Hawks Claim Vindication over WikiLeaks Cables

Docs Detail Hawks' Hostility Toward Iran

In a bizarre example of self-justification, a number of anti-Iran hawks are citing the WikiLeaks cables are vindication for their hostility toward Iran, purely on the basis of the documents repeating their own hostility toward the nation.

Somehow, the fact that the documents rehashed the long-standing Israeli calls to attack Iran made Israeli officials feel vindicated in those calls, and the fact that the Saudi King was making similar calls (for largely a different reason) may be interesting, but provides no proof that the threats were any wiser.

In fact, other documents on the Saudi government’s position suggest that, far from actually being concerned about Iran as a prospective nuclear power, the Saudis were more concerned that the US occupation of Iraq had turned the nation over to Shi’ite control and given the Shi’ite Iranians newfound power in the region. The Saudi King’s calls for attack seem to have been a pretty cynical attempt to strengthen the Sunni position in the region.

And though a number of the documents center around Iran’s nuclear program, none of them ever touches on or even implies the existence of any evidence that the program is military in nature. Indeed, their answer to public questions about the allegation by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was to warn his aides that he’d better stop asking such uncomfortable questions.

In the end it seems far from vindicating the hawks, the cables just name them, and far from making a good case for a war against Iran, they reveal US hostility over the idea that such a war might not be universally supported.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.