Gates: Saudis want to fight Iran to the last American

[kpete]

Source: Foreign Policy

Gates: Saudis want to fight Iran to the last American
Posted By Marc Lynch Wednesday, December 1, 2010 - 12:12 PM Share

"The Saudis always want to fight Iranians to the last American" and it is "time for them to get in the game," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates tells the French Foreign Minister in a newly released cable from February 2010. This captures perfectly the point I made yesterday about how to read the reporting in these cables about the private hawkishness of Arab leaders. The question of Arabs and Iran was never an information problem -- it's an analysis problem. The antipathy which many of these leaders feel for Iran has long been well known. But so has their reluctance to do anything about it. And so have the internal divisions within Arab governments and Gulf ruling families, and their deep fears of either Iranian retaliation or popular upheaval, and their bottomless hunger for U.S. weapons systems, and their hopes that the U.S. would magically solve their problems for them, and the disconnect between the Palaces and the public.

Iran hawks have been gloating that the quotes from a few Arab leaders in the initial cable release vindicate their analysis and discredit skeptics of military action against Iran. It doesn't. Gates' comment about the Saudis needing to "get into the game" came almost two years after King Abdullah's now-famous "cut off the head of the snake" comment. And another cable from January 2008 shows Abdullah telling Sarkozy that Saudi Arabia "does not want to inflame the situation", recommends "continued international engagement" with Iran and "is not yet ready to take any action besides diplomacy". Maybe, just maybe, those private remarks weren't actually a very reliable guide to what the Saudis will really do in public?

The way the Iran hawks have been leaping at a few juicy quotes while ignoring all the well-known context only shows the ongoing poverty of their analysis. I would expect better from the serious analysts on the hawkish side, but, well, there you are.

Read more: http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/12/01/gates_saudis_want_to_fight_iran_to_the_last_american

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SUBJECT: SECRETARY OF DEFENSE GATES'S MEETING WITH FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER KOUCHNER, FEBRUARY 8, 2010
http://friday-lunch-club.blogspot.com/2010/12/wikileaks-15-gates-saudis-always-want.html

[leveymg]

1. Two birds, one stone - surprisingly economical for an Oil Sheikh

These people are not our friends.

[Yeahyeah]

2. Hope they don's send anyone to blow up our buildings so we'll start a war on whoever they want.

[Javaman]

3. "Shut up you! Or I'll have my big friend here punch you in the face!"

we are such dupes.

[zalinda]

4. Do you think that this would have come out,

if it hadn't been for Wiki-leaks?

zalinda

[aquart]

5. And we've achieved what with it?

You didn't know the Saudis consider us their mercenaries? Please.

The real good is discovering what a sane sensible realist Gates is.

[onehandle]

6. We are their puppets.

And kissing cousins.

[Seedersandleechers]

7. Wow so, the Saudis want us to fight their wars,

how convenient.

[elehhhhna]

8. I just gained abit of respect for Gates