Friends,
On Tues., Oct. 6 there will not be a protest against JHU's drone
research, as the Pledge of Resistance intends to gather outside the Meyerhoff
Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral
St, Baltimore 21201. An alleged war criminal is part of the Baltimore Speakers
Series: Leon Panetta. Panetta is scheduled to speak at 8 PM. After
serving in the U.S. House of Representatives for 16 years, President
Clinton selected Panetta as Director of the Office of Management and
Budget in 1993, and then in 1994 appointed him White House Chief
of Staff. President Obama selected Panetta to run the CIA in 2009,
and later he was Secretary of War from 2011–2013. We will protest Panetta
from 7 to 8 PM to condemn war, killer drone strikes and income inequality. RSVP
to Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at Verizon dot net.
Kagiso,
Max
Chomsky writes: "The Republicans long ago
abandoned the pretense of functioning as a normal congressional party. They
have, as respected conservative political commentator Norman Ornstein of the
right-wing American Enterprise Institute observed, become a 'radical
insurgency' that scarcely seeks to participate in normal congressional
politics."
Noam Chomsky. (photo: Va Shiva)
Rogue States and Nuclear Dangers
By
Noam Chomsky, Noam Chomsky's Website
02 September 15
Throughout the world there is great relief and optimism
about the nuclear deal reached in Vienna between Iran and the P5+1 nations, the
five veto-holding members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany. Most of the
world apparently shares the assessment of the U.S. Arms Control Association
that "the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action establishes a strong and
effective formula for blocking all of the pathways by which Iran could acquire
material for nuclear weapons for more than a generation and a verification
system to promptly detect and deter possible efforts by Iran to covertly pursue
nuclear weapons that will last indefinitely."
There are, however, striking exceptions to the general
enthusiasm: the United States and its closest regional allies, Israel and Saudi
Arabia. One consequence of this is that U.S. corporations, much to their
chagrin, are prevented from flocking to Tehran along with their European
counterparts. Prominent sectors of U.S. power and opinion share the stand of
the two regional allies and so are in a state of virtual hysteria over
"the Iranian threat." Sober commentary in the United States, pretty
much across the spectrum, declares that country to be "the gravest threat
to world peace." Even supporters of the agreement here are wary, given the
exceptional gravity of that threat. After all, how can we trust the Iranians
with their terrible record of aggression, violence, disruption, and deceit?
Opposition within the political class is so strong
that public opinion has shifted quickly from significant support for the deal
to an even split. Republicans are almost unanimously opposed to the agreement.
The current Republican primaries illustrate the proclaimed reasons. Senator Ted
Cruz, considered one of the intellectuals among the crowded field of
presidential candidates, warns that Iran may still be able to produce nuclear
weapons and could someday use one to set off an Electro Magnetic Pulse that
"would take down the electrical grid of the entire eastern seaboard"
of the United States, killing "tens of millions of Americans."
The two most likely winners, former Florida Governor
Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, are battling over whether to bomb
Iran immediately after being elected or after the first Cabinet meeting. The
one candidate with some foreign policy experience, Lindsey Graham, describes
the deal as "a death sentence for the state of Israel," which will
certainly come as a surprise to Israeli intelligence and strategic analysts --
and which Graham knows to be utter nonsense, raising immediate questions about actual
motives.
Keep in mind that the Republicans long ago abandoned
the pretense of functioning as a normal congressional party. They have, as
respected conservative political commentator Norman Ornstein of the right-wing
American Enterprise Institute observed, become a "radical insurgency"
that scarcely seeks to participate in normal congressional politics.
Since the days of President Ronald Reagan, the party
leadership has plunged so far into the pockets of the very rich and the
corporate sector that they can attract votes only by mobilizing parts of the
population that have not previously been an organized political force. Among
them are extremist evangelical Christians, now probably a majority of
Republican voters; remnants of the former slave-holding states; nativists who
are terrified that "they" are taking our white Christian Anglo-Saxon
country away from us; and others who turn the Republican primaries into
spectacles remote from the mainstream of modern society -- though not from the
mainstream of the most powerful country in world history.
