Israel feels vindicated by Wikileaks
thestar.com
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (R) shakes hands with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri during a meeting at the foreign ministry in Tehran on November 28, 2010.
BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/GETTY IMAGESJust as Lebanon’s prime minister was wrapping up his first state visit in Iran with a public display of loyalty for the Iranian regime, Hariri was unmasked as a big pretender.
While he spoke of his country’s support for Tehran’s nuclear program, the New York Times published the contents of a cable quoting Hariri’s conversation with a U.S. diplomat in Beirut in 2006.
The attack on “Iraq was unnecessary,” wrote Hariri, then the leader of the Sunni majority in Lebanon’s parliament, while an attack on “Iran is necessary.” The U.S. “must be willing to go all the way” to stop Iran.
As hundreds of Wikileaks documents reveal, this stark contrast of opinions articulated in private versus those voiced publicly wasn’t unique to Hariri, but characterizes most Arab heads of state. For many of them, Wikileaks’ coup could spell serious trouble.
Like Hariri’s quote, most dispatches from the Middle East released Sunday by Wikileaks concern themselves with Iran, not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Early concerns were voiced in 2005, shortly after hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was first elected president of Iran.
In a meeting with the commander of the U.S. Central Command General John Abizaid, military leaders from the United Arab Emirates assessed Ahmadinejad to be “crazy.”
The following year, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Zayed urged the U.S. to “take action” against Iran within a year at most.
In a meeting in 2007 with Chief of Staff USAF General T. Michael Moseley, bin Zayed “warned Moseley of the growing threat from Iran, stating that they (Iran) ‘can’t be allowed to have a nuclear program.’ ” The crown prince stressed that Iran “must be stopped by all means available.”
The king of Bahrain joined the chorus when he told the Americans that “the danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it.”
Saudi Arabia, Iran’s rival in the Gulf region, was even more blunt. King Abdullah repeatedly demanded that Washington attack Iran to “cut off the head of the snake.”
“May God prevent us from falling victim to their evil,” said Abdullah. “We have had correct relations over the years, but the bottom line is that they cannot be trusted.”
In 2008, Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak saw two large challenges for the region: Iraq’s stability and that “Iran is spreading everywhere.” Mubarak warned Washington of Tehran’s dubious negotiation tactics, calling them “big, fat liars” who “justify their lies because they believe it is for a higher purpose.”
In Israel, where Wikileaks revelations had been expected with nail biting tension, officials smugly leaned back as they learned the content of the dispatches revealed. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced a feeling of vindication.
“Israel has not been damaged at all by the WikiLaks publications,” Netanyahu told Israeli editors. “Our region has been hostage to a narrative that is the result of 60 years of propaganda, which paints Israel as the greatest threat.”
But now, he said, Arab leaders understood that “this view is bankrupt. For the first time in history there is agreement that Iran is the threat.”
This could “pave the road to peace” if they “start saying it publicly.”
“It can eliminate the theory that Israel is the obstacle to peace and show that we have mutual interests,” Netanyahu said.
Washington has been disappointed with the Arab leaders’ refusal to saying out loud what they privately confide.
“We need our friends to say that they stand with the Americans,” Abizaid asked of Emirate officials.
Even more vexing for American officials than diplomatic double-talk must have been the lies told by Syrian officials.
Barely a week after Syria’s president had promised to stop supplying Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia with weapons, a cable reports that Damascus stepped up its regular shipments of sophisticated missiles. Others reveal that Iran used ambulances and supposed shipments of medical supplies to equip Hezbollah with weapons.
In Iran, Ahmadinejad called the Wikileaks release a “Satanic conspiracy.”
“We have friendly relations with our neighbours,” said Ahmadinejad, who suggested that the publications were an orchestrated American campaign to sow dissent among Muslims.
(thestar.com)
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