not about the Americans

The key fact to remember about the Wikileaks cable dump is this: it's not about the Americans. There's not been much in there that says something huge about US policy, which is why con-wissy types are so happy to deny it any significance. What there has been is something for everybody - a major purpose of diplomacy is to get political information, and leaking a ton of US diplomatic cables provides something for every host country to enjoy.

Here's Italy's delivery, for example. Not that anything about Berlusconi is shocking any more, but it's certainly interesting that he has a very personal special relationship with Russia. That throws an interesting light on the era of the "3Bs", Bush, Blair, and Berlusconi. Modern thinkers all, they also all thought they had special access to Russia.

Here's important confirmation that the Saudis are a major force pushing for military dictatorship in Pakistan, and probably in so far as they support Nawaz Sharif they are only using him as a pretext for military rule. This also tends to confirm that the Saudi influence sphere is a real factor in Afghanistan still.

Here's something for Belgium.

Here's something for us; Mervyn King was a key actor in insisting on cuts and a Con-Dem coalition, and specifically in terrorising Nick Clegg with "it's worse than we thought" stories.

Here's something else for us: there was a major ruck in the intelligence special relationship about the disclosure of imagery gathered by U2s operating from Akrotiri to the Lebanese, Israeli, and Turkish governments. It seems that the Brown government was trying to impose serious conditions on operations from Akrotiri.

Something for the Americans: Robert Gates is a major barrier to starting more wars.

This is interesting, although you've probably already read it.

And of course there's going to be a bank sometime in the near future.

Statistics efforts are coalescing here.

Leave your favourite leak in the comments.

Update: The Grauniad metadata file claims to contain the date, source, tags, and destination of each cable but the destinations are missing.