Episode 2 Wikileaks: The Secret Life of a Superpower

It was the scoop of the century.

WikiLeaks lifts the curtain on the secret communications

between Washington and the diplomats we have stationed all over the globe.

I'm not aware of any release of information in human history

comparable to the amount that was released via WikiLeaks.

These were cables that showed a superpower's secret thoughts.

A quarter of a million US diplomatic messages,

apparently stolen by one of their own soldiers,

turned into a global sensation by a whistle-blowing website

and its controversial founder Julian Assange.

I like crushing bastards.

We've dug deep into the cables to uncover stories America did not want you to hear -

the difference between what the US says in public and what it says in private.

Last time, we revealed from the cables how America treats its allies.

Now, we investigate how it confronts its nightmares.

Like how it struggles with Russian aggression...

Russia was laying down a marker.

"We're still the big dog in the neighbourhood and you have to work with us."

..China's rising economic power...

The level of the US debt to China

is a national security concern.

..its military might...

They have a targeted approach to identify our vulnerabilities.

..and the ultimate threat - an Iranian bomb.

I've had three American presidents saying Iran getting a weapon is unacceptable.

From our detailed examination of the secrets within the cables,

we ask if America, in an increasingly defiant world, faces losing its dominance.

It's not a superpower that can click its fingers

and expect the rest of the world to come to heel.

There has never been a country as powerful as the United States.

Tens of thousands of diplomats around the world

report to Washington on the business of the empire.

They communicate through secret cables

that were never meant to be seen by the world.

Because of the WikiLeaks release, we can all read their private thoughts.

Some of these cables were light-hearted,

reporting on scandalous rumours and the pursuit of America's ideals in the world.

Others were darker.

There are secret reports

of old enemies flexing their muscles.

And dire warnings of the dangers of Iran with a nuclear weapon.

The publication of confidential US diplomatic cables by the website WikiLeaks...

The founder, Julian Assange, is now on Interpol's Most Wanted list.

Russia has dismissed fresh WikiLeaks disclosures.

Once again, some of the leaks are embarrassing, but some could be dangerous.

The revelation of all of these documents

is extraordinarily embarrassing for the US.

This disclosure is not just an attack

of America's Foreign Policy interests,

it is an attack on the international community.

We've spent months analysing all quarter of a million leaked cables.

Taken together,

they offer a striking new analysis of the state of the superpower.

They show a nation struggling to achieve its goals,

facing defiance around the world,

and locked into confrontation with old enemies and with new ones.

Reading the cables, there is a fear that has never really gone away -

Russia.

The secret documents showing the rise to power of Vladimir Putin in control of a more hostile Kremlin

gives America sleepless nights.

Russia's aggression is played out in the former Soviet states at its border.

Bizarrely, one of the people recorded in the secret documents

pointing this out, is Prince Andrew.

One cable describes a lunch the Prince attended

in the tiny Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan.

But behind the bluster, Andrew had a serious message.

He referred to a new Great Game,

a struggle with Russia for control in the region.

One of Andrew's great concerns, as reported in the secret cables,

was Russia's increasing efforts to gain influence in Central Asia.

The Prince's warning that Russia was a growing threat

is reflected in many cables.

This cable quotes the Kazakh ambassador to Washington.

He says the Russians want the Americans out.

We tracked the ambassador down.

I'm not saying this is you, but this is what the Americans were telling themselves you said,

"Russia is now playing a new Great Game for all its worth

"and wants you totally out of Central Asia."

Er.. I...

Of course, this is a quote of me by someone else.

I do not take it as a truth.

He has interpreted maybe me -

-It seems very clear, though.

-No. What I was trying to say,

we have a very close and meaningful relationship with Russia,

but I doubt that I said

that Russia wants to kick you out, completely out of the region.

The cables reveal how diplomats work,

the often large gap that exists between public and private.

You will say, as part of your job, one thing to me in an interview,

but behind closed doors,

you might say something different to somebody from the US.

No, er... Well, er...

In normal life, what you say at home, er,

sometimes is a bit different

from what you say outside the home, right?

