Quite a few writers have repeatedly argued that it was some sort of fantasy that Arab leaders were fearful enough of the Islamic Republic to favor airstrikes on nuclear facilities, and that Israel is the mover behind all hawkish opinion on this topic. They have been proven wrong. It doesn’t necessarily follow that bombing Iran is a good idea (I tend to suspect that covert sabotage is having the effect of delaying Iran’s progress on the nuclear front while averting the risks that airstrikes entail), but it does strengthen the straightforward case that a more powerful Iran is a serious threat. ~John Tabin

Tabin is responding to Michael Brendan Dougherty’s new item in Newsweek. Having severely criticized the grand Israel/Palestine-Iran linkage idea more than once, I have no problem agreeing that some Gulf state governments have been supportive of an attack on Iran. This wasn’t really much of a secret even before the leaks. Over a year ago, there were credible stories that the Saudis were willing to allow Israel to use its airspace for just such an attack. People arguing for a specific kind of linkage (i.e., “solve” Palestine to give Gulf states cover to support harsh measures against Iran) were already pretty clearly wrong about tying the issues together before any of these documents were made public. That doesn’t prove that they were wrong to argue that most of the support for attacking Iran was coming from the Israeli government and its hard-line supporters here in the U.S. Indeed, Tabin attributes claims to “quite a few writers” that some of those writers did not make, or at least did not make in such oversimplified terms.

Attacking Iran is not something some of these Arab governments are reluctant to support and have to be bribed into backing. On the other hand, there are other Gulf state allies that are genuinely worried about military conflict and fear the effects that war would have:

Although the UAE regards Iran as one of its most serious threats to national security, UAE officials are reluctant to take actions that could provoke their neighbor and compromise their extensive trading relationship.

And again:

Commercial ties between Dubai and Iran are significant (Dubai is Iran’s largest non-oil trading partner), and as a result the UAEG walks a fine line between maintaining and encouraging this trade and working to prevent suspected Iranian proliferation activities. Although the UAEG is worried about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, its short-term policy decisions regarding Iran center on not provoking its neighbor.

No doubt the UAE government is “nervous,” as the cable says. It is incredibly short-sighted and foolish for any governments in these countries to favor military action against Iran. In the event of a war with Iran, their countries (and any U.S. military facilities in those countries) would be prime targets for retaliation, military action would guarantee that Iran tries to develop nuclear weapons, and the attack would merely delay rather than prevent that outcome. It would be very costly, and it would ultimately be for nothing. It may be that the rulers of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are reckless enough to invite yet another destabilizing, futile war into their region, but I wouldn’t assume that the rulers of all of the Gulf states are so dim. Even if they are, there’s no reason to oblige their wishes.

It still seems true that advocates of attacking Iran have been exaggerating the extent of support for this among our Gulf state allies. The leaked cables confirm that they are not simply making this up out of thin air, which is something of an achievement given the lousy track record of some hawks when it comes to making claims about foreign affairs. None of this changes the reality that “pro-Israel” hawks and the Israeli government remain the dominant forces pushing a confrontational U.S. policy towards Iran. The report that some Arab governments agree with this reckless, disastrous course of action isn’t really news, and it doesn’t make military action against Iran any less harmful to the entire region.

What is odd is the new concern for the fears and concerns of Arab governments from people who have spent the better part of the last decade deliberately ignoring or in some cases actively opposing the interests of those governments. As Michael wrote:

Formerly considered an untrustworthy ally for its financial support of Wahhabi Islam, Saudi Arabia is enjoying a strange new respect.

Michael is not finding fault with democratists who no longer indulge their former ideological enthusiasm, but rather drawing attention to the absurd and unworkable nature of their earlier ideas. At one point, Michael writes:

This is hardly the persistent clarity of pushing a regional democratic revolution. It is diplomatic and foreign-policy realism.

In case Tabin missed it, this is a compliment. Michael doesn’t want “the persistent clarity of pushing a regional democratic revolution.” Part of what he is saying is that people who talked about an “end to evil” and ridding the world of tyranny were pursuing a destructive fantasy. He could have added that supporters of war with Iran are pursuing a new destructive fantasy, but this one is not even dressed up in the supposed idealism of democracy promotion. It is a policy dedicated to shoring up decrepit autocracies and preserving Israel’s regional dominance at the expense of U.S. interests and regional stability.