WikiLeaks: In Arab capitals, pleas that the U.S. bomb Iran

Iran, it seems, is not the Miss Congeniality of the Middle East, said Ian Black and Simon Tisdall in the London Guardian. WikiLeaks’ trove of confidential cables, many from U.S. embassies in the Middle East, “expose behind-the-scenes pressures in the scramble to contain the Islamic Republic, which the U.S., Arab states, and Israel suspect is close to acquiring nuclear weapons.” The U.S. and Israel have long insisted on the dangers of an Iranian bomb, but it’s striking to hear Arab leaders echo that view in private. In cables, diplomats reveal that Arab countries ruled by Sunni Muslims deeply distrust the expansionist Shiite regime in Iran, which already exerts broad influence in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, and clearly hopes to be the Persian Gulf’s dominant military and political power. Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah “repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear program,” encouraging the U.S. to “cut off the head of the snake.” Likewise, officials in Jordan, Bahrain, and Egypt described Iran as “evil” and an “existential threat” and pleaded with the U.S. to attack. How nice to have so much company, said Jeffrey Goldberg in TheAtlantic.com. Until now, Israel’s critics have insisted that only militant Zionists and “their neocon supporters in America seek a military attack on Iran’s nuclear program.” Looks like there are plenty of neocons in Amman, Cairo, and Riyadh.

The Arab world’s fear of the ayatollahs is hardly a surprise, said Yossi Melman in Israel’s Ha’aretz. The cables merely confirm what everyone already suspected: The entire region hopes “to see the United States bomb Iran.” That’s “the ghastliest irony,” said David Frum in CNN.com. If WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange, thought these disclosures would inhibit U.S. military action, he “massively failed at his own purpose. The leak makes military conflict between Iran and the United States more likely, not less,” because the world now sees that fear of a nuclear Iran “is not some artificial emotion whipped up by Israel.”

From Iran’s point of view, the U.S. looks pretty duplicitous, too, said Scott Peterson in The Christian Science Monitor. The cables reveal that while President Obama was publicly offering “an extended hand” to Tehran, he assumed that “engaging Iran was pointless,” and focused relentlessly on organizing Europe, Russia, and China to impose crippling sanctions. With nuclear talks between the West and Iran set to resume next week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad refused to address the substance of the cables, instead dismissing them as fabrications designed to sow discord among Islamic nations. “Such wickedness,” he said, will not undermine Iran’s relations with Muslim “friends and brothers.”

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It will be fascinating to see how the disclosures affect the Arab world, said Marc Lynch in ForeignPolicy.com. Even if Arab media smother the story, the news that their regimes are silently allied with Israel against Iran will likely percolate through social media. Officially, Arab leaders have always played to public sentiment by stressing hostility toward Israel, while privately expressing greater fears about Saddam Hussein, Ahmadinejad, and radical Palestinian leaders. Now that the truth is leaking out, “will Arab leaders pay any significant political price,” with public outrage forcing them to spout more anti-Israel, pro-Iran bluster? Or what if there is little public response to the revelations—and emboldened “Arab leaders finally stop deferring to Arab public opinion and start acting out on their private beliefs? Now those are interesting questions.”