💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › noam-chomsky-a-modest-proposal.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 12:56:00. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
➡️ Next capture (2024-07-09)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: A Modest Proposal Author: Noam Chomsky Date: December 3, 2002 Language: en Topics: Middle East, US foreign interventions Source: Retrieved on 2nd July 2021 from https://chomsky.info/20021203/ Notes: Published in ZNet.
The dedicated efforts of the Bush administration to take control of Iraq
— by war, military coup, or some other means — have elicited various
analyses of the guiding motives. Offering one interpretation, Anatol
Lieven of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace observes that
these plans conform to “the classic modern strategy of an endangered
right-wing oligarchy, which is to divert mass discontent into
nationalism,” inspired by fear of enemies about to destroy us. That
strategy is of critical importance if the “radical nationalists” setting
policy in Washington hope to advance their announced plan for
“unilateral world domination through absolute military superiority,”
while conducting a major assault against the interests of the large
majority of the domestic population. Lieven doubtless speaks for many
when he describes the US as “a menace to itself and to mankind,” on its
present course.
As history shows, it is all too easy for unscrupulous leaders to terrify
the public. And that is the natural method to divert attention from the
fact that tax cuts for the rich and other devices are undermining
prospects for a decent life for the middle class and the poor, and for
future generations. Economist Paul Krugman reported that “literally
before the dust had settled” over the World Trade Center ruins,
influential Republicans signaled that they were “determined to use
terrorism as an excuse to pursue a radical right-wing agenda.” He and
others have been documenting how they have pursued this agenda
relentlessly since. The strategy has proven highly effective for the
congressional elections. And when the presidential campaign begins,
Republican strategists surely do not want people to be asking questions
about their pensions, jobs, health care, and other such matters. Rather,
they should be praising their heroic leader for rescuing them from
imminent destruction by a foe of colossal power, and marching on to
confront the next powerful force bent on our destruction.
These ideas are particularly natural for the recycled Reaganites who
hold influential positions in the current administration, and are
replaying a familiar script: drive the country into deficit so as to be
able to undermine social programs, declare a “war on terror” (as they
did in 1981) and conjure up one devil after another to frighten the
population into obedience: Libyan hit-men prowling in Washington to
assassinate the brave cowboy surrounded by tanks in the White House;
Sandinistas only two-days march from Texas as they pursue their plans to
conquer the hemisphere following the script of Mein Kampf; Arab
terrorists seeking to kill Americans everywhere while Qaddafi plans to
“expel America from the world,” the cowboy wailed; Hispanic
narcotraffickers seeking to destroy the youth (but stopped just in time
by Bush #1, kidnapped in “Operation Just Cause” and tried in Florida for
crimes mostly committed on the CIA payroll); and on, and on.
More generally, the September 11 terrorist atrocities provided an
opportunity and pretext to implement long-standing plans to take control
of Iraq’s immense oil wealth, a central component of the Persian Gulf
resources that the State Department, in 1945, described as “a stupendous
source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in
world history” (referring specifically to Saudi Arabia, but the intent
is more general). US intelligence predicts that these will be of even
greater significance in the years ahead. The issue has never been
access. The same intelligence analyses anticipate that the US will rely
on more secure Atlantic Basin supplies. The same was true after World
War II. The US moved quickly to gain control over Gulf resources, but
not for its own use; North America was the major producer for decades
afterwards, and since then Venezuela has generally been the leading
exporter to the US. What matters is control over the “material prize,”
which funnels enormous wealth to the US in many ways, and the
“stupendous source of strategic power,” which translates into a lever of
“unilateral world domination.”
A different interpretation is that the administration believes exactly
what it says: Iraq has suddenly become a threat to our very existence
and to its neighbors. We must ensure that Iraq’s weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) and the means for producing them are utterly
destroyed, and the monster himself eliminated. And quickly. A war in
Iraq should optimally be waged during the winter, and winter 2003–4 will
be too late. By then the mushroom cloud that National Security Adviser
Rice predicts may have already consumed us.
