Hayder al-Khoei writes in a guest column for Informed Comment The “cablegate” leaks have gone a long way in embarrassing governments all over the world, not least the Arab states in the Gulf who seem a little too excited in encouraging the US to attack Iran, and the State Department will have to continue their […]
Top Ten Middle East Wikileaks Revelations so Far
1. The British government’s official inquiry into how it got involved in the Iraq War was deeply compromised by the government’s pledge to protect the Bush administration in the course of it. 2. Afghan President Hamid Karzai routinely pardons drug dealers and corrupt officials. 3. Karzai’s brother, Ahmad Wali, is called a corrupt drug dealer. […]
Gates: Saudis want to Fight Iran to the Last American
Wikileaks Quote of the Day: Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates to French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Paris, February 8, 2010: “… the Saudis always want to ‘fight the Iranians to the last American…’ “
Wikileaks: UK, US Planned to Pressure IAEA on Iran, Tie Tehran to Pyongyang
Scott Peterson’s fine piece at CSM on Iranian reactions to the Wikileaks cables is given further credence by yet another document that surfaced Tuesday. Peterson says that the Iranians took the documents to suggest that President Obama was all along plotting against them even while pursuing a diplomatic track in public, and that a breakthrough […]
Gaza as Israel’s Gimp
In Quentin Tarantino’s camp noir classic, Pulp Fiction, the Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames characters have an altercation and one chases the other into a pawn shop, the proprietor of which is a Maynard who has a friend Zed. They capture Marsellus (Rhames) and have their way with him as a man in a bondage […]
Arabs Urged US to Launch Attack on Iran, but Talk is Cheap: Cole in the Guardian
My essay on the implications of the wikileaks revelations about Sunni Arab states urging the US to launch a surgical strike on Iranian nuclear facilities is up at The Guardian. (Scroll down). Excerpt: ” The WikiLeaks revelation that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia repeatedly urged Washington to “cut off the head of the snake” and […]
Wikileaks on Israel, Iraq and the Iranian Specter
A 2007 cable from then US ambassador to Israel to Secretary of State Condi Rice shows a) that the Israeli leadership did not want the US to withdraw from Iraq and b) that Israeli politicians think that even if Iran never used a nuclear weapon, just for it to have one would doom Israel. Since […]
Wikileaks Gates: No Iranian Help to Taliban
What they tell us: In summer of 2009, it was revealed that Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair informed the US Congress that, according to Marcus Baram at HuffPo, “Iran is covertly supplying arms to Afghan insurgents while publicly posing as supportive of the Afghan government.” That includes the provision of small arms, mines, rocket-propelled […]
Blair, Hitchens Debate Religion
Here is the transcript of the debate between Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens on the motion, “Be it resolved, religion is a force for good in the world”. It is being said that after-event polling suggests that Mr. Hitchens demolished Mr. Blair with the audience attending. The form of the proposition was unfortunate, since it […]
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