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How to Stop a Showdown With Iran
by NOAM CHOMSKY
The Nation
April 5, 2007
EDITOR'S NOTE: This piece originally
appeared on
TomDispatch.
Unsurprisingly, 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 our mission to gain victory, an aim which is (by
definition) noble. What then followed was a solemn debate about
whether serial numbers on advanced roadside bombs (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 our 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 seven-fold 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 US?
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 their domestic
enemy, the population in whose name they act.
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 Condoleezza Rice did
with those "mushroom clouds" over American 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: 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 we 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 U.S. 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 condition: that the US
and Iran were functioning democratic societies in which public
opinion had a significant impact on public policy.
As it happens, this solution has overwhelming
support among Iranians and Americans, who generally are in
agreement on nuclear issues. The Iranian-American consensus
includes the complete elimination of nuclear weapons everywhere
(82 percent of Americans); if that cannot yet be achieved
because of elite opposition, then at least a
"nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East that would include
both Islamic countries and Israel" (71 percent of Americans).
Seventy-five percent of Americans prefer
building better relations with Iran to threats of force. In
brief, if
public opinion were to have a significant influence on state
policy in the US and Iran, resolution of the crisis might be at
hand, along with much more far-reaching solutions to the global
nuclear conundrum.
Promoting Democracy--at Home
These facts suggest a possible way to prevent
the current crisis from exploding, perhaps even into some
version of World War III. That awesome threat might be averted
by pursuing a familiar proposal: democracy promotion--this time
at home, where it is badly needed. Democracy promotion at home
is certainly feasible and, although we cannot carry out such a
project directly in Iran, we could act to improve the prospects
of the courageous reformers and oppositionists who are seeking
to achieve just that. Among such figures who are, or should be,
well-known, would be
Saeed Hajjarian, Nobel laureate
Shirin Ebadi, and
Akbar Ganji, as well as those who, as usual, remain
nameless, among them labor activists about whom we hear very
little; those who publish the Iranian Workers Bulletin may be a
case in point.
We can best improve the prospects for
democracy promotion in Iran by sharply reversing state policy
here so that it reflects popular opinion. That would entail
ceasing to make the regular threats that are a gift to Iranian
hardliners. These are bitterly condemned by Iranians truly
concerned with democracy promotion (unlike those "supporters"
who flaunt democracy slogans in the West and are lauded as grand
"idealists" despite their clear record of visceral hatred for
democracy).
Democracy promotion in the United States could
have far broader consequences. In Iraq, for instance, a firm
timetable for withdrawal would be initiated at once, or very
soon, in accord with the will of the overwhelming majority of
Iraqis and a significant majority of Americans. Federal budget
priorities would be virtually reversed. Where spending is
rising, as in military supplemental bills to conduct the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, it would sharply decline. Where spending
is steady or declining (health, education, job training, the
promotion of energy conservation and renewable energy sources,
veterans benefits, funding for the UN and UN peacekeeping
operations, and so on), it would sharply increase. Bush's tax
cuts for people with incomes over $200,000 a year would be
immediately rescinded.
The US would have adopted a national
health-care system long ago, rejecting the privatized system
that sports twice the per-capita costs found in similar
societies and some of the worst outcomes in the industrial
world. It would have rejected what is widely regarded by those
who pay attention as a "fiscal train wreck" in-the-making. The
US would have ratified the Kyoto Protocol to reduce
carbon-dioxide emissions and undertaken still stronger measures
to protect the environment. It would allow the UN to take the
lead in international crises, including in Iraq. After all,
according to opinion polls, since shortly after the 2003
invasion, a large majority of Americans have wanted the UN to
take charge of political transformation, economic
reconstruction, and civil order in that land.
If public opinion mattered, the US would
accept UN Charter restrictions on the use of force, contrary to
a bipartisan consensus that this country, alone, has the right
to resort to violence in response to potential threats, real or
imagined, including threats to our access to markets and
resources. The US (along with others) would abandon the Security
Council veto and accept majority opinion even when in opposition
to it. The UN would be allowed to regulate arms sales; while the
U.S. would cut back on such sales and urge other countries to do
so, which would be a major contribution to reducing large-scale
violence in the world. Terror would be dealt with through
diplomatic and economic measures, not force, in accord with the
judgment of most specialists on the topic but again in diametric
opposition to present-day policy.
Furthermore, if public opinion influenced
policy, the US would have diplomatic relations with Cuba,
benefiting the people of both countries (and, incidentally, US
agribusiness, energy corporations, and others), instead of
standing virtually alone in the world in imposing an embargo
(joined only by Israel, the Republic of Palau, and the Marshall
Islands). Washington would join the broad international
consensus on a two-state settlement of the Israel-Palestine
conflict, which (with Israel) it has blocked for thirty
years--with scattered and temporary exceptions--and which it
still blocks in word, and more importantly in deed, despite
fraudulent claims of its commitment to diplomacy. The U.S. would
also equalize aid to Israel and Palestine, cutting off aid to
either party that rejected the international consensus.
Evidence on these matters is reviewed in my
book,
Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy,
as well as in
The Foreign Policy Disconnect by Benjamin Page (with
Marshall Bouton), which also provides extensive evidence that
public opinion on foreign (and probably domestic) policy issues
tends to be coherent and consistent over long periods. Studies
of public opinion have to be regarded with caution, but they are
certainly highly suggestive.
Democracy promotion at home, while no panacea,
would be a useful step towards helping our own country become a
"responsible stakeholder" in the international order (to adopt
the term used for adversaries), instead of being an object of
fear and dislike throughout much of the world. Apart from being
a value in itself, functioning democracy at home holds real
promise for dealing constructively with many current problems,
international and domestic, including those that literally
threaten the survival of our species.
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