More Of A Small Hissing Sound Than A Bang

TPM's Megan Carpentier comes up with five things you need to know about Cablepalooza and really none of it is shocking if you've been paying any attention to various milblogs over the last couple of years. (Diplomats are socially agreed upon gossipy spies.  Also, the sun is hot.)  But three of the 5 items involve Iran.

First, heavily Shi'a Iran is not exactly liked by its Sunni neighbors and wanted Obama to deal with Iran's nuclear program using military force.

The Saudis, the Bahrainis and even Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were all similarly inclined, as has been widely reported -- El Pais reported that Mubarak's hatred for Iran was called "visceral" and the New York Times reported the existence of cables referring to the Saudi king's "frequent exhortations" to engage in military action against Iran. The Bahrainis, too, are said to be keen to see Iran's nuclear program halted, and King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa is said to have blamed problems in Iraq and Afghanistan on the Iranian government -- and both Kuwaiti and Yemeni officials reportedly told U.S. diplomats similar things about Iranian involvement in fomenting dissent in their own countries.

Secondly, Iran apparently got missiles from North Korea (who got them from Russia) and finally Iran used Red Crescent to move spies into Lebanon.  The thing is none of this is really new stuff here.  Shi'a and Sunni Muslims really, really don't like each other, and Iran is roughly 90% Shi'a.  Also, North Korea doesn't play fair and neither does Iran...well no kidding.

So far I'm not really impressed by this batch of leaks.