Enabling cultural suicide -- Lee Smith

Lee Smith, "Assisted Suicide." Tablet Magazine. Jan. 12, 2011.

A very powerful piece from Lee Smith about the complicity of the Western press in the "New Orientalism," so to speak.


***

Vultures and other creatures on the Zionist payroll

Pretty funny stuff.

"Mossad's Most Dastardly (Alleged) Plots," Joshua Keating. Foreign Policy. January 4, 2011.

See also "The Vulture Was a Spy," Marc Tracy. Tablet Magazine. January 3, 2011.

And the Colbert Report on the Zio-Shark

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Israel Shark Conspiracy
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog March to Keep Fear Alive

***

WikiLeaks and unintended consequences

[Updated and edited December 3, 2010]


If we needed further evidence that Julian Assange is a fool and an amateur in his understanding of international affairs (though admittedly technically clever), how about the apparent unintended consequences of this round of WikiLeaks? He claims to have caught the US government in some grand "gotcha" moment of lies, deceit, inhumanity, and generally bad behavior (See cablegate.wikileaks.org  -- when it's not being hacked down that is).  While the USG is embarrassed by the leaks and concerned they will hinder diplomacy going forward, they suggest that the US and other democratic governments are apple-tree cutting George Washingtons compared to their non-democratic counterparts.  The revelations are much more at the expense of the latter than the former. He claims to support government transparency and internet freedom as general principles, but he pushes these principles only in the easiest case--vis a vis a government where such leaks are possible and one does not incur risks to the lives of one's family members.  See his now defunct blog (via Michael Totten). Finally, for all Wikileaks' invocations of free speech and transparency, there is good reason to think American diplomacy will become more secretive and diplomats less frank as a result of the leaks.  Freedom as a form does not necessarily make for freedom as a result, as my man Montesquieu teaches (as articulated by Mansfield).  


Diplomats to start talking like Congressmen, i.e. less honesty in government
I don't think anyone can be sure what the consequences will be to frankness among American diplomats and their counterparts abroad--in large part because the diplomatic institutions of authoritarian countries seem inherently more opaque and more unpredictable.  Nonetheless, I think that the bleak assessments are plausible. Moreover,  it makes sense to emphasize the great risks to deter further leaking and throw cold water on the praising of leakers and leakees (thanks to Gabriel Schoenfeld for that term). I don't blame them for being angry and emphasizing the worst case scenario.


See also, Richard Haass, "How to Read WikiLeaks." Council on Foreign Relations. November 29, 2010.


SEE ALSO: Paul Schroeder, "Op-Ed: The Secret Lives of Nations," The New York Times. December 2, 2010.


The State Department, its own tools weakened, may increasingly have to defer to the tools of Defense and Treasury
James Rubin, "The Irony of Wikileaks: by undercutting diplomacy, the hard left is threatening its own worldview." The New Republic. December 1, 2010.




The US government is not telling any "big lies" about its foreign policy. It's non-democratic countries who are. Gotcha!...Saudi Arabia? China?
Also from James Rubin: 

The Wikileaks document dump, unlike the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s, shows that American private communication with foreign leaders by and large reflects the same sentiments offered by U.S. officials in public. There is no grand conspiracy, no grand hypocrisy to uncover and expose. The big hypocrisies here are not being perpetrated by Americans; they are being perpetrated by foreign governments, namely non-democratic ones.

Relatedly, see Jeffrey Goldberg on what WikiLeaks reveals about the nefarious cabal trying to influence US foreign policy in the Middle East....the Arab Lobby!


And the one country that has got to feel pretty good about the political implications of "Cablegate" is...Israel!  That's what you were trying to do, Assange, right? 
Marc Tracy, "For Bibi and Israel, Vindication." Tablet Magazine. November 29, 2010.

UPDATE: Maybe because it's all he's got to work with, or maybe because his worldview is not uniformly of the illiberal leftist persuasion, Assange is pointing to some of Netanyahu's comments as evidence of WikiLeaks' "public service."


...Which of course boosts Iran's and Turkey's insistence that Wikileaks is a Zionist conspiracy.

These cables make it pretty clear that Israel's geopolitical analysis is actually shared by most of its neighbors, though they don't have the stomach to say so publicly.  Few leaders actually believe the lies they often affirm in public, that Israel is the serious regional threat. In private its Iran Iran Iran. The leaks suggest that Israel is the only country telling the truth in public. Moreover, they suggest that robust American intervention in their region is what Arab leaders want. As Jeffrey Goldberg puts it, turns out Arab leaders are a bunch of neocons.


Whether or not the leaks will actually help address the global threat Iran represents is an entirely different question though. They may clarify understanding of the threat and forge unity of purpose in Western countries, but at the same time make it more difficult for Arab monarchies to participate in efforts to undermine the Iranian regime and its nuclear program. 

See also, Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler, "Unexpectedly, Israel Welcomes WikiLeaks Reveations."  Inter Press Service. December 1, 2010.


