As more and more diplomatic cables become available, and as real analysts review them, it will become increasingly [...]]]>
As more and more diplomatic cables become available, and as real analysts review them, it will become increasingly apparent that many of the early reports on the perspectives of a handful of hawkish Arab leaders are without critical context.
Iran hawks have been gloating that the quotes from a few Arab leaders in the initial cable release vindicate their analysis and discredit skeptics of military action against Iran. It doesn’t. [U.S. Defense Secretary Robert] Gates’ comment about the Saudis needing to “get into the game” came almost two years after [Saudi] King Abdullah’s now-famous “cut off the head of the snake” comment. And another cable from January 2008 shows Abdullah telling [French President Nicolas] Sarkozy that Saudi Arabia “does not want to inflame the situation,” recommends “continued international engagement” with Iran and “is not yet ready to take any action besides diplomacy.” Maybe, just maybe, those private remarks weren’t actually a very reliable guide to what the Saudis will really do in public?
The way the Iran hawks have been leaping at a few juicy quotes while ignoring the entire well-known context only shows the ongoing poverty of their analysis. I would expect better from the serious analysts on the hawkish side, but, well, there you are.
In this post, Lynch expands upon points he made the day before on the media’s emphasis of the hawkish views of regional leaders:
]]>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.
Duss also takes note of another great point from Sadjadpour: [...]]]>
Duss also takes note of another great point from Sadjadpour: Just as neoconservative Iran hawks can’t have it both ways — boosting the Green movement and calling for bombing Iran — those Arab leaders who call for a U.S. attack on Iran probably don’t care a whit about democracy in Iran either. (And why should they? Their countries aren’t exactly democracies nor do they care what their own citizens/subjects think).
In fact, a democratic Iran would probably be bad news for these Gulf dictatorships.
Sadjadpour (emphasis by Duss):
The WikiLeaks revelations make clear that Arab officials believe Iran to be inherently dishonest and dangerous. The feeling is probably mutual. But they hide perhaps a more interesting issue, namely what type of Iranian government would actually best serve Gulf Arab interests.
President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad and the Islamic Republic may be loathed, but equally the advent of a more progressive, democratic Iran would enable Tehran to emerge from its largely self-inflicted isolation and begin to realise its enormous potential. In the zero-sum game of Middle Eastern politics, a democratic Iran would pose huge challenges to Persian Gulf sheikhdoms.
The irony that someone like Benjamin Wienthal, who’s at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, doesn’t recognize this in his National Review post says something about how the hawkish agenda drives neoconservatives — and not utopian notions of freedom and democracy.
Weinthal writes:
While Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, and Oman have long privately conveyed such warnings to diplomats, they never had the courage to flex their muscles in public.
Right! And that’s because these are dictatorships, and these Arab leaders are wildly out of step with their publics.
Neoconservatives, being neoconservatives, will gather allies in their campaign for war with Iran wherever they can find them.
]]>The notion that Iran occupies the sole spot of concern for autocratic Arab regimes was a quickly rising meme among hawkish commentators.
The notion that Iran occupies the sole spot of concern for autocratic Arab regimes was a quickly rising meme among hawkish commentators.
Here’s what we wrote on their reactions and why, perhaps, they shouldn’t be so quick to think that Arab leaders are not also focused on Israel:
Neo-conservatives and other war hawks, including those in power in Israel, have responded to those comments with barely concealed glee.
“[T]he most interesting thing to come from the latest WikiLeaks round is Arab world leaders’ being forced to come out of the diplomatic closet and declare Iran’s regime the number one enemy in the Middle East,” wrote Benjamin Weinthal, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, on the website of the National Review.
“In the Israeli media, defense analysts are concluding that the leaked comments vindicate Israel’s longstanding position on the need for swift and powerful action against Iran’s out-of-control regime,” Weinthal continued.
“The corollary to this is that Arab leaders very generally will not speak to Americans – though they will speak to others – about their fear of Israel,” Chas Freeman, a former diplomat who served as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told IPS. “So the fact that Israel doesn’t feature in these conversations says nothing other than the Arabs are tactfully obsequious.”
(I’ve added the links and italics, which the wire does not accomodate.)
]]>The media coverage of hostile remarks about Iran from some Gulf Arab leaders, among others, largely glazed over the autocratic [...]]]>
The media coverage of hostile remarks about Iran from some Gulf Arab leaders, among others, largely glazed over the autocratic character of the figures making the comments. But the gaps in attitudes between the dictatorial leadership of many of these Arab countries and their populations — citizens or subjects, however you want to call them — is vast and well-known.
Telhami and Zobgy’s Arab Public Opinion survey is a highly regarded poll, known for reflecting the views of the people in these countries who go unmentioned in diplomatic cables such as those released by WikiLeaks.
As of last August, here’s how those surveyed felt about Iranian nuclear weapons (hint: it’s nothing like their leaders):
Gulf Between Arab Leaders and Public
The U.S. diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks about Arab regimes’ hostility toward Iran — and the innumerable commentators on the subject – all overlook the gulf between autocratic Arab leaders and their citizens or subjects, who tend to have a different view of Iran and its nuclear programme.
However, a Brookings Institution and Zogby International 2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll, released in August, found that more than three- quarters of respondents in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Lebanon and Egypt thought Iran had the right to pursue its nuclear programme despite most feeling that it is aimed at developing weapons.
While a majority of respondents (55 percent) said they believe Tehran’s nuclear programme is aimed at developing weapons – a charge denied by Iran – nearly four out of five respondents (77 percent) said the country has the right to pursue the programme – a whopping increase of 24 percent since last year.
Support for the programme was strongest by far in Egypt and Morocco and weakest in the UAE, where a strong majority said Iran should be pressured to halt it.
Conversely, only 20 percent of respondents said they favoured applying international pressure on Iran to curb its nuclear programme. That was down from the 40 percent who took that position one year ago.
“Overall, there is very little support here for the notion that Arabs are secretly yearning for the U.S. to attack Iran,” wrote Marc Lynch, a Mideast expert at George Washington University, whose blog on foreignpolicy.com has a wide readership among elite sectors here. “Really little.”
Moreover, a solid majority (57 percent) of respondents agreed that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it would lead to a “more positive” outcome in the Middle East region. That was nearly twice the percentage of one year ago (29 percent). By contrast, only 21 percent said that it would lead to a “more negative outcome”, compared to a plurality of 46 percent who took that position in 2009.
(Much of this sidebar is drawn from Lobe’s August article on the poll. The link for Marc Lynch’s FP piece was added to this post.)
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