Let us assume that this interpretation is correct. If the regional
powers fear Washington more than Saddam, as they apparently do, that
reveals their limited grasp of reality. It is only an accident that by
next winter the presidential campaign will be underway. And other doubts
can somehow also be put aside. How then can we achieve these announced
goals?
Many plans have been discussed, but one simple one seems to have been
ignored — perhaps because it is regarded as insane. The judgment is
correct, but it is instructive to ask why.
The modest proposal is to encourage Iran to invade Iraq, providing them
with the necessary logistic and military support, from a safe distance
(missiles, bombs, bases, etc.). The proposal has many advantages over
those now being considered.
First, Saddam will be overthrown, in fact torn to shreds along with
anyone close to him. Any trace of WMD will be eliminated, not only now
but for successor regimes, along with means for producing them, a great
boon for disarmament generally. Iran has far stronger motivation to
achieve this end than the Bush circles.
Second, there will be few if any American casualties. Or Israeli
casualties. Scud attacks on Israel would not deter the liberation of
Iraq by Israel’s prime enemy.
True, many Iraqis and Iranians will die. But that can hardly be a
concern. The Bush circles – as noted, mostly recycled Reaganites —
strongly supported Saddam when he attacked Iran, quite oblivious to the
enormous human cost, either then or under the subsequent sanctions
regime. Saddam is likely to use chemical weapons, but that too can
hardly be a concern. The current leadership firmly backed the “Beast of
Baghdad” when he used chemical weapons against Iran in the Reagan years,
and when he used gas against “his own people”: Kurds, who were his own
people in the sense in which Cherokees were Andrew Jackson’s people. The
current Washington planners continued to support the Beast after he had
committed by far his worst crimes, even providing him with means to
develop WMD, nuclear and biological, right up to the invasion of Kuwait,
fulfilling “our duty to support U.S. exporters,” as they explained (John
Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State with responsibility for the Middle
East, early 1990). England joined happily. Bush #1 and Cheney also
effectively authorized Saddam’s slaughter of Shi’ites in March 1991, in
the interests of “stability,” as was soberly explained. They withdrew
their support for his attack on the Kurds only under great international
and domestic pressure. So surely the human costs cannot be a concern.
The Cold War had no relevance; Russia joined the good guys in supporting
Saddam. Nor was the Iran war the determinative factor, as demonstrated
by their continued support for Saddam well after the war ended.
Third, the UN will be no problem. It will be unnecessary to explain to
the world that the UN is relevant when it follows orders, otherwise not.
In the words of a high administration official after Congress authorized
the use of military force, “we don’t need the Security Council. So if
the Security Council wants to stay relevant, then it has to give us
similar authority.” If anyone objects to the liberation of Iraq, the US
can always use the veto to allow it to proceed.
Fourth, Iran surely has far better credentials for the task than
Washington. Unlike the Bush administration, Iran has no record of
support for the murderous Saddam and his programs of WMD. Rather, they
were the primary victims of the Iraqi attack backed by the US and
Britain (among others). It can be objected, correctly, that we cannot
trust the Iranian leadership, but surely that is even more true of those
who continued to aid Saddam well after his worst crimes. Furthermore, we
will be spared the embarrassment of professing blind faith in our
leaders in the manner that we justly ridicule in totalitarian states.
There will be no need for a tacit appeal to a miraculous religious
conversion — for which there is not a trace of evidence, even the
minimal decency of conceding past crimes. And we will not have to
descend to advocating an invasion because the leadership in Washington
have a special “responsibility” to compensate for their past crimes, for
which they show no regret, an argument that has quite intriguing
consequences when generalized.
Fifth, the liberation will be greeted with enthusiasm by much of the
population, far more so than if Americans invade. People will be
cheering on the streets of Basra and Karbala, and we can join Iranian
journalists in hailing the nobility and just cause of the liberators.
