US embassy cable - 05AMMAN6413

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 006413 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ARN, NEA/PA, NEA/AIA, INR/NESA, R/MR, 
I/GNEA, B/BXN, B/BRN, NEA/PPD, NEA/IPA FOR ALTERMAN 
USAID/ANE/MEA 
LONDON FOR GOLDRICH 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
 
TAGS: KMDR JO 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON MIDDLE EAST 
 
                        Summary 
 
-- Lead story in all papers today, August 10, 
highlights Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's 
speech before a Legislative Council session held in 
Gaza, during which he announced that elections for the 
Palestinian Legislative Council will take place next 
January and urged Palestinians to facilitate Israel's 
withdrawal from Gaza. 
 
                 Editorial Commentary 
 
-- "Iran takes advantage of the appropriate moment in 
history" 
 
Daily columnist Bater Wardam writes on the op-ed page 
of center-left, influential Arabic daily Al-Dustour 
(09/10):  "Iran's decision to go back to working on 
its nuclear program for military purposes is a well 
calculated and wise decision on all levels, and it 
comes at the best time possible for the Iranian 
leadership.  If there is ever a lesson to be learned 
from the American invasion of Iraq, it is that this 
invasion did not take place because Iraq had nuclear 
weapons, as the U.S. leadership lied about to the 
world, but because, very simply, Iraq did not have 
these weapons.  Had the nuclear weapons been active, 
effective, and usable, the Americans would not have 
dared to invade Iraq.  The same truth applies to North 
Korea.  America's demands of the Koreans to abandon 
their nuclear program are soft-spoken and do not 
include military threats.  This is because no one in 
the United States wants to bear the consequences of a 
military attack against a nuclear-equipped country 
that has no reservations about using those weapons in 
self-defense.  Iran's development of nuclear weapons, 
no matter how simple they would be, is the major 
guarantee and protection against expected American and 
Israelis strikes.  Iran seems to be better placed 
politically now to enable it to impose its conditions 
and options even on the United States.  There is 
economic prosperity in Iran due to the rise of the 
world oil prices and the Americans and the Europeans 
know that the revenue from this prosperity is going to 
go Iran's military machine..  The most important 
element, however, of Iran's political and economic 
influence lies in Iraq.  The equation in post- 
occupation Iraq indicates very clearly to the neo- 
conservatives' stupid policy, political 
shortsightedness and ideological blindness that have 
contributed to placing the decision-making process in 
Iraq under the Iranian influence..  The Americans also 
know that the Shiites' peacefulness in Iraq remains 
subject to Iran's signals.  And since the American 
forces are incapable of imposing sovereignty over the 
Sunni Triangle, they would have a hellish time should 
Iran, for any reason - one of which could be attempts 
to abort the Iranian nuclear program - open the doors 
wide to Jihad against the American forces in Iraq. 
Iran holds in its hand all the important cards at this 
stage..  Thus, the Iranian leadership's venture to 
complete its nuclear program seems to be well 
calculated since the United States has gotten itself 
stuck in the Iraqi quagmire and has no helping hand 
except that of the Iran's influence." 
 
-- "An extremist and spiteful racist" 
 
Daily columnist Jamil Nimri writes in independent 
Arabic daily Al-Ghad (08/10):  "Here we have a 
terrorist crime that reflects insane racist and 
religious hatred, which allows us to talk about the 
culture and environment that nurtures hatred and that 
produce such people [Referring to the weekend incident 
of the Israeli soldier that shot at a bus full of 
Arabs in Shafa Amr, killing four].  It is also an 
occasion to reflect on our situation: how can we 
explain a similar act by one of us against Jews?  How 
can we differentiate between these actions that are 
perpetrated by crazy racist maniacs and the killing of 
any number of Jewish civilians in a bus or restaurant, 
operations claimed officially and with pride by 
Palestinian factions?  The situation is different: 
they are occupiers and we are under occupation!  Is 
that sufficient to justify the similarity of the 
methods used?  Israel, since its creation, has been 
responsible for the killing, destruction, and 
expulsion of the Palestinian people.  But Israelis 
calculate their positions well, and every illegal act 
is subject to legal questioning, actual or cosmetic. 
Public standards of legality and legitimacy are ever- 
present in their calculus, in assessing every act and 
deciding whether to adopt it, evade it, or even 
condemn it. We, by contrast, only orate to ourselves. 
Moreover, leaving Israel aside, what about bombings of 
civilian crowds in other parts of the world?  How can 
their perpetrators be culturally and morally different 
from that spiteful racist Zionist? Perhaps one of the 
greatest tragedies of a cause that is most just, is 
that resistance is marred by a type of operations that 
is identical to the wave of terror that the world has 
lived for some time now."  HALE