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The folly of the Israeli and Arab approach to Iran

Is Wikileaks being manipulated by an intelligence service?

Alan Hart considers the possibility that the whistleblower website Wikileaks is being manipulated by an intelligence service to achieve specific objectives, namely to maximize perceptions that Iran is a serious threat in the Middle East and to discredit Muslim leaders who do not share the Israeli-Persian-Gulf-Arab-rulers’ enthusiasm for aggression against Iran.

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 The Wikileaks revelation that some Persian Gulf Arab leaders wanted (and still want?) America to attack Iran is confirmation of what some of us thought we knew – that Arab leaders are not merely impotent, but also as dangerously deluded as their Israeli counterparts.

Netanyahu was absolutely correct when he told a group of editors in Tel Aviv that “Israel has not been damaged at all by the Wikileaks publications”. A senior Israeli government official went further in his response to questions from the AFP new agency. He said: “We have come out looking good.” The leaked documents, he added, “confirm that the whole Middle East is terrified by the prospect of a nuclear Iran… The Arab countries are pushing the United States towards military action more forcefully than Israel.”

“…the assertion that ‘the whole Middle East is terrified by the prospect of a nuclear Iran’ is nonsense. The Arab regimes which more or less do the bidding of America-and-Zionism are terrified, but the same cannot be said of many of their repressed subjects.”

Actually, the assertion that “the whole Middle East is terrified by the prospect of a nuclear Iran” is nonsense. The Arab regimes which more or less do the bidding of America-and-Zionism are terrified, but the same cannot be said of many of their repressed subjects. As Noam Chomsky pointed out in a recent interview with Open Democracy’s Amy Goodman, a poll of Arab opinion indicates that 80 per cent regard Israel as the major threat in the region. Iran is seen as a threat by only 10 per cent. The poll also indicated that 57 per cent believe the region would be a more safe place if Iran had nuclear weapons. (As with Israel/Palestine, the regimes are effectively on one side – that of America-and-Israel, and the Arab masses are on the other side – that of the Palestinians).

The only good news confirmed by the latest Wikileaks disclosures is that President Barack Obama has so far resisted pressure from both Israel and the Arabs. (In fairness it should not be forgotten that President George “Dubya” Bush also said “No” to an attack on Iran when Vice-President Dick Cheney wanted him to authorize it.)

There is no mystery about why any US president who is not completely nuts will refuse to authorize an American attack on Iran (and do his best to stop Israel going it alone, no doubt with clearance through Saudi airspace). An American attack on Iran would have huge and possibly incalculable consequences for American interests. It would set in motion an escalating and possibly unending counteroffensive, including unbridled terrorism against American forces and facilities (civilian and business as well as military) around the world. And while that was happening, what is left of the global economy could be wrecked by sustained rises in the price of oil.

If those Arab leaders who pressed America to attack Iran discount the catastrophe scenario indicated above, they are very, very irresponsible. But there is more to their folly.

I don’t believe Iran’s ruling mullahs want nuclear weapons, but under pressure from the Revolutionary Guards (the real power in the country when push comes to shove?), they may have agreed in principle a while ago that Iran should have at least the possibility of developing a nuclear bomb for deterrence.

Prior to Wikileaks’ latest disclosures, the question of how far and how fast Iran should go to have the possibility of developing a nuclear bomb was still the subject of debate in the leadership in all of its manifestations. It may be that Wikileaks’ revelations will play into the hands of those in Tehran who are insisting that Iran must have a nuclear bomb for deterrence.

While I was absorbing what the Wikileaks disclosures confirmed about the attitudes of Arab leaders, I asked myself this question: What would I want if I were an Iranian, even one who hated the present regime?

My answer

“I have no doubt that Wikileaks is getting a lot of the stuff from sort of relatively unimportant sources… But it may be getting stuff at the same time from interested intelligence parties who want to manipulate the process and achieve certain very specific objectives.” Zbigniew_Brzezinski, former US National Security Adviser

I would want my government, whatever its composition, to crash ahead with developing a nuclear bomb for deterrence. I would tell myself that was the only way to keep Iran safe from Arab-backed Israeli threats. And when challenged in argument, I would say: “Do you think America and Britain would have invaded Iraq if Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons?”

My main point?

If Iran does become a nuclear-armed state, it will be because of Israeli threats and Arab leaders’ endorsement of them.

Now to a most controversial question, one at least as controversial as the various 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Is Wikileaks being manipulated by intelligence services – one or several?

There are a number of bloggers – some of them informed writers with credibility, some of them uninformed, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory nutters – who think the answer is “Yes”. More to the point is that no less a figure than Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s national security advisor, thinks the answer could be “Yes”. He said so in an interview with the US’s Public Broadcasting Service’s Judy Woodruff and also in a subsequent BBC World Service radio interview. To Judy Woodruff he said:

The real issue is, who is feeding Wikileaks? They're getting a lot of information which seems trivial, inconsequential, but some of it seems surprisingly pointed… The very pointed references to Arab leaders could have as their objective undermining their political credibility at home, because this kind of public identification of their hostility towards Iran could actually play against them at home… It's a question of whether Wikileaks are being manipulated by interested parties that want to either complicate our relationship with other governments or want to undermine some governments… I have no doubt that Wikileaks is getting a lot of the stuff from sort of relatively unimportant sources, like the one that perhaps is identified on the air. But it may be getting stuff at the same time from interested intelligence parties who want to manipulate the process and achieve certain very specific objectives.

Another way to look at the matter is to ask this question. If a visitor from outer space studied the first two days of Wikileaks revelations, what preliminary conclusion would he (or she) come to?

I think it’s entirely possible that he (or she) would say: “The main message is clear. Iran is the biggest single threat to the peace of the region and the world and not only because the Israelis say so. Arab leaders agree with them. The secondary message is that apart from the Arab leaders who say they share Israel’s assessment, other Muslim leaders, those in Turkey and Pakistan especially, are not to be trusted.”

“…the question of whether or not Wikileaks is being manipulated, and if so by whom, is worthy of deep and serious investigation.”

And here’s another question. Which party benefited most from the first two days of Wikileaks revelations? The obvious answer is the Zionist state of Israel.

I must also confess that I have a nagging worry (small but real) about the possibility that Julian Paul Assange, Wikileaks’ founder, has been compromised in some way and is open to manipulation. My concern on this account is the fact that he is a 9/11 conspiracy denier. He is firmly on the record as saying: “I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.”

As I have said on public platforms in America and written in a number of articles for the world wide web, I think there is irrefutable evidence that the Twin Towers were not brought down by the planes and their burning fuel.

My own conclusion at the present time is that I don’t have a conclusion; but I think the question of whether or not Wikileaks is being manipulated, and if so by whom, is worthy of deep and serious investigation.

Source: Redress Information & Analysis (http://www.redress.cc). Material published on Redress may be republished with full attribution to Redress Information & Analysis (http://www.redress.cc)

 

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