Sixth, Iran can move towards instituting “democracy,” again with
credentials no worse than those of Washington, as a look at history will
quickly reveal. Washington’s contributions to democracy in the region
are well-known, and Iranian reformers will have some advantages in
pursuing the task, if only because the majority of the population is
Shi’ite, and Iran would have fewer problems than the US in granting them
some say in a successor government. As for the Kurds, if they seek any
real autonomy that is likely to spark a Turkish invasion. In the light
of Washington’s decisive contribution to massive Turkish atrocities
against the Kurds in the 1990s, some of the worst of that grisly decade,
the argument for a US role in this regard are rather weak, to put it
mildly.
There will be no problem in gaining access to Iraqi oil, just as US
companies could easily exploit Iranian energy resources right now, if
Washington would permit it.
Without proceeding, the proposal seems to offer many advantages over
those that are actually discussed. What then is the fly in the ointment?
There are several basic problems.
First, the US will not be able to use the “stupendous source of
strategic power” as a lever of world domination, and will have to share
the great “material prize” with others, beyond what the leadership would
prefer. Second, the “classic modern strategy of an endangered right-wing
oligarchy” would be foiled. The domestic problems of the Bush
administration would remain unresolved: the population would be freed
from fear and could pay attention to what is being done to them. And
finally, the plans for “unilateral world domination” would suffer a
serious blow.
As Lieven correctly notes, the “radical nationalists” in Washington have
very close links with Israeli ultra-nationalists. In the 1990s, Richard
Perle and Douglas Feith were even writing position papers for Benyamin
Netanyahu, who outflanks Ariel Sharon on the extremist right. The
usually reliable Israel press has been reporting their connections and
plans for some time. These include far-reaching plans for reconstructing
the Middle East along lines resembling the former Ottoman empire, but
now with the US and its offshore military base in Israel in charge,
cooperating with Turkey: what the Egyptian press has described as “the
axis of evil,” US-Israel-Turkey. According to some reported plans, a
Hashemite monarchy might extend from Jordan to parts of Iraq and Saudi
Arabia, and the Palestinians could then be “transferred” somewhere else,
perhaps Jordan. The war against Iran may well already be underway. A
good part of the Israeli air force is based in Turkey, and is reported
to be flying along the Iranian border from US bases there. Plans for
partition of Iran are being developed, perhaps pursued, according to US
specialist sources. Lieven and others suggest that the radical
nationalists have similar plans extending as far as China, and may go on
for decades “until a mixture of terrorism and the unbearable social,
political and environmental costs of US economic domination put paid to
the present order of the world.”
It is not only much of the world that regards them as a menace. The same
is true of highly-regarded strategic analysts and Middle East
specialists here, like Anthony Cordesman, who is about as “hardline” as
they come within sane sectors. According to Israel’s leading diplomatic
correspondent, Akiva Eldar, Cordesman has warned that Washington should
“make it clear that its commitment to Israel does not involve a
commitment to its sillier armchair strategists and more vocally
irresponsible hardliners,” referring not so obliquely to Perle and
Feith, who are close to power centers in Washington.
On returning to Israel from meetings with high level Pentagon figures,
the respected strategic analyst Ehud Sprintzak commented that “We are
talking about a revolutionary group, with a totally different approach
to the Arab world and the threats coming from it. One can summarize
their approach in one sentence: they think that the Arab world is a
world of retards who only understand the language of force.” That is an
understatement, as the recent reaction to Germany’s minor disobedience
revealed.
The modest proposal of an Iranian liberation is indeed insane, but not
without merit. It is far more reasonable than the plans actually being
implemented, or to be more accurate, it would be more reasonable if the
professed goals had any relation to the real ones. As for the actual
motives, the alternative reviewed at the outset has a great deal of
plausibility.