The Arabist

The Arabist

By Issandr El Amrani and friends.

Leaks

Either John Sawers himself, or someone in his office, is getting rather fond of leaking confidential policy documents to the British press. Remember the British embassy memos on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood? Or last week's revelation, in another leak, that Sawers had told Tony Blair that Iraq was an "unbelievable mess"? Well now it's a strategy for dealing with the Iran problem at the UN that's been leaked to the Times. I wonder whether this is strategic leaking to help policy efforts, leaking by someone unhappy with policy (presumably someone who wants a more muscular policy on Iran and, separately, no recognition of the MB), or just an attempt to raise Sawers' profile and dissociate him from some of the more disastrous policies followed by Blair. Perhaps he has political ambitions...

Update: A thought just occurred to me. They wouldn't happen to have a memo about that Al Jazeera conversation they could leak, by any chance. I mean, while they're at it...