The banality of diplomacy

After a week of embarrassing and potentially dangerous diplomatic revelations — the first tiny percentage of what might become a landslide of WikiLeaks tattle-tales — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be sighing one tremendous sigh of relief.

The worst that can be said of Netanyahu — at least so far — is that his private comments to American diplomats virtually mirror his public comments to the Israeli people.

Few, if any, will be surprised to learn that the prime minister discussed swapping Israeli land for Palestinian land as part of an eventual peace deal, or that he doesn’t believe that Israel wants to permanently control the West Bank or Gaza.

“Usually there is a gap between what is said in public and what is said in private, but regarding Israel this gap is not large,” Netanyahu said this week, shortly after media outlets began publishing some of WikiLeaks’ estimated total of a quarter million State Department diplomatic cables.

“Regarding other countries, the gaps are extremely large.” Read related news coverage

That might qualify as the understatement of the year.

Imagine how German Chancellor Angela Merkel feels after being called “seldom creative” and nicknamed “Teflon” by State Department functionaries; or Russian President Dmitry Medvedev being called “pale” and “indecisive” compared to “alpha dog” Vladimir Putin; or Libyan strongman Muammar Qadaffi’s description as a paranoid acrophobiac with a fondness for a certain “voluptuous blonde” nurse; or French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s characterization as the “Naked Emperor.”

Governments across the world are scrambling to undo the diplomatic damage contained in the WikiLeaks data dump. The Saudis are sputtering after King Abdullah is revealed to have pushed for the US to attack Iran militarily — specifically to “cut off the head of the snake” — in stark contrast to his nation’s considerably more complacent public stance.

No less embarrassing, at least to some world leaders, is the exposure of political skills that are mediocre at best and incompetent at worst. It’s amazing to see how many presidents, premiers, kings and prime ministers have been dead wrong in their political and diplomatic prognostications.

It is not surprising to discover that diplomacy is a highly inexact science, but we didn’t realize how trivial, catty and vindictive it could be. Again, Israeli leaders seem largely above the pettiness seen in the American and other diplomats whose words were unveiled.

In truth, we take a bit of vaguely guilty pleasure in knowing that Israel — so often condemned these days to play the villain’s role in the court of world opinion — is emerging from the WikiLeaks imbroglio smelling like a rose, while such nations as Russia, Pakistan, Italy, Saudi Arabia, China and others are coming out with distinctly less pleasant fragrances about them.

Still, this story is about much more than a rare opportunity for pro-Israel Schadenfreude. The fact that such a staggering quantity of sensitive and potentially volatile diplomatic communications was leaked is an obvious and serious cause for concern.

While duplicity and hypocrisy are hardly new elements in international diplomacy — and while, in truth, most of the WikiLeaks revelations have so far been mostly confirmations of things we already knew or suspected — it doesn’t seem farfetched to anticipate subsequent releases containing material that could endanger lives or even lead to armed conflict.

As a newspaper, we’re all for open disclosure of governmental information, but realize that limitations must be placed on the release of certain material. There are times when governments must draw a veil over information that is so delicate, so divisive or so dangerous that its release is at odds with the public’s best interests.

We can’t expect WikiLeaks to censor itself. It is what it is. Whatever its objective or agenda (and these might well be called into question), WikiLeaks exists to release such embarrassing data.

We can expect, however — and in fact we must demand — that the US government, as the appointed guardian of the nation’s secrets, do a far better job in controlling the personal access and technological vulnerability of such material.

Fundamentally, of course, we cannot go back. Technology, like science itself, never reverses itself — it moves exclusively forward. We have to adapt to its new paradigms.

In the still developing world of digital communications, when entire libraries’ worth of information can be accessed, stolen and globally disseminated at cyber-speed, doing things the old-fashioned way of “secure diplomatic pouches” and analog cables is not only unacceptable but impossible.

Copyright © 2010 by the Intermountain Jewish News