Also, the leaked cables detail corroboration of arguments Israel and its defenders often make, but too many brush aside and even mock as paranoid or fabricated:
-Turkish PM Erdogan and his regime hate Israel with a religious fervor.
-The Iranian government actively supports terrorist operations against Israel via Hezbollah and others, including by commandeering Red Crescent ambulances to smuggle weapons. 

See also, Raymond Bonner, "'By Whatever Means Necessary': Arab Leaders Want Iran Stopped." The Atlantic. November 29, 2010.




***

A few pieces on WikiLeaks

"Around the World, Distress Over Iran," David E. Sanger, James Glanz, and Jo Becker. New York Times. November 28, 2010.

(The many quotes from Arab officials condemning Ahmadinejad and his regime, and urging the U.S. to take action are not exactly news. Nonetheless, it does seem to lend credence to the geopolitical reading of the Middle East many Israelis and Americans have been forwarding. See especially Tzipi Livni, Jeffrey Goldberg, and Barry Rubin.)

Laura Rozen on WikiLeaks Reax

Aaron Miller on the two leaks he sees as actually shedding unfavorable light on the US government. 

A cute series of photos of Middle Eastern leaders and comments US diplomats made about them in the leaked cables. From Now Lebanon.


Anne Applebaum, "Watch Your Mouth." Slate. November 29, 2010.

I'm sure the Russian people will be shocked—shocked!—to discover that U.S. diplomats think the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, "plays Robin to Putin's Batman." Italians will be equally horrified to learn that their prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, is considered "feckless, vain, and ineffective as a modern European leader," just as the French will be stunned to hear President Nicolas Sarkozy called "thin-skinned and authoritarian."

...It seems that in the name of "free speech" another blow has been struck against frank speech. Yet more ammunition has been given to those who favor greater circumspection, greater political correctness, and greater hypocrisy. Don't expect better government from these revelations, expect deeper secrets...

The result: Very soon, only authoritarian leaders will be able to speak frankly with one another. A Russian official can keep a politically incorrect statement out of the newspapers. A Chinese general would never speak to a journalist anyway. Low-level officials in Iran don't leak sensitive information to WikiLeaks because the regime would kill them and torture their families. By contrast, the soldier who apparently leaked these diplomatic cables will probably live to a ripe old age.

In fact, the world's real secrets—the secrets of regimes where there is no free speech and tight control on all information—have yet to be revealed. This stuff is awkward and embarrassing, but it doesn't fundamentally change very much. How about a leak of Chinese diplomatic documents? Or Russian military cables? How about some stuff we don't actually know, like Iranian discussion of Iranian nuclear weapons, or North Korean plans for invasion of South Korea? If WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange is serious about his pursuit of "Internet openness"—and if his goal isn't, in fact, embarrassing the United States—that's where he'll look next. Somehow, I won't be surprised if he doesn't.

***

Did the Saudis consent to open airspace for Israel to reach Iran?

"Saudi Arabia denies Times report on airspace clearance," Yediot Aharanot @ ynetnews.com updates. June 12, 2010.


"Report: Israel can cross Saudi airspace," United Press International (UPI). June 12, 2010.

Is this plausible, or would the Saudis never do this, as some have suggested? But wouldn't they deny it even if they did?

Last summer, the Obama administration was asking the Saudi government to let Israel fly through its airspace as a "normalization gesture." They flatly rejected the idea. Saudi Arabia should know that Iran and other revisionist powers in the region represent a greater threat to regional stability and their regime than Israel--the country that, day in and day out, is publicly touted as the most vicious bully in the neighborhood.  Are they willing and able to act accordingly?


Tzipi Livni at least maintains that the Saudis have offered their tacit support for a number of Israeli military operations, if only by refraining from criticizing them. None of Syria's neighbors seem to care when Israel attacked its nuclear facilities in 2007. Some Arab analysts  have explained their grave concerns about the prospects of a nuclear Iran. Many observers argue that the dominant cleavage in the Middle East is now between Iran and its revolutionary Islamist clients on the one hand, and the largely status quo Arab states (excepting Syria). See Barry Rubin for example.

But beating the drums against the Zionist menace is just so good for business. Can any Muslim ruler facing serious challenges at home stay in power without it? To publicly collaborate with the Zionist enemy, no matter how much it may be in a country's national interest, seems politically impossible.

I have heard many security analysts and strategists suggest that the Gulf countries and others--rightly fear Iran more than Israel, and quietly support Israel's efforts to deter Iran. A December 2009 public opinion poll found that "a clear majority in 18 Arab countries now thinks Iran poses a greater threat to security in the Middle East than Israel," as Michael Totten interprets a YouGov's (hosts of Doha Debates) numbers.

I've often wondered if wishful thinking was clouding these assessment in some way though. My sense is that, if the Saudi government were really about playing a productive role, they would make some effort to stop financing Jew-hating clerics, mosques, Jew-hating daycare, etc. all around the world.

See subsequent stories that seem to be related:

"Saudis upgrade fighter jets," Arieh O'Sullivan. Jerusalem Post. June 13, 2010

"Ahmadinejad: Israel, U.S. trying to sabotage Iran's relations with Saudi Arabia," Haaretz. June 13, 2010.


-