US, Arab states and Israel suspect is close to acquiring nuclear weapons. Bombing Iranian nuclear facilities has hitherto been viewed as a desperate last resort that could ignite a far wider war.

The Saudi king was recorded as having "frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons programme", one cable stated. "He told you [Americans] to cut off the head of the snake," the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir said, according to a report on Abdullah's meeting with the US general David Petraeus in April 2008.

The cables also highlight Israel's anxiety to preserve its regional nuclear monopoly, its readiness to go it alone against Iran – and its unstinting attempts to influence American policy. The defence minister, Ehud Barak, estimated in June 2009 that there was a window of "between six and 18 months from now in which stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons might still be viable". After that, Barak said, "any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage."

The leaked US cables also reveal that:

• Officials in Jordan and Bahrain have openly called for Iran's nuclear programme to be stopped by any means, including military.

• Leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to Iran as "evil", an "existential threat" and a power that "is going to take us to war".

• Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, warned in February that if diplomatic efforts failed, "we risk nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, war prompted by an Israeli strike, or both".

• Major General Amos Yadlin, Israeli's military intelligence chief, warned last year: "Israel is not in a position to underestimate Iran and be surprised like the US was on 11 September 2001."

Asked for a response to the statements, state department spokesman PJ Crowley said today it was US policy not to comment on materials, including classified documents, which may have been leaked.

Iran maintains that its atomic programme is designed to supply power stations, not nuclear warheads. After more than a year of deadlock and stalling, a fresh round of talks with the five permanent members of the UN security council plus Germany is due to begin on 5 December.

But in a meeting with Italy's foreign minister earlier this year, Gates said time was running out. If Iran were allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, the US and its allies would face a different world in four to five years, with a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. King Abdullah had warned the Americans that if Iran developed nuclear weapons "everyone in the region would do the same, including Saudi Arabia".

America is not short of allies in its quest to thwart Iran, though some are clearly more enthusiastic than the Obama administration for a definitive solution to Iran's nuclear designs. In one cable, a US diplomat noted how Saudi foreign affairs bureaucrats were moderate in their views on Iran, "but diverge significantly from the more bellicose advice we have gotten from senior Saudi royals".

In a conversation with a US diplomat, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain "argued forcefully for taking action to terminate their [Iran's] nuclear programme, by whatever means necessary. That programme must be stopped. The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it." 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."

In talks with US officials, Abu Dhabi crown prince Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed favoured action against Iran, sooner rather than later. "I believe this guy is going to take us to war ... It's a matter of time. Personally, I cannot risk it with a guy like [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. He is young and aggressive."

In another exchange , a senior Saudi official warned that Gulf states may develop nuclear weapons of their own, or permit them to be based in their countries to deter the perceived Iranian threat.

No US ally is keener on military action than Israel, and officials there have repeatedly warned that time is running out. "If the Iranians continue to protect and harden their nuclear sites, it will be more difficult to target and damage them," the US embassy reported Israeli defence officials as saying in November 2009.

There are differing views within Israel. But the US embassy reported: "The IDF [Israeli Defence Force], however, strikes us as more inclined than ever to look toward a military strike, whether launched by Israel or by us, as the only way to destroy or even delay Iran's plans." Preparations for a strike would likely go undetected by Israel's allies or its enemies.

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, told US officials in May last yearthat he and the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, agreed that a nuclear Iran would lead others in the region to develop nuclear weapons, resulting in "the biggest threat to non-proliferation efforts since the Cuban missile crisis".

The cables also expose frank, even rude, remarks about Iranian leaders, their trustworthiness and tactics at international meetings. Abdullah told another US diplomat: "The bottom line is that they cannot be trusted." Mubarak told a US congressman: "Iran is always stirring trouble." Others are learning from what they describe as Iranian deception. "They lie to us, and we lie to them," said Qatar's prime minister, Hamad bin Jassim Jaber al-Thani.

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