Wikileaks and Arab politics

[ProSense]

Wikileaks and Arab politics

Posted By Marc Lynch

I expect to delve into the substance of the Wikileaks cables over the next few days -- I've been flagging noteworthy ones on Twitter all afternoon, and will keep doing so as I go along, and will blog at greater length about specific issues as they arise. But I wanted to just throw some quick thoughts out there now after reading through most of the first batch. My initial skepticism about the significance of this document leak, fueled by the lack of interesting revelations in the New York Times and Guardian reports, is changing as I see the first batch of cables posted on Wikileaks itself.

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But, as Issandr el-Amrani pointed out earlier today, the real impact may well be in the Arab world, where rulers go to great lengths to keep such things secret. The Arab media thus far is clearly struggling to figure out how to report them, something I'll be following over the next week. One of the points which I've made over and over again is that Arab leaders routinely say different things in private and in public, but that their public rhetoric is often a better guide to what they will actually do since that reflects their calculation of what they can get away with politically. Arab leaders urged the U.S. to go after Saddam privately for years, but wouldn't back it publicly for fear of the public reaction. It's the same thing with Iran over the last few years, or with their views of the Palestinian factions and Israel. But now those private conversations are being made public, undeniably and with names attached.

So here's the million dollar question: were their fears of expressing these views in public justified? Let's assume that their efforts to keep the stories out of the mainstream Arab media will be only partially successful -- and watch al-Jazeera here, since it would traditionally relish this kind of story but may fear revelations about the Qatari royal family. Extremely important questions follow. Will Arab leaders pay any significant political price for these positions, as they clearly feared? Or will it turn out that in this era of authoritarian retrenchment they really can get away with whatever diplomatic heresies they like even if it outrages public opinion? Will the publication of their private views lead them to become less forthcoming in their behavior in order to prove their bona fides -- i.e. less supportive of containing or attacking Iran, or less willing to deal with Israel? Or will a limited public response to revelations about their private positions lead them to become bolder in acting on their true feelings? Will this great transgression of the private/public divide in Arab politics create a moment of reckoning in which the Arab public finally asserts itself... or will it be one in which Arab leaders finally stop deferring to Arab public opinion and start acting out on their private beliefs?

Now those are interesting questions.

[ProSense]

1. No comment? n/t

[Catherina]

2. I'll bite. See this

In the Arab world, mostly silence about the Wikileaks. Al-Jazeera has become mute

The author raises some good points. I'm watching the developments with interest. It's not going to be pretty but it's going to be well-deserved. Any government that betrays its people deserves what it gets.

[ProSense]

13. Frankly, it may

very well be that the leaks have more to do with Middle East and Arab politics than anything else.

[LAGC]

3. What kind of comment are you looking for?

We already know where you stand on this Wikileaks business based on all your other threads on this topic already.

The way I see it, as far as Middle East policy is concerned, it could go either way.

I'm willing to give Wikileaks the benefit of the doubt. I still think its better for a free people to know whats really going on in the world than to be kept ignorantly in the dark.

It really just boils down to whether you think the nanny state "government knows best" and should be the ultimate decider of what its subjects see/hear/know about.

Seems to me, Wikileaks is promoting democracy by aiding an informed citizenry.

[Catherina]

4. +1 n/t

[ProSense]

6. Comments about the OP article

"We already know where you stand on this Wikileaks business based on all your other threads on this topic already."

I know where other people stand, but I'm not going into threads making comment like that.

The way I see it, as far as Middle East policy is concerned, it could go either way.

I'm willing to give Wikileaks the benefit of the doubt. I still think its better for a free people to know whats really going on in the world than to be kept ignorantly in the dark.

OK. Transparency is a good thing, but foreign policy is not being conducted in an environment in which all parties value Democracy and transparency. If world representatives fail to show or believe they can't speak freely, that is not condusive to diplomacy.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[northernlights]

8. +1

I'll add that up until now the OP's concern has been all about how this is an embarrassment for the US.

Maybe, just maybe, it's not all about US. Maybe it's about the bigger world out there.

Wikileaks doesn't go digging for info. It's brought to them. They verify it before they publish. They tried to work with the US government in the past, and we're blown off. And now the government is running around trying to bury them, and possibly even paying people to try to discredit them.

Too bad. It is what it is.

[ProSense]

11. "I'll add that up until now the OP's concern has been all about how this is an embarrassment...."

Is it possible to respond to the OP without a personal assessment about my opinion?

"Maybe, just maybe, it's not all about US. Maybe it's about the bigger world out there."

The OP is about the Arab world. Care to comment?

[bemildred]

5. Keep an eye on Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (and Yemen).

That's my comment.

[Pavulon]

9. And Iran. They are in the balance. Can they be anti Israel and anti Iran

at the same time? That is the problem they are trying to solve.

[Pavulon]

10. glitch in the matrix(dupe)

dupe

[riderinthestorm]

12. K & R.

Many governments are going to be embarrassed and exposed over the wikileaks docs.

That the Arab world isn't exempt from this is a good thing imho.