Finally, we can go beyond

the public statements and official platitudes

and hear what diplomats really say behind closed doors.

Particularly on the subject of Russia.

This is one of the great stories of the cables.

The Cold War may be over,

but America's confrontation with Russia has never really ended.

"..to transfer the S300 long-range air-defence system to Iran."

First, I'd like to congratulate President Putin

for being the only person that caught a fish today.

-We got one fish, but that was a...

-A team effort!

-The merit goes to the captain.

-That's very thoughtful of you!

In 2007, publically,

the US was trying to show how close the two countries were,

Bush and Putin acting like the best of friends.

I've come to the conclusion that when Russia and America speaks along the same lines,

it tends to have an effect.

But as they were cosying up for the cameras,

privately, US diplomats were gathering worrying rumours about the state of Russia.

"..the elections were not legitimate."

"The prosecutor considers Russia to be a virtual 'Mafia state'."

And the cables show these views were held at the highest levels.

Former Defence Secretary Robert Gates

regularly met the most senior Russian politicians and commanders.

We can now see his private thoughts.

"..Gates observed that Russian democracy has disappeared..."

-Do you stand by that?

-I wouldn't say that democracy has disappeared,

but I would say it's under a real challenge.

Dissidents and spies, politicians and journalists,

the Americans get their information from anyone who's prepared to talk.

We've tracked one of the key informants in Moscow.

Sergei Kanev is an investigative reporter

for one of Russia's independent newspapers.

Kanev helps us understand how the cables are assembled.

American diplomats pursue gossip and rumour,

gathered up by the armful.

He says he was called by the US Embassy

and asked to meet an "official" called Sonia.

She clearly took him seriously.

Kanev's views were wired back to Washington.

But Kanev says this was low-level intelligence gathering.

The woman he met appeared almost naive

and seemed to know little of Russian life.

"..and he speculated that the suitcases are full of money."

The cables show increasing concerns

about Putin's attitude to the West.

And America's sources don't hold back

in their descriptions of him.

The cables show the Americans particularly worried about Putin's attitude

to the countries around Russia.

Is there a sense that the Russians are trying to exert more influence

-in countries around their borders?

-No question about it.

-Should we be worried about that?

-We are worried about it

and it's why we try to counter it.

One of the ways they did this

was to encourage these border countries

to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO,

the military alliance of Western countries

formed to counterbalance Russia during the Cold War.

The cables report Putin's attitude to NATO.

For 50 years, NATO had been America's first line of defence against Russia.

But in recent years, it had expanded

and former Soviet countries were now part of the alliance

and to Russia's fury,

NATO was now at its border.

Putin being himself, you know, a very aggressive guy,

he viewed this as a very aggressive act.

He felt he had to kind of break out of this encirclement

that he saw NATO as having planned for him.

The Russians started to behave aggressively to those wanting to join NATO,

like the small ex-Soviet state of Georgia.

One cable reports Russia, in an exchange about the supply of gas,

demonstrating its power.

By 2008, American advisers were training Georgian troops,

and negotiations for their country to join NATO were at an advanced stage.

Hold the safety pin... SECOND SOLDIER TRANSLATES

At that moment, Georgia's tensions with Russia turned to violence.

The early cables reflect America's horror.

"..as continued Russian attacks are inflicting terror on the population."

At the start of the crisis,

the US was careful to condemn the violence on both sides.

The situation can be resolved peacefully.

We've been in contact with leaders in both Georgia and Russia, at all levels of government.

We have urged an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down by all troops.

But the secret cables show that even though Georgia made the first strike,

from the start, US diplomats were seeing the confrontation through Georgia's eyes.

Many felt the idea of Russian tanks rolling into a neighbouring country

had been banished with the end of the Cold War.

-What were the US saying?

-They were furious.

And they, er, believed

that this was a bad reversion to Cold War-style politics.

Many Russians believed there was more to this than a mere border dispute.

Sergey Karagonov was an adviser to the Kremlin.

In political terms, we were stopping their,

er, the logic of, er, indefinite NATO expansion.

It was a confrontation with NATO, er, which we won. That's it.

