Page 2 of
2 AMERICAN DECLINE IN
PERSPECTIVE, Part 2 The imperial
way By Noam Chomsky
The
next step was for the Chosen People to return to
the land promised to them by the Lord.
Articulating a common elite view, president
Franklin Roosevelt's secretary of the interior,
Harold Ickes, described Jewish colonization of
Palestine as an achievement "without comparison in
the history of the human race". Such attitudes
find their place easily within the Providentialist
doctrines that have been a strong element in
popular and elite culture since the country's
origins: the belief that God has a plan for the
world and the US is carrying it forward under
divine guidance, as articulated by a long list of
leading figures.
Moreover, evangelical
Christianity is a major popular force in the US.
Further toward the extremes, End Times evangelical
Christianity also has enormous popular outreach,
invigorated by
the establishment of
Israel in 1948, revitalized even more by the
conquest of the rest of Palestine in 1967 - all
signs that End Times and the Second Coming are
approaching.
These forces have become
particularly significant since the Reagan years,
as the Republicans have abandoned the pretense of
being a political party in the traditional sense,
while devoting themselves in virtual lockstep
uniformity to servicing a tiny percentage of the
super-rich and the corporate sector. However, the
small constituency that is primarily served by the
reconstructed party cannot provide votes, so they
have to turn elsewhere.
The only choice is
to mobilize tendencies that have always been
present, though rarely as an organized political
force: primarily nativists trembling in fear and
hatred, and religious elements that are extremists
by international standards but not in the US. One
outcome is reverence for alleged Biblical
prophecies, hence not only support for Israel and
its conquests and expansion, but passionate love
for Israel, another core part of the catechism
that must be intoned by Republican candidates -
with Democrats, again, not too far behind.
These factors aside, it should not be
forgotten that the "Anglosphere" - Britain and its
offshoots - consists of settler-colonial
societies, which rose on the ashes of indigenous
populations, suppressed or virtually exterminated.
Past practices must have been basically correct,
in the US case even ordained by Divine Providence.
Accordingly there is often an intuitive sympathy
for the children of Israel when they follow a
similar course. But primarily, geostrategic and
economic interests prevail, and policy is not
graven in stone.
The Iranian "threat"
and the nuclear issue Let us turn finally
to the third of the leading issues addressed in
the establishment journals cited earlier, the
"threat of Iran". Among elites and the political
class, this is generally taken to be the primary
threat to world order - though not among
populations. In Europe, polls show that Israel is
regarded as the leading threat to peace. In the
MENA countries, that status is shared with the US,
to the extent that in Egypt, on the eve of the
Tahrir Square uprising, 80% felt that the region
would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons.
The same polls found that only 10% regard Iran as
a threat - unlike the ruling dictators, who have
their own concerns.
In the United States,
before the massive propaganda campaigns of the
past few years, a majority of the population
agreed with most of the world that, as a signatory
of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has a right
to carry out uranium enrichment. And even today, a
large majority favors peaceful means for dealing
with Iran. There is even strong opposition to
military engagement if Iran and Israel are at war.
Only a quarter regard Iran as an important concern
for the US altogether. But it is not unusual for
there to be a gap, often a chasm, dividing public
opinion and policy.
Why exactly is Iran
regarded as such a colossal threat? The question
is rarely discussed, but it is not hard to find a
serious answer - though not, as usual, in the
fevered pronouncements. The most authoritative
answer is provided by the Pentagon and the
intelligence services in their regular reports to
congress on global security. They report that Iran
does not pose a military threat. Its military
spending is very low even by the standards of the
region, minuscule of course in comparison with the
US.
Iran has little capacity to deploy
force. Its strategic doctrines are defensive,
designed to deter invasion long enough for
diplomacy to set it. If Iran is developing nuclear
weapons capability, they report, that would be
part of its deterrence strategy. No serious
analyst believes that the ruling clerics are eager
to see their country and possessions vaporized,
the immediate consequence of their coming even
close to initiating a nuclear war. And it is
hardly necessary to spell out the reasons why any
Iranian leadership would be concerned with
deterrence, under existing circumstances.
