With the release of new documents by WikiLeaks, the US was thrust into a worldwide diplomatic circus that might not hold much beyond the spectacle, writes Yassin Gaber Last Sunday, WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website, began publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables. Among other things, the cables thus far released revealed that Arab leaders -- King Abdullah of Jordan, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and King Hamad of Bahrain-- were privately pressing the US to carry out an air strike on Iran. The documents released included references to US diplomats using embarrassing descriptions of world leaders, and voicing growing concerns over Pakistan's instability and China's assessment of the situation in the two Koreas. The question, however, remains as to the true revelatory nature of these cables. After all, it is no surprise that Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other Arab states are suspicious of and averse to a militarily expanding Iran as can be surmised from recent arms deals in the oil rich Gulf region. Iran, certainly, will discover nothing new in these revelations -- even those highlighting Arab pressure on the US to attack. The greater part of the leaked cables pertain to Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Israel. Bearing in mind the close relationship between the US and Israel, it is surprising that Israel was not the subject of more revealing material. In fact, the Israelis emerged from Sunday relatively untouched. Binyamin Netanyahu's comments, few days before the release of the cables, asserted that Israel would not be the "centre of international attention", adding that Jerusalem had not been informed by Washington of any "specific sensitive materials to be disclosed". Those cables which did refer to Israel, originating from Tel Aviv, Moscow and Cairo among others, alluded to Russian camaraderie with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, comments made by Amos Gilad, a longstanding Israeli envoy in Cairo, regarding President Hosni Mubarak's tactics and age and Israeli diplomatic assertions that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a "fundamentalist" driven by his religious hatred of Israel. As Aluf Benn of the Israeli daily Haaretz asserts. "There is no significant discrepancy among the statements made by Defence Minister Ehud Barak, Mossad Director Meir Dagan and former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin in speeches, before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, in background talks with media commentators and the diplomatic conversations they held." Mossad chief Meir Dagan is quoted in 2005 making rather mundane predictions about the doomed nature of the EU's dialogue with Iran, the changing tide of the US-led war against Iraqi insurgents and the likely impact of jihadis returning home from the Iraq conflict, likening them to the "men who fought in Afghanistan during the 80s and 90s". As Haaretz stressed there are no embarrassing revelations so far regarding Israel. On the other hand, one can imagine the huge political fallout had the diplomatic cables presented evidence regarding the assassination of Lebanon premier Rafik Al-Hariri, details concerning the 2006 July war in Lebanon or insight into Israeli activity during the second Palestinian Intifada. Suffice to say, the possibilities are endless and excessive rumination is pointless. What is certain, however, is that the dispatches, in the words of Benn "did not succeed in penetrating the most sensitive channels of US-Israel relations." Israel though isn't the only regional player to have dodged a WikiLeaks bullet. Gulf states, close bedfellows of the US, escaped relatively unscathed -- barring the rather colourful remark made by Saudi King Abdullah, likening Iran to a serpent. The Saudi kingdom, however, wasn't the only political actor to be caught out making less than flattering statements about the Islamic Republic or its firebrand president who earned the unflattering comparison to Adolf Hitler. Egypt and the Palestinian Authority (PA) received minimal fire with the implication that Israel had discussed with them the December 2008 invasion of Gaza. The diplomatic cable, a June 2009 telegram by Defence Minister Ehud Barak, indicates that Israel attempted to coordinate "Operation Cast Lead" with Egypt and the PA -- nothing truly eye-opening about that. Considering the impact of the 90,000 secret US records which highlighted US military incidents in the Afghan war and the 400,000 similar documents on Iraq, the most recent release of confidential and classified US documents seems so far uninsightful. The new leaks lack the frightening and vivid pointedness of the numerous malicious and unlawful acts perpetrated by the US, Iraqi top officials and Iran, which was accused of aiding Al-Qaeda forces within Iraq. Sunday's batch of documents, when put into context, appear all too sensational but with very little consequence. At the end of the day what bearing does Gaddafi's relation with a voluptuous Ukrainian nurse have on world politics? Indeed the absence rather than the presence of politically pertinent documents is the more intriguing aspect of this week's leaks.