The departure from global standards, however, goes far
beyond the bounds of the Republican radical insurgency. Across the spectrum,
there is, for instance, general agreement with the "pragmatic"
conclusion of General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
that the Vienna deal does not "prevent the United States from striking
Iranian facilities if officials decide that it is cheating on the
agreement," even though a unilateral military strike is "far less
likely" if Iran behaves.
Former Clinton and Obama Middle East negotiator Dennis
Ross typically recommends that "Iran must have no doubts that if we see it
moving towards a weapon, that would trigger the use of force" even after
the termination of the deal, when Iran is theoretically free to do what it
wants. In fact, the existence of a termination point 15 years hence is, he
adds, "the greatest single problem with the agreement." He also
suggests that the U.S. provide Israel with specially outfitted B-52 bombers and
bunker-busting bombs to protect itself before that terrifying date arrives.
"The Greatest Threat"
Opponents of the nuclear deal charge that it does not
go far enough. Some supporters agree, holding that "if the Vienna deal is
to mean anything, the whole of the Middle East must rid itself of weapons of
mass destruction." The author of those words, Iran's Minister of Foreign
Affairs Javad Zarif, added that "Iran, in its national capacity and as
current chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement [the governments of the large
majority of the world's population], is prepared to work with the international
community to achieve these goals, knowing full well that, along the way, it
will probably run into many hurdles raised by the skeptics of peace and diplomacy."
Iran has signed "a historic nuclear deal," he continues, and now it
is the turn of Israel, "the holdout."
Israel, of course, is one of the three nuclear powers,
along with India and Pakistan, whose weapons programs have been abetted by the
United States and that refuse to sign the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
Zarif was referring to the regular five-year NPT
review conference, which ended in failure in April when the U.S. (joined by
Canada and Great Britain) once again blocked efforts to move toward a
weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone in the Middle East. Such efforts have
been led by Egypt and other Arab states for 20 years. As Jayantha Dhanapala and
Sergio Duarte, leading figures in the promotion of such efforts at the NPT and
other U.N. agencies, observe in "Is There a Future for the NPT?," an
article in the journal of the Arms Control Association: "The successful
adoption in 1995 of the resolution on the establishment of a zone free of
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the Middle East was the main element of a
package that permitted the indefinite extension of the NPT." The NPT, in
turn, is the most important arms control treaty of all. If it were adhered to,
it could end the scourge of nuclear weapons.
Repeatedly, implementation of the resolution has been
blocked by the U.S., most recently by President Obama in 2010 and again in
2015, as Dhanapala and Duarte point out, "on behalf of a state that is not
a party to the NPT and is widely believed to be the only one in the region
possessing nuclear weapons" -- a polite and understated reference to
Israel. This failure, they hope, "will not be the coup de grâce to the two
longstanding NPT objectives of accelerated progress on nuclear disarmament and
establishing a Middle Eastern WMD-free zone."
A nuclear-weapons-free Middle East would be a
straightforward way to address whatever threat Iran allegedly poses, but a
great deal more is at stake in Washington's continuing sabotage of the effort
in order to protect its Israeli client. After all, this is not the only case in
which opportunities to end the alleged Iranian threat have been undermined by
Washington, raising further questions about just what is actually at stake.
In considering this matter, it is instructive to
examine both the unspoken assumptions in the situation and the questions that
are rarely asked. Let us consider a few of these assumptions, beginning with
the most serious: that Iran is the gravest threat to world peace. In the U.S.,
it is a virtual cliché among high officials and commentators that Iran wins
that grim prize. There is also a world outside the U.S. and although its views
are not reported in the mainstream here, perhaps they are of some interest.