The regime is doubtless a serious threat
to much of its own population - and regrettably,
is hardly unique on that score. But the primary
threat to the US and Israel is that Iran might
deter their free exercise of violence. A further
threat is that the Iranians clearly seek to extend
their influence to neighboring Iraq and
Afghanistan, and beyond as well. Those
"illegitimate" acts are called "destabilizing" (or
worse). In contrast, forceful imposition of US
influence halfway around the world contributes to
"stability" and order, in accord with traditional
doctrine about who owns the world.
It
makes very good sense to try to prevent Iran from
joining the nuclear weapons states, including the
three that have refused to sign the
Non-Proliferation Treaty - Israel, India, and
Pakistan, all of which have been assisted in
developing nuclear weapons by the US, and are
still being assisted by them. It is not impossible
to approach that goal by peaceful diplomatic
means. One approach, which enjoys overwhelming
international support, is to undertake meaningful
steps towards establishing a nuclear weapons-free
zone in the Middle East, including Iran and Israel
(and applying as well to US forces deployed
there), better still extending to South Asia.
Support for such efforts is so strong that
the Obama administration has been compelled to
formally agree, but with reservations: crucially,
that Israel's nuclear program must not be placed
under the auspices of the International Atomic
Energy Association, and that no state (meaning the
US) should be required to release information
about "Israeli nuclear facilities and activities,
including information pertaining to previous
nuclear transfers to Israel". Obama also accepts
Israel's position that any such proposal must be
conditional on a comprehensive peace settlement,
which the US and Israel can continue to delay
indefinitely.
This survey comes nowhere
near being exhaustive, needless to say. Among
major topics not addressed is the shift of US
military policy towards the Asia-Pacific region,
with new additions to the huge military base
system underway right now, in Jeju Island off
South Korea and northwest Australia, all elements
of the policy of "containment of China". Closely
related is the issue of US bases in Okinawa,
bitterly opposed by the population for many years,
and a continual crisis in US-Tokyo-Okinawa
relations.
Revealing how little
fundamental assumptions have changed, US strategic
analysts describe the result of China's military
programs as a "classic 'security dilemma', whereby
military programs and national strategies deemed
defensive by their planners are viewed as
threatening by the other side," writes Paul Godwin
of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
The security dilemma arises over control
of the seas off China's coasts. The US regards its
policies of controlling these waters as
"defensive", while China regards them as
threatening; correspondingly, China regards its
actions in nearby areas as "defensive" while the
US regards them as threatening. No such debate is
even imaginable concerning US coastal waters.
This "classic security dilemma" makes
sense, again, on the assumption that the US has a
right to control most of the world, and that US
security requires something approaching absolute
global control.
While the principles of
imperial domination have undergone little change,
the capacity to implement them has markedly
declined as power has become more broadly
distributed in a diversifying world. Consequences
are many. It is, however, very important to bear
in mind that - unfortunately - none lifts the two
dark clouds that hover over all consideration of
global order: nuclear war and environmental
catastrophe, both literally threatening the decent
survival of the species.
Quite the
contrary. Both threats are ominous, and
increasing.
Noam Chomsky is
Institute Professor emeritus in the MIT Department
of Linguistics and Philosophy. He is the author of
numerous best-selling political works. His latest
books are Making
the Future: Occupations, Intervention, Empire, and
Resistance and The
Essential Chomsky(edited by Anthony
Arnove), a collection of his writings on politics
and on language from the 1950s to the present,
Gaza in Crisis, with Ilan Papp้, and Hopes
and Prospects, also available as an audiobook.
To listen to Timothy MacBain's latest Tomcast
audio interview in which Chomsky offers an anatomy
of American defeats in the Greater Middle East,
clickhere,
or download it to your iPodhere.
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