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David Frum asks a question (in a series of 140-character chunks):

What do we learn from Wikileaks re Iran?

1) Many more govts than you might think back a US military strike.

2) It’s now public knowledge that Iran and North Korea are exchanging deadly military technology.

3) Whole world can see that US has gone every extra mile to reach a negotiated outcome with Iran

4) Nevertheless Iran has pursued nuclear ambitions all-out.

Seems to me the combined effect of this information would be to make US military action more politically acceptable….Both inside US and outside.

Discuss.

Also for discussion: all governments have a legitimate need for a certain amount of secrecy. In particular, embassy officials need to be able to report candidly to their superiors about what’s going on in their sphere of responsibility. So what’s the most likely consequence of the WikiLeaks document dump? That governments around the world realize the error of their ways and become more open about their dealings with the rest of the world? Or that governments around the world — and in particular the United States government — clamp down hard on classified information and restrict its distribution even more than they have in the past?

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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