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New York Times, Around the World, Distress Over Iran.
His plea was shared by many of America's Arab allies, including the powerful King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who according to another cable repeatedly implored Washington to "cut off the head of the snake" while there was still time.
Fifteen paragraphs later:
To some extent, this Arab obsession with Iran was rooted in the uneasy sectarian division of the Muslim world, between the Shiites who rule Iran, and the Sunnis, who dominate most of the region. Those strains had been drawn tauter with the invasion of Iraq, which effectively transferred control of the government there from Sunni to Shiite leaders, many close to Iran.
So one paragraph of context out of 70 paragraphs saying America really needs to do something about Iran's nuclear program.
NPR, Leaks Reveal Arab World's Concerns About Iran. Note how the guest (Goldberg) mentions the Sunni-Shi'ite divide, but yet that is not pursued by the host (Siegel)?
Mr. GOLDBERG: Right. No. This is a very interesting moment because the issue has been framed by many people as a kind of a binary: Israel and Iran. One wants nuclear weapons; one wants to prevent the other one from getting nuclear weapons. But now we see really, fully, the masks are off. The Arab world, and really most moderate Arab regimes, live in the same sort of existential fear that Israel does of this Iranian program. And it reminds us that the Jewish-Arab - the Jewish-Arab dispute has been going on for 100 years, but the Shiite-Sunni split and the Persian-Arab split, they've been going on for 1,000. I mean, this is a deep, deep, deep issue that's just now really surfaced because of these leaks. SIEGEL: There's an irony here, which is the State Department is furious that their confidential cable, that is cables based on confidential conversations, have been made public. And yet we read in one of the cables the anxiety at State that Arab leaders won't say publicly what it is that they're saying privately about Iran. Mr. GOLDBERG: Right, well, that's not a new aspect of life in the Middle East. Everything is a double game, as you know. And this is the problem, and American policymakers know that this is a problem. The Arab leaders have been lobbying pretty insistently for the last couple years, or even before a couple of years, in the Bush administration, too, for America to take some sort of dramatic action against Iran. The Americans, and certainly the Israelis, see that and say, well, that's great, but when it comes time to vote to condemn this action in the U.N., where are you going to be? So the Arab countries would like America, or even Israel at this point, to deal with their mess. But there's no guarantee that the Arab states would do anything to help America.
The Arab world, and really most moderate Arab regimes, live in the same sort of existential fear that Israel does of this Iranian program. And it reminds us that the Jewish-Arab - the Jewish-Arab dispute has been going on for 100 years, but the Shiite-Sunni split and the Persian-Arab split, they've been going on for 1,000.
I mean, this is a deep, deep, deep issue that's just now really surfaced because of these leaks.
SIEGEL: There's an irony here, which is the State Department is furious that their confidential cable, that is cables based on confidential conversations, have been made public. And yet we read in one of the cables the anxiety at State that Arab leaders won't say publicly what it is that they're saying privately about Iran.
Mr. GOLDBERG: Right, well, that's not a new aspect of life in the Middle East. Everything is a double game, as you know. And this is the problem, and American policymakers know that this is a problem. The Arab leaders have been lobbying pretty insistently for the last couple years, or even before a couple of years, in the Bush administration, too, for America to take some sort of dramatic action against Iran.
The Americans, and certainly the Israelis, see that and say, well, that's great, but when it comes time to vote to condemn this action in the U.N., where are you going to be?
So the Arab countries would like America, or even Israel at this point, to deal with their mess. But there's no guarantee that the Arab states would do anything to help America.
Most Americans don't do context and the American media certain doesn't hit the public over the head with it.
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