Almost all of the discussion about the WikiLeaks documents seems to have
followed the lead of the New
York Times in emphasizing a few of the cables showing inflammatory
private anti-Iranian rants by Arab figures such as King Abdullah of Saudi
Arabia, King Hamed of Bahrain and Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu
Dhabi. A lot of Iran hawks are taking this as proof that the Arabs
really do want war with Iran. I can understand why they are leaping at the
framing, either to score points or to pave the way towards normalizing the idea
of a military strike. But that's only one small part of what the cables which
have been released show. So, in response
to Jeffrey Goldberg, I've got to say that I think that the cables show that
he got Israeli views mostly right, as I wrote at the time. But I also think
that they show that I got the Arab views mostly right too.
The cables thus far released show that most Arab leaders deeply fear
rising Iranian power and want the U.S. to solve their problems for them,
and that in private Jordanian, Egyptian and Gulf leaders expound at length on
Tehran's perfidy (as many of us have heard before, without the benefit of
leaked cables). They are indeed "suspicious
and hostile towards Iran." But they also fear retaliation by Iran and
exposure before their own public opinion, are internally divided about how to
respond, and insist on keeping their private views to themselves. And Arab
public opinion is sharply against war with Iran, despite years of anti-Iranian
propaganda in the Saudi-backed Arab media, and harshly critical of much of the
foreign policy of these regimes. As Mossad Director Meir Dagan bluntly,
and accurately, put it in one of the leaked cables, the Arab states
"all fear Iran, but want someone else to do the job for them."
There's plenty of evidence throughout the cables of the well-known
suspicions of Iran in Arab palaces -- with some of the wildest comments coming
from Egyptian officials. But there's also plenty of evidence of their
reluctance to get involved in military action. In February, for instance, the office
director of Kuwait's Foreign Ministry is quoted as saying that "Kuwaitis
are equally concerned about military pre-emption, which they believe would not
prove decisive and would lead Iran to lash out at US interests in the
Gulf." An Omani
military official says " he advocated a non-military solution as the
best option for the U.S." The Saudi
Foreign Ministry "strongly advised against taking military action to
neutralize Iran's program." In other words, "while Arab leaders would certainly like
Iranian influence checked, they generally strongly oppose military action which
could expose them to retaliation."
And there's even more examples in the cables of their desire to avoid taking
a public stance. Hosni Mubarak rails about Iranian support for terrorism in
private, but then
says that this is "well-known but I cannot say it publicly. It would
create a dangerous situation." An Israeli official tells
his American counterpart that "Emiratis are "not ready to do
publicly what they say in private." The Kuwaitis "will
welcome any proposals that can move Iran off its nuclear path… but will not
expose itself to Iranian ire by getting out front to push for these." Or, in
other words, "those who expect these regimes to take a leading, public
role in an attack on Iran are likely to be disappointed."
The point here is not to say that the cautious views matter and the hawkish
ones don't. Nor does it say that Arab leaders haven't been calling for tough
measures against Iran, since they have been doing just that for years. It's to
say that Arab leaders are divided and uncertain about how to deal with Iran,
and fearful of taking a strong position in public. In other words, it
would be a mistake to "make too much of the private remarks of
selected Arab regime figures, without considering whether those remarks reflect
an internal consensus within their regimes or whether they will be repeated in
public in a moment of political crisis." That's pretty much still where we
are today.
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