According to the leading western polling agencies (WIN/Gallup International),
the prize for "greatest threat" is won by the United States. The rest
of the world regards it as the gravest threat to world peace by a large margin.
In second place, far below, is Pakistan, its ranking probably inflated by the
Indian vote. Iran is ranked below those two, along with China, Israel, North
Korea, and Afghanistan.
"The World's Leading Supporter of Terrorism"
Turning to the next obvious question, what in fact is
the Iranian threat? Why, for example, are Israel and Saudi Arabia trembling in
fear over that country? Whatever the threat is, it can hardly be military.
Years ago, U.S. intelligence informed Congress that Iran has very low military
expenditures by the standards of the region and that its strategic doctrines
are defensive -- designed, that is, to deter aggression. The U.S. intelligence
community has also reported that it has no evidence Iran is pursuing an actual
nuclear weapons program and that "Iran's nuclear program and its
willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a
central part of its deterrent strategy."
The authoritative SIPRI review of global armaments
ranks the U.S., as usual, way in the lead in military expenditures. China comes
in second with about one-third of U.S. expenditures. Far below are Russia and
Saudi Arabia, which are nonetheless well above any western European state. Iran
is scarcely mentioned. Full details are provided in an April report from the
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which finds "a
conclusive case that the Arab Gulf states have... an overwhelming advantage of
Iran in both military spending and access to modern arms."
Iran's military spending, for instance, is a fraction
of Saudi Arabia's and far below even the spending of the United Arab Emirates
(UAE). Altogether, the Gulf Cooperation Council states -- Bahrain, Kuwait,
Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE -- outspend Iran on arms by a factor of eight,
an imbalance that goes back decades. The CSIS report adds: "The Arab Gulf
states have acquired and are acquiring some of the most advanced and effective
weapons in the world [while] Iran has essentially been forced to live in the
past, often relying on systems originally delivered at the time of the
Shah." In other words, they are virtually obsolete. When it comes to
Israel, of course, the imbalance is even greater. Possessing the most advanced
U.S. weaponry and a virtual offshore military base for the global superpower,
it also has a huge stock of nuclear weapons.
To be sure, Israel faces the "existential
threat" of Iranian pronouncements: Supreme Leader Khamenei and former
president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad famously threatened it with destruction. Except
that they didn't -- and if they had, it would be of little moment. Ahmadinejad,
for instance, predicted that "under God's grace [the Zionist regime] will
be wiped off the map." In other words, he hoped that regime change would
someday take place. Even that falls far short of the direct calls in both
Washington and Tel Aviv for regime change in Iran, not to speak of the actions
taken to implement regime change. These, of course, go back to the actual
"regime change" of 1953, when the U.S. and Britain organized a
military coup to overthrow Iran's parliamentary government and install the
dictatorship of the Shah, who proceeded to amass one of the worst human rights
records on the planet.
These crimes were certainly known to readers of the
reports of Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, but not
to readers of the U.S. press, which has devoted plenty of space to Iranian
human rights violations -- but only since 1979 when the Shah's regime was
overthrown. (To check the facts on this, read The U.S. Press and Iran, a
carefully documented study by Mansour Farhang and William Dorman.)
None of this is a departure from the norm. The United
States, as is well known, holds the world championship title in regime change
and Israel is no laggard either. The most destructive of its invasions of
Lebanon in 1982 was explicitly aimed at regime change, as well as at securing
its hold on the occupied territories. The pretexts offered were thin indeed and
collapsed at once. That, too, is not unusual and pretty much independent of the
nature of the society -- from the laments in the Declaration of Independence
about the "merciless Indian savages" to Hitler's defense of Germany
from the "wild terror" of the Poles.
