Page 1 of
2 Rulers and the ruled: Dangerous
disconnect By Noam Chomsky
Not surprisingly, US President George W
Bush's announcement of a "surge" in Iraq came
despite the firm opposition to any such move of
Americans and the even stronger opposition of the
(thoroughly irrelevant) Iraqis. It was accompanied
by ominous official leaks and statements - from
Washington and Baghdad - about how Iranian
intervention in Iraq was aimed at disrupting
America's mission to gain victory, an aim that is
(by definition) noble. What then followed was a
solemn debate about whether serial numbers on
advanced roadside bombs (improvised explosive
devices, or IEDs) were really traceable to Iran;
and, if
so,
to that country's Revolutionary Guards or to some
even higher authority.
This "debate" is a
typical illustration of a primary principle of
sophisticated propaganda. In crude and brutal
societies, the Party Line is publicly proclaimed
and must be obeyed - or else. What you actually
believe is your own business and of far less
concern. In societies where the state has lost the
capacity to control by force, the Party Line is
simply presupposed; then, vigorous debate is
encouraged within the limits imposed by unstated
doctrinal orthodoxy. The cruder of the two systems
leads, naturally enough, to disbelief; the
sophisticated variant gives an impression of
openness and freedom, and so far more effectively
serves to instill the Party Line. It becomes
beyond question, beyond thought itself, like the
air we breathe.
The debate over Iranian
interference in Iraq proceeds without ridicule on
the assumption that the United States owns the
world. We did not, for example, engage in a
similar debate in the 1980s about whether the US
was interfering in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan,
and I doubt that Pravda, probably recognizing the
absurdity of the situation, sank to outrage about
that fact (which American officials and the US
media, in any case, made no effort to conceal).
Perhaps the official Nazi press also featured
solemn debates about whether the Allies were
interfering in sovereign Vichy France, though if
so, sane people would then have collapsed in
ridicule.
In this case, however, even
ridicule - notably absent - would not suffice,
because the charges against Iran are part of a
drumbeat of pronouncements meant to mobilize
support for escalation in Iraq and for an attack
on Iran, the "source of the problem". The world is
aghast at the possibility. Even in neighboring
Sunni states, no friends of Iran, majorities, when
asked, favor a nuclear-armed Iran over any
military action against that country. From what
limited information we have, it appears that
significant parts of the US military and
intelligence communities are opposed to such an
attack, along with almost the entire world, even
more so than when the Bush administration and Tony
Blair's Britain invaded Iraq, defying enormous
popular opposition worldwide.
The Iran
effect The results of an attack on Iran
could be horrendous. After all, according to a
recent study of "the Iraq effect" by terrorism
specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank,
using government and Rand Corporation data, the
Iraq invasion has already led to a sevenfold
increase in terror. The "Iran effect" would
probably be far more severe and long-lasting.
British military historian Corelli Barnett speaks
for many when he warns that "an attack on Iran
would effectively launch World War III".
What are the plans of the increasingly
desperate clique that narrowly holds political
power in the United States? We cannot know. Such
state planning is, of course, kept secret in the
interests of "security". Review of the
declassified record reveals that there is
considerable merit in that claim - though only if
we understand "security" to mean the security of
the Bush administration against its domestic
enemy, the population in whose name it acts.
Even if the White House clique is not
planning war, naval deployments, support for
secessionist movements and acts of terror within
Iran, and other provocations could easily lead to
an accidental war. Congressional resolutions would
not provide much of a barrier. They invariably
permit "national security" exemptions, opening
holes wide enough for the several aircraft-carrier
battle groups soon to be in the Persian Gulf to
pass through - as long as an unscrupulous
leadership issues proclamations of doom (as then
national security adviser Condoleezza Rice did
with those "mushroom clouds" over US cities back
in 2002).
And the concocting of the sorts
of incidents that "justify" such attacks is a
familiar practice. Even the worst monsters feel
the need for such justification and adopt the
device: Adolf Hitler's defense of innocent Germany
from the "wild terror" of the Poles in 1939, after
they had rejected his wise and generous proposals
for peace, is but one example.
The most
effective barrier to a White House decision to
launch a war is the kind of organized popular
opposition that frightened the political-military
leadership enough in 1968 that they were reluctant
to send more troops to Vietnam - fearing, we
learned from the Pentagon Papers, that they might
need them for civil-disorder control.
Doubtless Iran's government merits harsh
condemnation, including for its recent actions
that have inflamed the crisis. It is, however,
useful to ask how the US would act if Iran had
invaded and occupied Canada and Mexico and was
arresting US government representatives there on
the grounds that they were resisting the Iranian
occupation (called "liberation", of course).
Imagine as well that Iran was deploying massive
naval forces in the Caribbean and issuing credible
threats to launch a wave of attacks against a vast
range of sites - nuclear and otherwise - in the
United States, if the US government did not
immediately terminate all its nuclear-energy
programs (and, naturally, dismantle all its
nuclear weapons).
Suppose that all of this
happened after Iran had overthrown the government
of the US and installed a vicious tyrant (as the
US did to Iran in 1953), then later supported a
Russian invasion of the US that killed millions of
people (just as the US supported Saddam Hussein's
invasion of Iran in 1980, killing hundreds of
thousands of Iranians, a figure comparable to
millions of Americans). Would we watch quietly?
It is easy to understand an observation by
one of Israel's leading military historians,
Martin van Creveld. After the US invaded Iraq,
knowing it to be defenseless, he noted, "Had the
Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they
would be crazy."
Surely no sane person
wants Iran (or any nation) to develop nuclear
weapons. A reasonable resolution of the present
crisis would permit Iran to develop nuclear
energy, in accord with its rights under the
Non-Proliferation Treaty, but not nuclear weapons.
Is that outcome feasible? It would be, given one
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
