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PrintNovember 28, 2010
WikiLeaks: Intriguing disclosure of SecState Clinton's deep suspicions of UN, PA
One of the most intriguing and potentially devastating documents pried into the open by WikiLeak's massive disclosure of U.S. diplomatic cables concerns a directive by Secretary of State Clinton to U.S. intelligence to keep a close eye on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and to probe possible cooperative links between senior UN officials, UN missions, including the UN aid agency in Gaza, with terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
Clinton also asked U.S. intel agencies and diplomatic missions in the Middle East to probe the activities of the Palestinian Authority's secret service and military intelligence branches -- again prompted by suspicions of contacts between senior PA officials and senior Hamas operatives.
What makes this disclosure so tantalizing is that it paints a picture of a secretary of state who's far more skeptical of the real agendas of UN and Palestinian Authority leaders than her public pronouncements would have led one to believe.
Even more intriguing is a question raised by these disclosures, which are bound to put U.S. relations with the UN and the PA into a deep freeze at least for a while -- How does the Obama administration square Clinton's critical concerns and suspicions of the United Nations and of the PA leadership of Mahmoud Abbas with President Obama's oft-repeated fulsome trust in Abbas and the President's stated intent to use the UN as a prime vehicle to advance U.S. interests? The WikiLeak's dislcosures at a minimum must have enraged Obama's ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, who has been beating the drums for full U.S. participation in UN activities as a most worthwhile diplomatic tool.
Have Obama and his Secretary of State gone in different directions on international and Mideast diplomacy? And if so, who speaks for the United States?
