says US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks show Iran’s hard-line policies have left it without “a single ally” among neighboring countries.
Musavi put his finger on the difficult position for Iran’s ruling establishment following the memos, which cite some Arab leaders—including Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah—urging US military action to halt Iran’s nuclear program.
Officially, Iran claims the cables are a ploy by Washington to damage Iran’s image and possibly try to mobilize support for a military strike—positions that authorities have aggressively pressed in the state media while trying to silence other viewpoints. That interpretation allows Iran to avoid any nasty exchanges with the Arabs while at the same time keeping up its unrelenting rhetoric that portrays anything the United States does as conspiratorial.
Arab leaders across the Persian Gulf have made no attempts to backtrack from the statements in the cables. Some may actually be happy about the leaks. There has been no uproar about the comments within the Arab world, which was the initial fear among the leaders. At the same time, the Islamic Republic now clearly knows just how angry the Arabs are with Tehran, which is a benefit for the Arabs.
Before the leaks, most in the Iranian leadership appeared to understand that Arab leaders did not like or trust Iran, but assumed that the Arabs were awed by Iranian power and were fearful that any war between the United States and Iran would do the Arab ruling families more harm than good. Now Tehran knows that many Arab leaders would be delighted to see Iran bombed.
Musavi, in a statement posted on his website, said the Wikileaks releases “clearly show our vulnerable situation in the region.”
He blamed the hard-line stance of President Ahmadi-nejad for pushing Iran into greater international isolation.
“With such policies, we effectively don’t have a single ally among our neighbors,” said Musavi, pointing out just what Ahmadi-nejad wants no one to notice.
Foad Izadi, a Tehran professor who specializes in US studies, urged the government Saturday to reconsider its hasty reaction to the leaks and stop censoring the media from publishing or analyzing the documents.
“Our diplomacy apparatus must not act in haste and reject the documents while only one-thousandth of them have been revealed,” the Fars news agency quoted Izadi as saying, cautioning that there may be more embarrassments to come. More than 250,000 documents were given to Wikileaks and only about 2,500 have been published so far.