What WikiLeaks tells us about Argentina and Palestine

By Ian Bremmer

Some of the information from those WikiLeaked U.S. diplomatic cables is interesting, or at least entertaining. But will the revelations actually have an impact on the conduct of international politics? Looking around the world, I’ve seen one policy so far that looks to be changed as a consequence of WikiLeaks.

On Dec. 6, Uruguay and Argentina joined Brazil in announcing they would formally recognize a Palestinian state, following the failure of Obama administration efforts to jumpstart talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Brazil’s decision is interesting only in that it provides more evidence that major emerging market countries are carving out their own approaches to the world’s big diplomatic conflicts, including in the Middle East, which is not a place where Latin American countries have many vital interests at stake. Remember when Brazil joined Turkey in direct engagement with Iran on its nuclear program? Or when outgoing President Lula invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit Brazil? That was a pretty clear statement that Brazil would not simply follow Washington’s lead on every issue.

Argentina is more of an eyebrow raiser. After all, for reasons historical and cultural, Argentina is traditionally more sympathetic toward Israel than any of its Latin American neighbors. So why this shot across Israel’s bow? Or was it the Obama administration’s bow?

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner can’t have been pleased to read that one of the cables exposed by WikiLeaks revealed that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had questioned her "mental state" and how she was "managing her nerves and anxiety." Making matters worse, the cables were written a year ago, but they went public one month after Kirchner lost her husband, former president Nestor Kirchner.

The leaks also revealed that a U.S. embassy official in Buenos Aires found her government to be "to be extremely thin-skinned and intolerant of perceived criticism." Maybe he had it right. Maybe the leaks explain, at least in part, why Argentina has decided to recognize a Palestinian state.

Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group and author of The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?