Russia was laying down a marker and saying,

"We're still the big dog in the neighbourhood."

There were very, very high tensions.

Famously, the Russian Foreign Minister

used some expletives to me in a phone call

at the time of the crisis.

So it was a very charged atmosphere.

And the spectre was of real... conflict,

not of a military kind,

but of a diplomatic, ongoing diplomatic conflict.

Those tensions between the West and Russia were plain to see.

But the cables allow us to go inside the room,

to see the extraordinary personal nature

of the confrontation between the West and Russia.

The Americans report that when the French President Nicolas Sarkozy

meets the Russians to talk about a peace plan for Georgia,

he ends up attacking the Russian Foreign Minister.

"..and at times became openly hostile."

Russia routed Georgia's army, and America was powerless to stop it.

The cables show how other countries around Russia reacted to the war.

For the first time, we can see the dramatic effect.

This cable reflects the fear

felt in the former Soviet state of Estonia.

Any country that was formerly part of the Soviet Union,

that was a former republic of the Soviet Union,

would've looked what happened to Georgia and thought "This is a real worry."

They're small countries next to a very big country,

and that always induces feelings of fear.

I think there's no question that the Georgia crisis exacerbated that.

Estonia was already a member of the NATO alliance.

But in 2008, after the war in Georgia,

that was no longer enough to make it feel safe.

What the Baltic states wanted was a plan.

They'd been in NATO for four years,

but, unbelievably, there was no strategy in place

to protect Estonia from attack.

Kurt Volker was the US ambassador to NATO.

I came at this from having worked on NATO issues for 20 years

and my instinctive reaction was, what they're asking for is normal.

It's a defensive alliance.

Our obligation, by treaty, is to defend each other if attacked

and the prudent and responsible thing to do is therefore make plans.

There was initially a murmur or wave

that said, "Oh, no, that would be provocative!"

And for the first time, the cables allow us to see into this secret crisis

at the heart of the Western Alliance.

Throughout 2009, attempts were made to come up with a plan.

But it's clear from the cables

in private, America's allies in Europe were nervous.

They didn't want to do or say anything

that might suggest confrontation with Russia.

"..that the Alliance and Russia are on course toward a new Cold War."

This is now a serious issue for the West.

If NATO can't agree on a plan to protect the nervous Baltic states from Russia,

then NATO itself is threatened.

So this is a kind of Cold War-style crisis

happening in the 21st century, and happening in secret,

the issue being how the West protects itself from Russian aggression.

These were very sensitive times.

At the end of 2009, NATO made a public approach to Russia

for help in Afghanistan.

In private, they were concluding plans, known as Eagle Guardian,

to protect the Baltic states from any Russian threat.

The plans made clear where NATO units were to be deployed in the event of an attack.

But it was decided to keep the plan secret,

and not just from the Russians.

We've found a cable that suggests the secrecy was essential to the unity of NATO itself.

An American nightmare was coming true.

Rumours of the Eagle Guardian plan had already been around before the cable release,

but through WikiLeaks, the Russians could now see the detail.

And some in Russia believed the deal, and the secrecy,

showed how weak NATO had become.

It showed us, er, simply that

the obvious fact that NATO is not a very unified alliance.

Nobody in Europe wants the return of the Cold War

like, er, some weird persons in White House

or, er, in the state department.

I dare to say to my military commanders

that if we wish, we could attack.

NATO would, er, collapse.

After the whole cable release,

there was fury in the Russian Government

at the way their country had been portrayed,

and with the people who had helped the Americans.

The cable leak affected relations at the highest levels.

What do you think it did to the relationship between the United States and Russia?

Without any question, individual relationships are harmed

and many ambassadors will tell you they were harmed,

that relationships they had spent a long time building,

you know, there is a real chill.

America's alliances weren't strong enough

to contain its old enemy, Russia.

But the cables show the US also has a difficult relationship

with the world's rising power - China.

The United States has to tread carefully when it deals with China.

No other nation comes as near to the United States economically

and China continues to develop its military machine.

The cables reveal a major military confrontation with China

that happened largely in secret.

