Sunday, November 28, 2010

"Ahmedinejad is Hitler" - Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi

On the other hand, the Wikileaks documents do reveal a fascinating group of Middle Eastern nations that agree on the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran: Israel (of course), the king of Bahrain (which is the base for the U.S. Fifth Fleet), king Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who implored the U.S. to "cut off the head of the snake," and military leaders from the United Arab Emirates (the defense chief, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi called Ahmedinejad "Hitler" in July 2009). See the short discussion by Jeffrey Goldberg - "The Saudis are Neocons."

I looked for the full text of the document that details the words of the Crown Prince about Ahmedinejad, but it doesn't appear that the Times has published it yet.

Update on November 29: a commenter provided the reference - it's in the July 23, 2009, cable from the Abu Dhabi embassy (http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/07/09ABUDHABI754.html), in the section entitled "Afghanistan - Neighbors Not Doing Enough." I missed seeing because of that headline. Here's the full text:
MbZ criticized other regional leaders for playing both sides and for "dating" Iran. MbZ compared the current situation to pre-WWII Europe saying, "Ahmedinejad is Hitler," and neighboring capitals believe erroneously that they can prevent Iranian retaliation by playing nice or signing agreements with Tehran. "They think the are backing the winning horse," MbZ explained, emphasizing that if they think that by appeasing Iran they will avoid Iranian retaliation "then they are seriously mistaken, Sir."

3 comments:

  1. You can keep looking in the NYT till the cows come home.

    You will find the Hitler remark here:
    http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/07/09ABUDHABI754.html

    One other thing. A lot of these cables are talks between governments. That doesn't mean that everything they say is true.

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  2. Thanks for the reference - I didn't catch that yesterday when I was reading the cables on the Wikileaks site.

    I'm not sure what you mean by "true." Do you mean they aren't accurate? (meaning that in this case Mohammed bin Zayed didn't make the Hitler remark, someone else did, or the words were put in his mouth inaccurately?) Or did you have something else in mind?

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