The Wikileaks documents are reminiscent of what former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumself once said about “known unknowns”, since the content of many of the published documents does not constitute a surprise in itself, but rather the fact that they were made public does. In the course of justifying the failure to find evidence that Iraq possessed WMDs in 2002, Rumsfeld said, “there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know.” The documents, of which selected excerpts are being published by five European and American newspapers, belong to the realm of the ‘known unknown', coined by Rumsfeld. The main gist of the information found in the documents is known, and so are the broad titles of the stances expressed by the countries concerned in the course of the issues highlighted by the leaks. What is surprising, then, about the massive amount of documents which virtually reveal no major new facts or information? There are many surprises. First of all, how can a country like the United States, which spends hundreds of billions of dollars each year on its security and intelligence services, fail in protecting 250 thousand documents - including some that are classified? If these documents are to be added to the previous two waves of leaks which involved the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the total number would be something like one million documents. Thus, the sheer number of these leaked official documents, from the Department of Defense and the State Department, raises many questions regarding the manner in which the United States administers its documents, and subsequently, its secrets. This is a highly sensitive issue in international relations. The second surprise involves the degree of U.S. fixation on the issue of Iran's nuclear program, and everything involving Iran in general, from the health of its Supreme Leader, to the opinions of Arab leaders on Iran, and the activities of the Revolutionary Guard in Iraq and Lebanon. In fact, it is difficult to find a document on a meeting between U.S. and foreign diplomats or leaders that does not include mention of the Iranian issue. The obsession with Iran – so to speak– reveals the facts about the Middle East, as seen through the eyes of the United States. The correspondence among U.S. diplomats and envoys demonstrate that Washington believes that Iran is the only party that has a viable scheme that competes with the U.S. project. While this conclusion might please the supporters of Iranian influence in the Arab region, it also shows that the Arab world is completely absent, with its people, regimes and causes, from the U.S. radar. Through reverse engineering, one can understand U.S. strategy in the region to be one based on containment of Iran, which is seeking to expand into the Arab vacuum. The third surprise is that the world, with its major media outlets, seems to always pretend to be shocked about well-known facts. This gives the impression that influential segments of Western and international public opinions do not follow-up what is published on a daily basis through a number of reputable outlets, and wait instead for information to presented to them through the style of prying and gossiping. The success of nosiness and document-leaking in attracting readers, who would otherwise not be interested in the same information if it were published through conventional channels, thus shows that a new era of pop media is emerging, in which the celebrity and football star news coverage style merges with the new media, on the basis of mistrust in political institutions. Meanwhile, the image of the new type of journalists that the founder of Wikileaks conveys, is that of someone seeking money and fame, and before this and that, a journalist who relies on scandal, as a professional and ethical methodology. The cornerstone of this new type of journalism, it seems, is exposing and revealing, and mastering the presentation of the old in a new form.