It started in January 2007, when, without warning,

the Chinese Army shot down one of their own satellites.

They know how dependent we are on satellites

for intelligence communications and so on,

thus, their development of an anti-satellite capability.

They have a sophisticated and targeted approach

to identify our vulnerabilities.

Privately, the Americans registered their anger at the Chinese move,

but they were determined to keep public relations warm.

We don't want to see a situation where there is any militarisation of space.

I believe there is reason to be optimistic

about the US-China relationship.

Behind the scenes, things were very different.

The two powers were now locked into a confrontation about military power in space

and the tone of the cables was direct and angry.

And what's interesting, in contrast to the public pleasantries,

is the open aggression in the cables sent to the Chinese.

In one cable, sent from the then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,

the familiar, tactful language has gone.

"..with a wide range of options, from diplomatic to military."

Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill

was one of those taking the lead in America's diplomacy with the Chinese.

Condoleezza Rice, she sends a very robust cable.

It even raises the prospect of the use of force.

That's an amazing sense of aggression and tension.

She was obviously, angry with the Chinese, as we all were.

She really did let them have it and I think they deserved it.

This is the cables at their most revealing.

The language now being traded between the US and China is fierce.

The Chinese response to the American cables

is just as aggressive.

Certainly, we put down a marker with the Chinese

and made it very clear that we care about this.

The Chinese are not going to say, "Goodness, we're sorry,

"we'll never do it again."

Instead they came back with a very, uh,

you know, nasty statement of their own.

The next message from America was not diplomatic.

This is the USS Lake Erie,

operating in the Pacific in the spring of 2008.

The Americans are about to shoot down one of their own satellites.

In public, America said that the satellite was out of control.

But from the cables, we know the background

and the message to China wasn't subtle.

-You shot down one of your satellites?

-That's right.

-Was that to teach them a lesson?

-No.

It was to prevent the satellite from falling to earth.

But it clearly had the, uh,

the ancillary benefit

of demonstrating an important capability.

The more you dig into the cables,

the more the complexity of America's relationship with China is revealed.

Despite China being their closest rival,

the cables show the lengths America will go to to make the Chinese happy.

This became dramatically clear in 2008,

when China hosted the Olympic Games.

REPORTER: Someone has tried to grab the torch from Konnie Huq,

the Blue Peter presenter!

Someone, a man...

Protesters, angry at China's human rights record,

tried to disrupt the journey of the Olympic Torch around the globe.

This seemed to be the perfect moment for America to take a stand.

We believe in human rights and human dignity.

We believe in the human condition,

we believe in freedom and we're willing to take the lead.

I remember when the Torch Runners came to San Francisco,

we wanted to try and avoid some of the same incidents

that, if I remember correctly, occurred in Europe

where they had been prevented from getting to their destination.

On the day the torch was to be paraded through San Francisco,

the route was shortened and changed at the last moment.

It was one of the few places in the world

where the journey of the torch was not interrupted by protesters.

America betrayed one of its own ideals -

the right to protest - to appease the Chinese.

And a cable from the American Embassy in China

suggests the gamble paid off.

Some world leaders decided not to attend the games themselves

because of China's human rights record,

but America chose to go.

It was another US attempt to show support for China.

I'm going to the Olympics. I view it as a sporting event.

I'm not going to...use the Olympics

as an opportunity to express my opinions to the Chinese people in a public way,

because I do it all the time with the president.

It was an important statement by George W Bush -

"We value the relationship,

"we understand the importance of this issue to you."

"And so, when we have issues that we say are important to us,

"we hope you will also pay attention." That's the message.

But did the strategy work?

One of the issues America often raised

was the human rights of Chinese citizens.

We raised specific cases,

uh, in particular,

an individual, noted individual who's being detained,

who we would urge that they release.

We tried to do it more in private than in public,

just in terms of, uh, not antagonising, uh, the Chinese.

This is always a very delicate balance.

Now, thanks to the cables,

we can see who America was trying to help behind closed doors

and how they did it.

Individual cases were raised at the highest level.

We've tracked this couple down.

Hu Jia and his wife Zeng Jinyan are human rights campaigners

and have been in conflict with the authorities for six years.

This video, shot by the couple themselves,

shows the sort of intimidation they have faced over those years.

Zeng confronts the secret police, who follow her every move.

We could only reach her by video phone.

In desperation, Zeng appealed to the American Embassy for help.

What did you think they would go and do?

What did they say to you? What did they say they would do?

And now, thanks to the cables, we can see the Americans did raise the case.

But there are accusations that this effort was half-hearted.

Sophie Richardson is a human rights expert

who monitors China.

I think one of the things that the cables reveal

is a gap between what people knew, which was quite a bit,

and what they were doing about it, which was not nearly enough.

We can see America struggling to influence China in the way it would like.

One of the reasons for this is China's new economic strength,

a truth captured in one revelatory cable.

Hillary Clinton is talking about China

with her team from the State Department.

After the financial crisis of 2008,

America went cap-in-hand to China.

By effectively lending the US billions of dollars,

China saved the superpower's finances.

The Chinese became the America's largest foreign creditor.

It marked a seismic shift in the balance of power between the two nations.

The level of the US debt to China

is a national security concern.

It gives China leverage

that has significant policy implications.

We are... We understand that, intellectually,

we, as a government, continue to wrestle with "what do we do about that?"

In the months after the financial crisis,

America bent over backwards to emphasise the warmth in its relationship with China.

I appreciate greatly the Chinese Government's continuing confidence

in the United States treasuries.

But in private, American diplomats were watching China change,

developing a new arrogance in its diplomacy.

And in secret cables they thought we would never read,

they make increasingly undiplomatic comments.

And America realises its influence over China is diminishing.

Diplomats secretly acknowledge that China is no longer listening.

The cables report

that China is even turning the arguments about human rights

against America.

The Chinese do not shy away from, um, you know, using anger

and from speaking very, very plainly on these things.

Not all diplomatic engagements are decisive.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose

and then sometimes it just, it doesn't change.

In the end, the cables track a failing strategy.

A strong China chose to ignore a weakened America

and repression has worsened.

The reality is, that we are eight or nine months into...

..the worst crackdown we've seen in China in about 15 years.

And though the US raised her case at the highest levels,

little has changed for Zeng Jinyan.

So, what we see in that film, is that still going on?

So, there are people outside your house right now?

And, if anything, the WikiLeaks cable release

has only served to harden the conviction of some in China

that the Americans can't be trusted.

I think the cables, I think were...

..became grist for a very conservative

kind of hard-line element in China

whose entire modus operandi, modus vivendi is,

"You must avoid talking to foreigners.

"You must be very careful dealing with foreigners."

The story of China, told through the cables,

is a clear illustration of America's declining power.

What we've found is the United States struggling to deal with its new rival.

But there are other nations that America sees

as a far more direct threat.

And going through the cables,

we tracked one crisis as it grew ever deeper.

America's ultimate nightmare is Iran, armed with a nuclear weapon.

The start of 2012

has seen tensions rise between Iran and the West.

The world's nuclear watchdog

says it thinks Iran could be moving even closer to a nuclear weapon.

The cables show how America tries and fails

to stop its worst fear.

"It may be well-suited, however, for a military purpose."

It is possible that Iran could have this capability

and we need to take it seriously. Now.

But despite America's fears and the President's strong words,

the US has a weakness when it comes to Iran.

Since the siege of their embassy in 1979,

the US has never re-established diplomatic relations.

It's one of the few places on the planet

where there are no Americans sending cables.

The vital flow of gossip was cut off.

From my view, we never know enough about what's going on inside,

particularly inside the circles of power in Iran.

But by 2006,

fresh Iranian nuclear plans meant that had to change.

The US Government created a web of informers,

called the Iran Watchers.

We tracked down a state department official

who monitored their cables.

They started out in a handful of countries and European capitals in Istanbul and Dubai.

They would talk to Iranian businessmen,

former Iranian diplomats, former government officials,

academics, activists, students, intellectuals.

They were what they call Iran Watchers.

The Iran Watchers are an extraordinary group.

Not quite spies, but crucial in the gathering of intelligence.

CHANTING

The activities and identities of the Iran Watchers were supposed to be confidential.

Now, thanks to WikiLeaks, those secrets are out.

"An Iranian law professor, well known in Iran-Watcher circles,

"offered his views on his 'childhood friend', President Ahmadinejad."

As ever with the cables,

it's the detail that's extraordinary.

It's clear from the flow of information

that one of Washington's key sources was based in London.

He provided the Iran Watchers, based in the UK, with crucial information.

We've tracked him down.

They contact me, "Alireza, I am so and so,

"I'm an American diplomat working for this office."

I don't like to go to embassies or sit in a coffee shop outside,

then somebody say, "I saw Alireza talking to this American spy."

So they come to my office. We sit, we talk.

Now we can read the secret intelligence he was passing on in the cables.

I had a very reliable source in Iraq.

He gave me a lot of information about the Iranian agents in Iraq.

I met an American diplomat. We talked about it.

That information was sent to Washington in a cable.

They are very happy that at least somebody else, beside them,

is confirming that.

The cables dealt with a range of issues and, as ever,

any gossip or information was coveted.

In mid-2009, accusations of a rigged election in Iran

led to violent protests on the streets.

The Iran Watchers picked up rumours of what was going on within the regime.

Amongst them, reports of an astonishing account

of a confrontation between Iranian President Ahmadinejad

and the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

It's one of the most shocking revelations in the cables,

the sort of rumour the Americans were desperate for.

That was absolutely true.

The knowledge about that event

was only between...

..a bunch of people, only about seven, eight people.

And when it came out

everybody was shocked.

When you get a cable like that, that's a big deal.

If it ends up being true,

it demonstrates significant fissures within the Iranian Government

that could potentially be irreparable

and the consequences and the repercussions of that potentially endless.

Whether the rumour is true or not is impossible to test,

but it's clear the Iran Watchers have plugged an intelligence hole for the US.

Their significance is beyond doubt.

Since this process of the Iran Watchers has been institutionalised,

it's improved the understanding of Iran

within the US Government exponentially.

Their importance was also not lost on the regime in Tehran.

Worrying cables started to filter back to Washington.

It seemed the watchers and their sources were now targets.

"..and friends in Iran suffer harassment, intimidation,

"detention and worse."

And Ali Nourizadeh claims he was one of the sources targeted.

They tried to kill me.

They sent, uh, the agent,

a young man, who came and showed too much interest in me,

and he followed me for a while.

I went to United States because he was an American citizen,

so he just came back from Iran

and met me in United States.

Nourizadeh's claim is supported by a secret cable

which identifies the young man as an Iranian named Sadeqinia.

The FBI was already secretly tracking him.

When he was arrested, he was trying to hire a killer

and the American arrested him and he confessed.

So one day, people from the authority here,

they came to my office, they talked to me and they said,

"We are very concerned. Once again, you were a target."

And this time, by this man.

He wanted to poison me.

I was shocked.

I had to be vigilant and to be a bit more careful.

Sadeqinia confessed to being an Iranian agent.

Iran denies all allegations of an overseas assassination programme.

But such stories, together with Iran's continuing nuclear development,

revealed a new, more aggressive Iran.

It's clear there was a growing concern in the Middle East

at the prospect of Iran with a nuclear bomb.

Some countries urged the United States

to take military action.

How vociferously were you being urged to attack Iran?

Um, people were pretty, um,

some people were pretty aggressive in pushing it.

-Who was it? What were they saying?

-I'm not going to go there!

But now we know, thanks to the cables.

Many of the calls, perhaps not surprisingly,

came from Israeli politicians,

like cabinet minister Yuval Steinitz.

What we did, and we are still doing,

is trying to encourage the Western World

to handle this threat and to prevent it,

because it's extremely dangerous threat,

not just to Jews or to Israel or to the Middle East,

but to the rest of the Western democratic civilisation all together.

But the cables also contained a much bigger revelation...

It wasn't only Israel that was calling for action.

It was Iran's Arab neighbours, too,

places like Saudi Arabia.

In public, Saudi diplomats acted

as though they wanted warm relations with Iran.

Now, through the cables,

we can read what the Saudis were saying in private,

including their ambassador to the US, Adel al-Jubeir.

The difference is striking.

In public, the Americans didn't distance themselves from military action.

They made clear all options against Iran were on the table.

Our message to the leaders of Iran is also clear.

America will confront those who threaten our troops,

we will stand by our allies

and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf.

The enemy has made his intentions clear.

The US strategy was to talk tough.

But the cables show what they're were actually thinking.

For years, the Americans were quite clear - they didn't want another war.

"..wants to find an option - other than military confrontation."

So, what could America do?

It didn't want a fight, and Iran didn't seem keen to talk.

Faced with such limited options, they chose a different path -

to try and strangle the Iranian regime with sanctions.

But the cables show this policy failed.

There wasn't enough international support.

The documents show that in America's opinion,

countries like Germany said one thing in public, but another in private.

In the end, only limited sanctions were introduced

and these made little difference.

The US is still faced with its worst nightmare.

Let me give you a very dark scenario and I hope we never get there.

We're speeding along a highway, the Iranian Nuclear Programme Highway,

and a lot of off-ramps are starting to show up in our rear-view mirror,

you know, the off-ramp about sanctioning,

and we're speeding towards...

And I can make out there's a fork in the road

and I can even make out the signs,

and the fork in the road says "Do something or do nothing."

That's a horrible place to be.

I've had three American presidents, three successive presidents,

saying Iran getting a weapon is unacceptable.

As a native speaker, I think I know what that means.

The recent announcement from the UN's nuclear watchdog that Iran is enriching uranium

has moved the unacceptable much nearer the reality.

Years of effort have failed to stop Iran's desire to get a nuclear bomb,

an event the Americans believe would have grave consequences.

Iran will use the possession of nuclear weapons

to intimidate its neighbours.

I think it also is very likely

to spark a nuclear arms race in the region.

At least one or two other countries

probably feeling compelled to have nuclear weapons if Iran does...

I think it's incredibly destabilising,

just as a war would be.

If we've learned anything from Iraq and from Afghanistan,

it's how unpredictable war is once it's started.

WikiLeaks exposed the uncomfortable reality

of America's relations with Iran, China and Russia.

But a year on, the impact of the cables hasn't finished yet.

Bradley Manning, the man accused of leaking the cables,

is still held in US military custody.

He's due to go before a court martial,

but no longer faces the death penalty.

Julian Assange is appealing against his extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations.

He currently faces no charges in the US,

though a grand jury continues to consider his case.

And the website he founded has been subject to an unprecedented global financial blockade

by companies including MasterCard, Visa and PayPal.

Assange recently announced that the blockade

had cut off 95 percent of WikiLeaks' revenues

and that it was suspending publishing.

The website now carries this message...

The WikiLeaks cables allowed us a glimpse behind the door,

to see a superpower's secrets.

That door has now slammed shut.

Many Americans believe long-term,

the leaks will not cause significant damage

and the US remains the world leader.

The US is still the indispensible power.

Nothing in the international environment gets done in a constructive way

unless the United States plays a central role.

And so what I saw as Secretary of Defence is,

WikiLeaks not withstanding and everything else,

the vast majority of countries in the world

want a better, stronger relationship with the United States,

and where there is still...

..enormous respect for all kinds of our power,

political, economic and military.

But others believe the cables show America is a declining power.

People were a bit disturbed

how ineffective the United States were,

that they allowed these leaks.

That came on the background of other failures

of the US Government,

starting with Iraq, through Afghanistan,

to their internal debt crisis.

So that diminished

the weight and the respect towards the United States,

which is unfortunate.

I think the cables show the changing shape of power in the world.

American remains the one global superpower,

politically, economically, militarily,

but it's not a superpower that can click its fingers

and expect the rest of the world to come to heel.

Hidden in these secret documents are American dreams that died

and nightmares that came true.

They show the ambition, the scale and, at times, the honesty

of a superpower's secret life.

And they also may reveal the places and problems

that, in the end, might weaken US power for good.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd