Monday, November 29, 2010

WikiLeaks: It's The Arab Lobby That's Been Clamoring For A Strike On Iran!

And just when you thought you had the world figured out, that Israel was basically the root of all evil in the Middle East and throughout the world, with a relentless lobbying organziation in America designed to force the United States to fight wars on their behalf, we find out...that exactly the opposite is true:

Leaders of oil-rich Arabian Peninsula monarchies who are publicly reluctant to criticize Iran have been beseeching the United States in private to attack the Islamic Republic and destroy its nuclear facilities, according to a series of classified diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks website.

The cables show that both Saudi King Abdullah and King Hamed ibn Isa Khalifa of Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. 5th Fleet, are among the Arab leaders who have lobbied the United States to strike Iran. According to one dispatch, a Saudi official reminded Americans that the king had repeatedly asked the U.S. to "cut off the head of the snake" before it was too late...

The documents illustrate how frightened the Arab world is of Iran's rising ambitions and its nuclear program — and how much Iran has become the center of attention in capitals around the world...


Although Persian Gulf leaders recognize that the options for dealing with Iran are limited, the dispatches indicate that they repeatedly have urged U.S. military action, fearing that allowing Iran to build a nuclear bomb would shift the balance of power decisively in the region.

Guess the Arabs figure if anyone in the region is to have nukes, it might as well be the Israelis, whose bizarre desire to limit casualties on the other side in their war to survive has protected most of the Middle East from annexation/extinction. And it looks as if Obama has blown another opportunity to use "smart diplomacy"; certainly with the amount of panic being reported in the Arab capitals some sort of deal could have been reached for Israel to do the Iranian job itself (with some US assistance) in return for certain concessions from the Arab leadership. No, instead, Obama has aligned himself with Hamas and Fatah, and has been scolding the Jews for building homes in their capital while the rest of the region anxiously looks over the horizon for the oncoming mushroom cloud....

One question does remain, however: Will we soon hear complaints of an "Arab lobby" dragging the US to war? Will CAIR be demonized the way AIPAC is? Will scholars such as Harvard's famed anti-Semties John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt now spend some of their time investigating the effects of Arab money on our foreign policy? Will Glen Greenwald, famous for accusing Americans Jews of
dual loyalty and treason, now level the same accusations against Arab citizens and lawmakers?

I'm not counting on it. The attacks on Israel will continue even without evidence, and most of the names/players above will be exposed as anti-Semites, rather than the anti-Zionists or "progressive thinkers" they claim to be. Because for the Left, it was always about the Jews, and much less about Israel, a nation so liberal it could oft put California to shame.

Obama won't change direction, either. 20 years of Sundays at an anti-Semetic church will do that; facts won't soon chase the words of his beloved Reverend Wright out of his ears anytime soon. He'll continue to squeeze Israel for concessions while the rest of the region realizes the Jews are their last hope for survival. Ironic, and fitting.

So too is this, from
Josh Block:

One of the most interesting overall themes is the restraint seen to typify the Israelis on Iran, in contrast to the typical Brzezinski, Scowcroft, Walt/Mearsheimer, Glenn Greenwald-Neo-progresive, netroots claims Israel is trying to prod us to fight and bomb Iran for them.

In the end, one of the most obvious take-aways from these WikiLeaks documents is devastating to the whole Left/Realist narrative about Israeli manipulation. The Israelis come off as cool customers, while the Arabs are the ones freaking out, justifiably many would argue, and literally demanding the U.S. bomb the Iranian nuclear program.

1 comment:

LibertyAtStake said...

History matters. Arabs with oil reserves have good reason to be suspicious of Persians with nukes.

http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
"Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive"