A look behind the diplomatic bitching to find the real revelations amid the information overload
Saturday, 4 December 2010
Clockwise from top left: Ramzan Kadyrov, Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel, Kim Jong-il, Silvio Berlusconi and Nicolas Sarkozy
Everybody hates Iran – but they daren't say it
"It's fair to say there is no debate in the international community." So said Hillary Clinton in Bahrain yesterday. She was talking about Iran and the undesirability of it making an atomic bomb. It was quite a statement, given how hard she had to strive to create a consensus for sanctions on Iran earlier this year. She may want to thank Julian Assange for her new confidence.
We now know from all those leaked cables that while many of Iran's Arab neighbours are reluctant to say it out loud, they are as appalled by its actions as the US. "By whatever means necessary," was how Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa put it, telling a US diplomat that Iran must be stopped. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia exhorted the US to "cut off the head of the snake". And in case anyone doubts that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a master of the absurd, his reaction to the cables showing Arab disdain for his government: the leaks are in fact an American plot.
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