From the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi:

Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) said he would be surprised if Iran accepted the P5+1/IAEA proposal and warned that Iran was already acting like a nuclear power. Further, and more dangerously, Iran is establishing “emirates” across the Muslim world, including South Lebanon and Gaza, sleeper “emirates” in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, the mother of all “emirates” in Southern Iraq, and now Saada in Yemen. MbZ suggested that the U.S. is misreading the situation in Yemen and failing to recognize strong evidence of Iranian support.

In response to the US State Department briefing on the nuclear enrichment deal with Iran, MbZ responded:

The Crown Prince said he would be “very surprised” if a deal was possible, as Iran’s nuclear program is not an issue of internal conflict but rather one of national pride for the vast majority of Iranians. He stressed that Iran is not North Korea, because 1) it is looking to reestablish a Persian empire in the 21st century, 2) Iran has resources and lacks neighbors, including the UAE, who can pressure it, 3) the leadership has not changed (it is the same people who seized Embassy Tehran in 1979) , and 4) Iran believes itself to be a superpower.

This is among the milder arguments made by Arab diplomats. The King of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly urged, practically begged, the United States to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and leaders of many other Arab nations have as well.

What these documents reveal is that US policy vis-a-vis Iran is not supported by our allies in the region, any of them. The United States is going it alone in its belief that sanctions will work. Wasn’t this administration supposed to be one seeking to work with our allies? As far as Syria is concerned, again our Arab friends completely reject the narrative put forth that Syria may be swayed from association with Iran as did Asad himself in discussions with American diplomats.

This leak of documents does three things:

1. It greatly harms our ability as a nation to have candid conversations in secret with foreign leaders, something that does immeasurable harm to our ability to conduct diplomacy going forward and
2. It proves that the United States is not only becoming weaker diplomatically (no few of these cables involved the US attempting to pressure foreign governments only to fail to accomplish goals) but also
3. It demonstrates that US policy for some years regarding the Middle East has been conducted without allies in the region, across administrations, and continues to be conducted in that manner.

All of these points demonstrate what amounts to a crisis level problem that has been exacerbated in the past few years, both at the end of the Bush administration and during the Obama administration thus far. The US has been and continues to be going it alone in the Middle East, focusing way too much attention on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and way too little on Iran, radical Islam which seeks to expel Western influence from the region, and, as noted by at least several Arab leaders, North Korea, which is shipping arms into the region while aiding Iran and Syria in nuclear aspirations.

We can only hope that the recent leak of documents does not do massive harm to our ability to alter this situation by disrupting candid discussions about how Arab leaders really feel. Then again, if we are going to ignore their opinions offhand, it doesn’t really matter whether or not we hear them. It also does not matter if we find an insane amount of evidence (an earlier Wikileaks release) that Iran is actively supporting and supplying those who are fighting against the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, if we have no intention of ever threatening Iran over that evidence. The Wikileaks documents exposed that we have evidence of exactly that, a profound and significant presence of Iranian military intervention against the United States likely resulting in the deaths of scores of American troops and countless deaths among our allies. Our government has never mentioned it: not during this administration or during the previous one.

There are no few who believe that the Bush administration was war hungry. Yet, the only possible excuse for the failure to respond strongly to the evidence presented in countless places against Iran is an absolute desire to avoid confronting it. The Great LIE (the 2007 NIE concerning Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons) has done immeasurable harm to the region. It may well go down as the worst foreign policy decision made by a US administration regarding the region in decades. One can only believe that the US government at the time was so opposed to confronting Iran that it refused to see the truth as demonstrated by ample evidence, refused to listen to our allies in the region, and refused to consider the consequences of being wrong in its assessment. Meanwhile, that LIE was promulgated in direct contradiction to evidence provided by at least two of our allies with profound knowledge of Iran’s nuclear program, both Israel and Germany. The link to Israel’s perspective comes from December 10, 2007.

Meanwhile, in addition to exposing that America’s current policy regarding Iran is supported by not a single ally in the region, it also confirms my contentions concerning the absence of Palestinian leverage in the peace process regarding the Arab world. Israel is on the same side vis-a-vis Iran as most of the Arab world, the part that does not support Iran, Syria, Hizballah and Hamas. There is no linkage between support for strong action against Iran and any settlement of the peace process. In fact, Arab leaders are urging immediate action against Iran while only making scant or passing references to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at all. Having seen the diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, it is abundantly clear that any suggestion of linkage is an outright fiction.

The political benefits that Israel would receive as part of the package of understanding with the U.S. are not acceptable to the Palestinians because they ease some of the pressure on Israel and make it impossible for [the Palestinians] to apply their strategy of evading direct talks and of trying to force Israel into an arrangement through UN resolutions.

The US must discourage this kind of thought process. This cannot be an option afforded the Palestinians because if they were to choose it and the US were to back off, the result would be persecution of Israel on a scale never before witnessed and of Jews on a scale witnessed all too often throughout history. The US must stand up for Israel. So, if in fact, this really is the Palestinian strategy, and it appears to be, the Palestinians must be forced to abandon it.

For more on this, you may want to visit the We Are For Israel blog, where Rabbi Micky Boyden and myself have been writing about the various proposals and counter proposals going on.

There are those who believe the blockade to be illegal. Certain consequences follow if that is the case including the illegality of any efforts to maintain it. If you are among those people, no defense of Israel is going to be acceptable. I personally think that the blockade of Gaza is a security necessity for Israel, as does the United States, and as such it is indeed LEGAL and justifiable as a necessity in on ongoing military conflict. If you disagree, you disagree. I’ll accept that not everyone will agree with me.

Now if you rattle on about “the humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, know this. While Israel probably should increase what it allows into Gaza, if for no other reason than to lessen the necessity for the average Gazan to use the smuggling tunnels which fund Hamas and provide it significant control and influence, Gazans are no where near in the humanitarian crisis that daily faces the population of other nations and many are in no humanitarian crisis at all. Take a look at this video of the Hamas elite in Gaza suffering away posted AFTER Operation Cast Lead: