[A-List] Noam Chomsky on The Iranian Threat

[james daly]

Noam Chomsky on The Iranian Threat

Posted to CN by: "Walter Lippmann" walterlx at earthlink.net

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The Iranian Threat By Noam Chomsky June 28, 2010

The dire threat of Iran is widely recognized to be the most serious foreign 
policy crisis facing the Obama administration. Congress has just 
strengthened the sanctions against Iran, with even more severe penalties 
against foreign companies. The Obama administration has been rapidly 
expanding its offensive capacity in the African island of Diego Garcia, 
claimed by Britain, which had expelled the population so that the US could 
build the massive base it uses for attacking the Middle East and Central 
Asia. The Navy reports sending a submarine tender to the island to service 
nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines with Tomahawk missiles, which can 
carry nuclear warheads. Each submarine is reported to have the striking 
power of a typical carrier battle group. According to a US Navy cargo 
manifest obtained by the Sunday Herald (Glasgow), the substantial military 
equipment Obama has dispatched includes 387 bunker busters used for blasting 
hardened underground structures. Planning for these massive ordnance 
penetrators, the most powerful bombs in the arsenal short of nuclear 
weapons, was initiated in the Bush administration, but languished. On taking 
office, Obama immediately accelerated the plans, and they are to be deployed 
several years ahead of schedule, aiming specifically at Iran.

They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran, according to Dan 
Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at 
the University of London. US bombers and long range missiles are ready today 
to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours, he said. The firepower of 
US forces has quadrupled since 2003, accelerating under Obama.

The Arab press reports that an American fleet (with an Israeli vessel) 
passed through the Suez Canal on the way to the Persian Gulf, where its task 
is to implement the sanctions against Iran and supervise the ships going to 
and from Iran. British and Israeli media report that Saudi Arabia is 
providing a corridor for Israeli bombing of Iran (denied by Saudi Arabia). 
On his return from Afghanistan to reassure NATO allies that the US will stay 
the course after the replacement of General McChrystal by his superior, 
General Petraeus, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael 
Mullen visited Israel to meet Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi 
Ashkenazi and senior Israeli military staff along with intelligence and 
planning units, continuing the annual strategic dialogue between Israel and 
the U.S. in Tel Aviv. The meeting focused on the preparation by both Israel 
and the U.S. for the possibility of a nuclear capable Iran, according to 
Haaretz, which reports further that Mullen emphasized that I always try to 
see challenges from Israeli perspective. Mullen and Ashenazi are in regular 
contact on a secure line.

The increasing threats of military action against Iran are of course in 
violation of the UN Charter, and in specific violation of Security Council 
resolution 1887 of September 2009 which reaffirmed the call to all states to 
resolve disputes related to nuclear issues peacefully, in accordance with 
the Charter, which bans the use or threat of force.

Some respected analysts describe the Iranian threat in apocalyptic terms. 
Amitai Etzioni warns that "The U.S. will have to confront Iran or give up 
the Middle East",no less. If Iran's "nuclear program" proceeds, he asserts, 
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other states will ? move toward the new Iranian 
superpower; in less fevered rhetoric, a regional alliance might take shape 
independent of the US. In the US army journal Military Review, Etzioni urges 
a US attack that targets not only Iran? ¢â' '¹s nuclear facilities but also 
its non-nuclear military assets, including infrastructure, meaning, the 
civilian society. "This kind of military action is akin to sanctions - 
causing 'pain' in order to change behaviour, albeit by much more powerful 
means."

Such harrowing pronouncements aside, what exactly is the Iranian threat? An 
authoritative answer is provided in the April 2010 study of the 
International Institute of Strategic Studies, Military Balance 2010. The 
brutal clerical regime is doubtless a threat to its own people, though it 
does not rank particularly high in that respect in comparison to US allies 
in the region. But that is not what concerns the Institute. Rather, it is 
concerned with the threat Iran poses to the region and the world.

The study makes it clear that the Iranian threat is not military. Iran? 
military spending is relatively low compared to the rest of the region, and 
less than 2% that of the US. Iranian military doctrine is strictly 
defensive, designed to slow an invasion and force a diplomatic solution to 
hostilities. Iran has only a limited capability to project force beyond its 
borders. With regard to the nuclear option, Iran¹s nuclear program and its 
willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a 
central part of its deterrent strategy.

Though the Iranian threat is not military, that does not mean that it might 
be tolerable to Washington. Iranian deterrent capacity is an illegitimate 
exercise of sovereignty that interferes with US global designs. 
Specifically, it threatens US control of Middle East energy resources, a 
high priority of planners since World War II, which yields substantial 
control of the world, one influential figure advised (A. A. Berle).

But Iran's threat goes beyond deterrence. It is also seeking to expand its 
influence. As the Institute study formulates the threat, Iran is  'destabilizing' 
the region. US invasion and military occupation of Iran¹s neighbors is 'stabilization. 
Iran's efforts to extend its influence in neighboring countries is 'destabilization', 
hence plainly illegitimate. It should be noted that such revealing usage is 
routine. Thus the prominent foreign policy analyst James Chace, former 
editor the main establishment journal Foreign Affairs, was properly using 
the term 'stability' in its technical sense when he explained that in order 
to achieve 'stability' in Chile it was necessary to 'destabilize' the 
country (by overthrowing the elected Allende government and installing the 
Pinochet dictatorship).

Beyond these crimes, Iran is also supporting terrorism, the study continues: 
by backing Hezbollah and Hamas, the major political forces in Lebanon and in 
Palestine if elections matter. The Hezbollah-based coalition handily won the 
popular vote in Lebanon's latest (2008) election. Hamas won the 2006 
Palestinian election, compelling the US and Israel to institute the harsh 
and brutal siege of Gaza to punish the miscreants for voting the wrong way 
in a free election. These have been the only relatively free elections in 
the Arab world. It is normal for elite opinion to fear the threat of 
democracy and to act to deter it, but this is a rather striking case, 
particularly alongside of strong US support for the regional dictatorships, 
particularly striking with Obama's strong praise for the brutal Egyptian 
dictator Mubarak on the way to his famous address to the Muslim world in 
Cairo.

The terrorist acts attributed to Hamas and Hezbollah pale in comparison to 
US-Israeli terrorism in the same region, but they are worth a look 
nevertheless.

Lebanon has just celebrated its one national holiday, Liberation Day, 
commemorating Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon after 22 years, as a 
result of Hezbollah resistance described by Israeli authorities as Iranian 
aggression against Israel in Israeli-occupied Lebanon (Ephraim Sneh). That 
too is normal imperial usage. Thus President John F. Kennedy condemned the 
assault from the inside, and which is manipulated from the North. The 
assault by the South Vietnamese resistance against Kennedy's bombers, 
chemical warfare, driving peasants to virtual concentration camps, and other 
such benign measures was denounced as  'internal aggression' by Kennedy's UN 
Ambassador, liberal hero Adlai Stevenson. North Vietnamese support for their 
countrymen in the US-occupied South is aggression, intolerable interference 
with Washington's righteous mission. Kennedy advisors Arthur Schlesinger and 
Theodore Sorenson, considered doves, also praised Washington's intervention 
to reverse 'aggression' in South Vietnam by the indigenous resistance, as 
they knew, at least if they read US intelligence reports. In 1955 the US 
Joint Chiefs of Staff defined several types of 'aggression, 'including 
'Aggression other than armed, i.e., political warfare, or subversion.' For 
example, an internal uprising against a US-imposed police state, or 
elections that come out the wrong way. The usage is also common in 
scholarship and political commentary, and makes sense on the prevailing 
assumption that We Own the World.

Hamas resists Israel's military occupation and its illegal and violent 
actions in the occupied territories. It is accused of refusing to recognize 
Israel (political parties do not recognize states). In contrast, the US and 
Israel not only do not recognize Palestine, but have been acting for decades 
to ensure that it can never come into existence in any meaningful form; the 
governing party in Israel, in its 1999 campaign platform, bars the existence 
of any Palestinian state.

Hamas is charged with rocketing Israeli settlements on the border, criminal 
acts no doubt, though a fraction of Israel's violence in Gaza, let alone 
elsewhere. It is important to bear in mind, in this connection, that the US 
and Israel know exactly how to terminate the terror that they deplore with 
such passion. Israel officially concedes that there were no Hamas rockets as 
long as Israel partially observed a truce with Hamas in 2008. Israel 
rejected Hamas's offer to renew the truce, preferring to launch the 
murderous and destructive Operation Cast Lead against Gaza in December 2008, 
with full US backing, an exploit of murderous aggression without the 
slightest credible pretext on either legal or moral grounds.

The model for democracy in the Muslim world, despite serious flaws, is 
Turkey, which has relatively free elections, and has also been subject to 
harsh criticism in the US. The most extreme case was when the government 
followed the position of 95% of the population and refused to join in the 
invasion of Iraq, eliciting harsh condemnation from Washington for its 
failure to comprehend how a democratic government should behave: under our 
concept of democracy, the voice of the Master determines policy, not the 
near-unanimous voice of the population.

The Obama administration was once again incensed when Turkey joined with 
Brazil in arranging a deal with Iran to restrict its enrichment of uranium. 
Obama had praised the initiative in a letter to Brazil's president Lula da 
Silva, apparently on the assumption that it would fail and provide a 
propaganda weapon against Iran. When it succeeded, the US was furious, and 
quickly undermined it by ramming through a Security Council resolution with 
new sanctions against Iran that were so meaningless that China cheerfully 
joined at once' recognizing that at most the sanctions would impede Western 
interests in competing with China for Iran's resources. Once again, 
Washington acted forthrightly to ensure that others would not interfere with 
US control of the region.

Not surprisingly, Turkey (along with Brazil) voted against the US sanctions 
motion in the Security Council. The other regional member, Lebanon, 
abstained. These actions aroused further consternation in Washington. Philip 
Gordon, the Obama administration's top diplomat on European affairs, warned 
Turkey that its actions are not understood in the US and that it must  'demonstrate 
its commitment to partnership with the West,'AP reported, a rare 
admonishment of a crucial NATO ally.

The political class understands as well. Steven A. Cook, a scholar with the 
Council on Foreign Relations, observed that the critical question now is 
"How do we keep the Turks in their lane?" following orders like good 
democrats. A New York Times headline captured the general mood: 'Iran Deal 
Seen as Spot on Brazilian Leader's Legacy.' In brief, do what we say, or 
else.

There is no indication that other countries in the region favor US sanctions 
any more than Turkey does. On Iran's opposite border, for example, Pakistan 
and Iran, meeting in Turkey, recently signed an agreement for a new 
pipeline. Even more worrisome for the US is that the pipeline might extend 
to India. The 2008 US treaty with India supporting its nuclear programs  and 
indirectly its nuclear weapons programs -- was intended to stop India from 
joining the pipeline, according to Moeed Yusuf, a South Asia adviser to the 
United States Institute of Peace, expressing a common interpretation. India 
and Pakistan are two of the three nuclear powers that have refused to sign 
the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), the third being Israel. All have 
developed nuclear weapons with US support, and still do.

No sane person wants Iran to develop nuclear weapons; or anyone. One obvious 
way to mitigate or eliminate this threat is to establish a NFWZ in the 
Middle East. The issue arose (again) at the NPT conference at United Nations 
headquarters in early May 2010. Egypt, as chair of the 118 nations of the 
Non-Aligned Movement, proposed that the conference back a plan calling for 
the start of negotiations in 2011 on a Middle East NWFZ, as had been agreed 
by the West, including the US, at the 1995 review conference on the NPT.

Washington still formally agrees, but insists that Israel be exempted and 
has given no hint of allowing such provisions to apply to itself. The time 
is not yet ripe for creating the zone, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 
stated at the NPT conference, while Washington insisted that no proposal can 
be accepted that calls for Israel's nuclear program to be placed under the 
auspices of the IAEA or that calls on signers of the NPT, specifically 
Washington, to release information about Israeli nuclear facilities and 
activities, including information pertaining to previous nuclear transfers 
to Israel. Obama's technique of evasion is to adopt Israel's position that 
any such proposal must be conditional on a comprehensive peace settlement, 
which the US can delay indefinitely, as it has been doing for 35 years, with 
rare and temporary exceptions.

At the same time, Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy 
Agency, asked foreign ministers of its 151 member states to share views on 
how to implement a resolution demanding that Israel accede to the NPT and 
throw its nuclear facilities open to IAEA oversight, AP reported.

It is rarely noted that the US and UK have a special responsibility to work 
to establish a Middle East NWFZ. In attempting to provide a thin legal cover 
for their invasion of the Iraq in 2003, they appealed to Security Council 
Resolution 687 (1991), which called on Iraq to terminate its development of 
weapons of mass destruction. The US and UK claimed that they had not done 
so. We need not tarry on the excuse, but that Resolution commits its signers 
to move to establish a NWFZ in the Middle East.

Parenthetically, we may add that US insistence on maintaining nuclear 
facilities in Diego Garcia undermines the nuclear-free weapons zone (NFWZ) 
established by the African Union, just as Washington continues to block a 
Pacific NFWZ by excluding its Pacific dependencies.

Obama's rhetorical commitment to non-proliferation has received much praise, 
even a Nobel peace prize. One practical step in this direction is 
establishment of NFWZs. Another is withdrawing support for the nuclear 
programs of the three non-signers of the NPT. As often, rhetoric and actions 
are hardly aligned, in fact are in direct contradiction in this case, facts 
that pass with little attention.

Instead of taking practical steps towards reducing the truly dire threat of 
nuclear weapons proliferation, the US must take major steps towards 
reinforcing US control of the vital Middle East oil-producing regions, by 
violence if other means do not succeed. That is understandable and even 
reasonable, under prevailing imperial doctrine.

From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives

URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/the-iranian-threat-by-noam-chomsky

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WALTER LIPPMANN Vancouver, BC, Canada Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews

 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/

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