³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

The Wikileaks cables reveal most graphically the hazards of two-faced diplomacy - saying one thing publicly and another in private.

For this reason, it is not the United States that is most damaged by them. Its diplomacy is largely transparent and therefore there are no stunning revelations about hidden American agendas.

It is evident that their diplomatic cable system has carried all sorts of wild or questionable assertions - but that, after all, is one of the main reasons why these messages were classified.

True also, the cables expose US double standards with regards spying on the United Nations in New York, while remaining signed up to treaties honouring its sanctity.

It is also evident that the issue of computer security has been highlighted and foreign leaders may think about expressing themselves quite so bluntly to the Americans in the future.

However, they will continue to talk to the Americans on all manner of subjects because of the power that the US wields and its ability to solve some of the problems these interlocutors face.

If you want Iran bombed, or rebels in your own country hit, who else are you going to call?

For this reason those left horribly exposed by these cables include King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who urged the US to bomb Iran, President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen, who got US planes to attack rebels in his country, while saying his own air force was doing it, and the Chinese officials who cheerfully told the South Koreans that they expect their wayward ally North Korea to implode and would like the South to take over.

These leaders and ministers, among many others exposed in the cable traffic, are guilty of adopting completely opposite positions in public and private.

And while it is true that the likes of the Saudi monarch or Yemeni president already face violent internal opposition, it is reasonable to ask whether the exposure of their hypocrisy has made their assassination more likely?

As for the US, knowing what these cables reveal, the interesting thing is how restrained they have been. Their principal allies in the Middle East - among them Saudi Arabia, Israel and Bahrain - have urge them repeatedly to bomb Iran and they have not done so.

Pakistan has declined to ensure the security of its nuclear materials, but the US has stuck to diplomacy rather than sending in Delta Force to grab them.

The age old question with leaks is "cui bono" or who benefits?

In this case one could argue it might be violent insurgents in Yemen or Afghanistan, or an Iranian president who seeks constantly to steal a march on his Sunni Arab neighbours.

Perhaps it is better to ask this time who is harmed. Certainly the US State Department will carry out a major review of who has access to its classified materials, but the damage mainly has been done to America's less salubrious allies.

For months Britain wooed Mullah Akhtar Mohammed Mansoor, who claimed to be a high ranking member of the Taliban leadership - but now it is being reported that he duped MI6.

Not only did he milk the intelligence service for hundreds of thousands of pounds, but Britain even facilitated a trip by Mullah Mansoor from Pakistan to Kabul by RAF Hercules for peace talks.

Now it is being alleged that the mullah, who has since disappeared, did not hold any real sway in the Taliban leadership, may indeed have been an impostor, and that MI6 was credulous in claiming that he might offer the hope of a breakthrough in reconciling Afghanistan's warring parties.

While some have spun this as a tale of British incompetence, I would argue the salient lessons are firstly that this saga's emergence speaks volumes about the political disunity at the heart of the coalition's strategy, and that many are over-estimating what might actually be achieved by "talking to the Taliban".

We know about this sorry tale because one senior figure in the Afghan president's office chose to tell the press, arguing that it showed the dangers of foreigners meddling in Afghan peacemaking, and because certain US officials seem to have confirmed the story.

There are therefore clear agendas that run along well understood lines - both of President Hamid Karzai's prickly nationalism and of the CIA's desire to keep its sister agencies in their place.

However, as Bill Harris a senior American official who had until recently been working in Kandahar pithily told the Times, "Something this stupid generally requires teamwork".

In other words, the British may have found this Afghan "intermediary", but other agencies and nationalities would have been involved in the decision to proceed with him and bring him to the presidential palace in Kabul.

The current blame game is a sign of how bad relations are between these major players.

As for oft heard mantra of "talking to the Taliban", this assumes that it is possible to find someone capable of holding a meaningful conversation.

There have after all been efforts to do so by both the Afghan authorities and the foreigners for many years.

The so-called Quetta Shura of Pakistan-based opposition leaders is supposed to reflect the will of Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader deposed by the Americans nine years ago.

It is the closest thing there is to a Taliban leadership - hence the target of MI6's efforts - but it is doubtful that it could influence most of those fighting the Afghan government and Nato, even if it wanted to.

There are other major groupings fighting after all - Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami (Islamic Party) and Jalaludin Haqqani's Network to name the largest two.

As Nato officials have told us though, 75% of those fighting their troops do so within five miles of their homes.

The Afghan resistance or opposition is in most places a grassroots phenomenon with little or no, higher co-ordination.

The Afghans fighting President Karzai tend to be just as tribal, factional, and local in outlook as those who supposedly support him.

If the word therefore came from Mullah Omar to cease fire, it is open to question how many armed men in Helmand or Kandahar provinces would actually take any notice of it.

The logic of those who seek to develop contacts with the Quetta Shura is that even a 20% reduction in resistance activity would help.

It would after all save many lives.

While the cost of wooing "Mullah Mansoor" may be extremely high in the context of the typical Afghan family's income, it is pretty trivial when compared to the cost of a few Predator strikes on compounds in Pakistan.

The Obama administration's attempt to reset relations with Russia - a principal foreign policy aim - is in danger of running aground because of difficulties in the US Senate ratifying a nuclear arms agreement.

"A lot is at stake", Anders Fogh Rasmussen the Secretary General of Nato, said in a Newsnight interview today at the Lisbon summit, adding that "early ratification is instrumental" in improving relations with Russia.

In April, the US and Russia concluded the START agreement, limiting their strategic nuclear arsenals.

In order for the treaty to come into effect, 67 Senators must vote for it. Democrat losses in the mid-term elections mean that 14 Republicans must back START and that now seems unlikely.

Jon Kyl, a Republican from Arizona says the Senate should not vote on the treaty this year. By January next year those newly elected members of his party will have taken their seats.

Russian analysts argue that President Dmitri Medvedev has taken considerable political risks in advancing relations with the US, and that if the treaty falters, this progress could be undone.

There has been much discussion on the margins of this summit about the diminishing prospects for the nuclear treaty.

Speaking to us today Mr Rasmussen said the Lisbon summit, "will express the strong desire to see an early ratification of the START treaty".

Some believe that Mr Kyl could be persuaded to withdraw his objections to an early vote if the Obama administration invested more money in the nuclear weapons research facilities that are major employers in Arizona.

Others argue that Mr Obama's opponents are bent on denying him the foreign policy success of improved relations with Russia.

Britain and France have tried a few times in the past decade to cooperate more fruitfully on defence.

At times it's seemed to be going well but at others the US gravitational pull - irresistibly attractive to the British and repellent to the likes of former French president Jacques Chirac - have brought it to grief.

My own experience with troops from the two nations in the Balkans or Afghanistan suggests that British and French get on very well together.

They are business-like, often share a sense of humour and the French in particular have made great efforts to overcome the language barrier. Watching soldiers from the two nations dealing with Serb fire on Mount Igman in 1995 or training Afghan soldiers in Camp Shorabak earlier this year, you certainly wonder why commentators or tabloids bother trotting out their John Bull nonsense about Waterloo or Trafalgar on a day like today.

The answer, of course, lies with politics - and it is why the 'can it work' questions are not yet redundant even if they are best framed with reference to the recent past rather than to the days of men in bicorne hats.

Some of the clauses in today's agreement carry forward cooperation in practical areas where it will obviously be mutually beneficial. The two nations are going to pool resources on their tactical air transport fleets, as both countries introduce the new A400 aircraft into service. It will be the RAF's Hercules replacement.

If it's done smartly, joint training and support of an airlift force can save money and survive any political chills. After all, decades have passed since Britain and France produced military aircraft like the Jaguar, Puma or Gazelle together.

However, the new agreement extends cooperation into some new areas: joint scientific programmes to maintain the two countries nuclear weapon stockpiles; running aircraft carrier operations jointly; or jointly fielding a large expeditionary military force.

The 'would a French carrier take our planes to war with Iraq?' question is a perfectly legitimate one, though the two nations hope it would not materialise 75% of the time.

Each country wants to have one carrier with its own aircraft - it's only during refits that one nation could become dependent upon the other.

The really unprecedented area touched upon today is that of nuclear weapons cooperation. UK/US nuclear cooperation was central to the birth of the special relationship - and many at Aldermaston would argue that it's still vital.

But the new British coalition government has shown unmistakeable signs (for example in reducing the planned warhead load for the Trident replacement submarine) that while it loves the political status of having the bomb, it thinks it can cut the bill.

Now the UK and France are seeking to cooperate on nuclear 'stewardship' issues, establishing joint scientific teams and sharing data. This involves sharing information about the construction, maintenance, and development of warheads (much of which in the UK's case has been learned alongside the Americans).

This is undoubtedly new territory and it touches on the intimate secrets of a nuclear weapons power. Since the actual use of such weapons is so unlikely, this is a political matter above all.

The real question in the coming years will be whether the Cameron and Sarkozy governments signed this treaty at an unusual and short lived moment of political harmony - with the British sore about being too close militarily to the Americans and the French under an unusually pro-Anglo Saxon president - or whether they managed to exploit a historical turning point in which rivalries became irrelevant.