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For someone who was watching Iraq and Afghanistan with some care over the previous years, the leaks might have provided interesting details but they would not have provided any startling distinction between the reality that was known and what was revealed.

Hundreds of thousands of troops have fought in Iraq, and the idea that criminal acts would be absent is absurd. What is most startling is not the presence of potentially criminal actions but their scarcity.

the case cited by WikiLeaks with much fanfare did not clearly show criminal actions on the part of American troops as much as it did the consequences of the insurgents violating the Geneva Conventions.

It was the insurgents who would be held responsible for criminal acts under the Geneva Conventions for posing as non-combatants, and there were extraordinarily few cases of potential war crimes that were contained in the leaks.

it required a profound lack of understanding of the geopolitics of the Persian Gulf to regard U.S. diplomatic cables on the subject as surprising.

I am not cherry-picking the Saudi or Italian memos. The consistent reality of the leaks is that they do not reveal anything new to the informed but do provide some amusement over certain comments, such as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitri Medvedev being called “Batman and Robin.”

I would argue that the leaks paint a flattering picture overall of the intellect of U.S. officials without revealing, for the most part, anything particularly embarrassing.

This raises the question of why diplomats can’t always simply state their minds rather than publicly mouth preposterous platitudes. It could be as simple as this: My son was a terrible pianist. He completely lacked talent. After his recitals at age 10, I would pretend to be enthralled. He knew he was awful and he knew I knew he was awful, but it was appropriate that I not admit what I knew. It is called politeness and sometimes affection. There is rarely affection among nations, but politeness calls for behaving differently when a person is in the company of certain other people than when that person is with colleagues talking about those people. This is the simplest of human rules. Not admitting what you know about others is the foundation of civilization. The same is true among diplomats and nations.

It would take someone who truly doesn’t understand how geopolitics really works to think that this would make a difference.

It may well be that the United States is hiding secrets that would reveal it to be monstrous. If so, it is not to be found in what has been released so far.

Nations have secrets for many reasons, from protecting a military or intelligence advantage to seeking some advantage in negotiations to, at times, hiding nefarious plans. But it is difficult to imagine a state — or a business or a church — acting without confidentiality.

Compartmentalization makes it hard to connect dots, but it also makes it harder to have a WikiLeaks release. The tension between intelligence and security is eternal, and there will never be a clear solution.

Assange cannot be guilty of treason, since he isn’t a U.S. citizen. But he could be guilty of espionage. His best defense will be that he can’t be guilty of espionage because the material that was stolen was so trivial.

Israel: The Tuesday meeting scheduled to take place in Washington between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will occur when American-Israeli relations are at one of the lowest points they have been in years, perhaps decades.

Russia: One country that has been delighted to read about the United States’ problems with China and Iran is Russia. It has seized the opportunity to operate in its near abroad and continue upon its mission of resurging into the former Soviet periphery.

Possibly seeking to exploit the growing rift between the United States and Israel are the Palestinians, Iranians and Hezbollah.

China: The recent tensions between the United States and China could possibly flare into a full-blown trade war in the coming months.

According to STRATFOR sources, Chavez is seeking help from the Russian Federal Security Services in training the Venezuelan security services.

Russia is in the process of extending Venezuela a flexible credit line.

As PLAN steps up its expansion and modernization process to facilitate Beijing’s territory claim, new contests within both the East China Sea and South China Sea are expected.

The drawdown of American forces in Iraq is the first step. As U.S. power declines in Iraq, Iranian power increases.

If it continues its withdrawal of forces from Iraq, Iraq will be on its way to becoming an Iranian satellite.

If Iraq becomes an Iranian ally or satellite, the Iraqi-Saudi and Iraqi-Kuwaiti frontier becomes, effectively, the frontier with Iran.

Assuming that the United States is not prepared to increase forces in Iraq dramatically, the Iranians now face a historic opportunity.

The first is to retain the powerful negotiating hand it has by playing the nuclear card. The second is to avoid an air campaign by the United States against Iran’s conventional capabilities.

The Iranians would not have to invade militarily to be able to reshape the region. It would be sufficient for there to be the potential for Iran to invade. It would shift the regime survival question away from Iran to Saudi Arabia.

accepting the shift in the regional balance in favor of Iran, reversing the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq or attempting to destroy Iran’s conventional forces while preventing the disruption of oil from the Persian Gulf.

There is, of course, the option of maintaining or intensifying sanctions.

The Europeans are hardly of one mind on any subject save one: They do not want to see a disruption of oil from the Persian Gulf.

Therefore, at the table next week will be the Americans, painfully aware that its campaigns look promising at the beginning but frequently fail; the Europeans and Chinese, wanting a low-risk solution to a long-term problem; and the Russians, wanting to appear helpful while hoping the United States steps in it again and ready to live with soaring energy prices. And there are the Iranians, wanting to avoid a conventional war but not wanting to forego the opportunity that it has looked for since before the Islamic Republic — domination of the Persian Gulf.

the United States was unprepared for the unilateral role Turkey and Brazil played at the time they played it.

The nuclear issue is easy simply because it is not time-sensitive right now. The future of Iraq is time-sensitive and uncertain.

The first is to facilitate the American withdrawal

The second is to limit the degree of control Iran has in Iraq

The third is to persuade Saudi Arabia that the degree of control ceded to Iranians will not threaten Saudi interests

Prague has always had a little more room to maneuver when it came to the BMD system. It is not positioned on the borders with a resurgent Russia nor would any of its buffer states such as Ukraine and Belarus.

Unlike Poland and Romania, which had missile components of the new BMD system, Prague was left with an early warning system, which really constituted nothing more than a room full of computers

Moscow will be able to use the SCO statement to show that it’s not just Russia that has problems with the U.S. plans for BMD in Europe but also for another very important security player in the world - China.