No serious analyst believes that Iran would ever use,
or even threaten to use, a nuclear weapon if it had one, and so face instant
destruction. There is, however, real concern that a nuclear weapon might fall
into jihadi hands -- not thanks to Iran, but via U.S. ally Pakistan. In the
journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, two leading Pakistani
nuclear scientists, Pervez Hoodbhoy and Zia Mian, write that increasing fears
of "militants seizing nuclear weapons or materials and unleashing nuclear
terrorism [have led to]... the creation of a dedicated force of over 20,000
troops to guard nuclear facilities. There is no reason to assume, however, that
this force would be immune to the problems associated with the units guarding
regular military facilities," which have frequently suffered attacks with
"insider help." In brief, the problem is real, just displaced to Iran
thanks to fantasies concocted for other reasons.
Other concerns about the Iranian threat include its
role as "the world's leading supporter of terrorism," which primarily
refers to its support for Hezbollah and Hamas. Both of those movements emerged
in resistance to U.S.-backed Israeli violence and aggression, which vastly
exceeds anything attributed to these villains, let alone the normal practice of
the hegemonic power whose global drone assassination campaign alone dominates
(and helps to foster) international terrorism.
Those two villainous Iranian clients also share the
crime of winning the popular vote in the only free elections in the Arab world.
Hezbollah is guilty of the even more heinous crime of compelling Israel to
withdraw from its occupation of southern Lebanon, which took place in violation
of U.N. Security Council orders dating back decades and involved an illegal
regime of terror and sometimes extreme violence. Whatever one thinks of
Hezbollah, Hamas, or other beneficiaries of Iranian support, Iran hardly ranks
high in support of terror worldwide.
"Fueling Instability"
Another concern, voiced at the U.N. by U.S. Ambassador
Samantha Power, is the "instability that Iran fuels beyond its nuclear
program." The U.S. will continue to scrutinize this misbehavior, she
declared. In that, she echoed the assurance Defense Secretary Ashton Carter
offered while standing on Israel's northern border that "we will continue
to help Israel counter Iran's malign influence" in supporting Hezbollah,
and that the U.S. reserves the right to use military force against Iran as it
deems appropriate.
The way Iran "fuels instability" can be seen
particularly dramatically in Iraq where, among other crimes, it alone at once
came to the aid of Kurds defending themselves from the invasion of Islamic
State militants, even as it is building a $2.5 billion power plant in the
southern port city of Basra to try to bring electrical power back to the level
reached before the 2003 invasion. Ambassador Power's usage is, however,
standard: Thanks to that invasion, hundreds of thousands were killed and
millions of refugees generated, barbarous acts of torture were committed --
Iraqis have compared the destruction to the Mongol invasion of the thirteenth
century -- leaving Iraq the unhappiest country in the world according to WIN/Gallup
polls. Meanwhile, sectarian conflict was ignited, tearing the region to shreds
and laying the basis for the creation of the monstrosity that is ISIS. And all
of that is called "stabilization."
Only Iran's shameful actions, however, "fuel
instability." The standard usage sometimes reaches levels that are almost
surreal, as when liberal commentator James Chace, former editor of Foreign
Affairs, explained that the U.S. sought to "destabilize a freely elected
Marxist government in Chile" because "we were determined to seek
stability" under the Pinochet dictatorship.
Others are outraged that Washington should negotiate
at all with a "contemptible" regime like Iran's with its horrifying
human rights record and urge instead that we pursue "an American-sponsored
alliance between Israel and the Sunni states." So writes Leon Wieseltier,
contributing editor to the venerable liberal journal the Atlantic, who can
barely conceal his visceral hatred for all things Iranian. With a straight
face, this respected liberal intellectual recommends that Saudi Arabia, which
makes Iran look like a virtual paradise, and Israel, with its vicious crimes in
Gaza and elsewhere, should ally to teach that country good behavior. Perhaps
the recommendation is not entirely unreasonable when we consider the human
rights records of the regimes the U.S. has imposed and supported throughout the
world.
Though the Iranian government is no doubt a threat to
its own people, it regrettably breaks no records in this regard, not descending
to the level of favored U.S. allies. That, however, cannot be the concern of
Washington, and surely not Tel Aviv or Riyadh.
It might also be useful to recall -- surely Iranians
do -- that not a day has passed since 1953 in which the U.S. was not harming
Iranians. After all, as soon as they overthrew the hated U.S.-imposed regime of
the Shah in 1979, Washington put its support behind Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein, who would, in 1980, launch a murderous assault on their country.
President Reagan went so far as to deny Saddam's major crime, his chemical
warfare assault on Iraq's Kurdish population, which he blamed on Iran instead. When
Saddam was tried for crimes under U.S. auspices, that horrendous crime, as well
as others in which the U.S. was complicit, was carefully excluded from the
charges, which were restricted to one of his minor crimes, the murder of 148
Shi'ites in 1982, a footnote to his gruesome record.
Saddam was such a valued friend of Washington that he
was even granted a privilege otherwise accorded only to Israel. In 1987, his
forces were allowed to attack a U.S. naval vessel, the USS Stark, with
impunity, killing 37 crewmen. (Israel had acted similarly in its 1967 attack on
the USS Liberty.) Iran pretty much conceded defeat shortly after, when the U.S.
launched Operation Praying Mantis against Iranian ships and oil platforms in
Iranian territorial waters. That operation culminated when the USS Vincennes,
under no credible threat, shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in Iranian
airspace, with 290 killed -- and the subsequent granting of a Legion of Merit
award to the commander of the Vincennes for "exceptionally meritorious
conduct" and for maintaining a "calm and professional
atmosphere" during the period when the attack on the airliner took place.
Comments philosopher Thill Raghu, "We can only stand in awe of such
display of American exceptionalism!"
After the war ended, the U.S. continued to support
Saddam Hussein, Iran's primary enemy. President George H.W. Bush even invited
Iraqi nuclear engineers to the U.S. for advanced training in weapons
production, an extremely serious threat to Iran. Sanctions against that country
were intensified, including against foreign firms dealing with it, and actions
were initiated to bar it from the international financial system.
In recent years the hostility has extended to
sabotage, the murder of nuclear scientists (presumably by Israel), and
cyberwar, openly proclaimed with pride. The Pentagon regards cyberwar as an act
of war, justifying a military response, as does NATO, which affirmed in
September 2014 that cyber attacks may trigger the collective defense
obligations of the NATO powers -- when we are the target that is, not the
perpetrators.
"The Prime Rogue State"
It is only fair to add that there have been breaks in
this pattern. President George W. Bush, for example, offered several
significant gifts to Iran by destroying its major enemies, Saddam Hussein and
the Taliban. He even placed Iran's Iraqi enemy under its influence after the
U.S. defeat, which was so severe that Washington had to abandon its officially
declared goals of establishing permanent military bases ("enduring camps")
and ensuring that U.S. corporations would have privileged access to Iraq's vast
oil resources.
Do Iranian leaders intend to develop nuclear weapons
today? We can decide for ourselves how credible their denials are, but that
they had such intentions in the past is beyond question. After all, it was
asserted openly on the highest authority and foreign journalists were informed
that Iran would develop nuclear weapons "certainly, and sooner than one
thinks." The father of Iran's nuclear energy program and former head of
Iran's Atomic Energy Organization was confident that the leadership's plan
"was to build a nuclear bomb." The CIA also reported that it had
"no doubt" Iran would develop nuclear weapons if neighboring
countries did (as they have).
All of this was, of course, under the Shah, the
"highest authority" just quoted and at a time when top U.S. officials
-- Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Henry Kissinger, among others -- were
urging him to proceed with his nuclear programs and pressuring universities to
accommodate these efforts. Under such pressures, my own university, MIT, made a
deal with the Shah to admit Iranian students to the nuclear engineering program
in return for grants he offered and over the strong objections of the student
body, but with comparably strong faculty support (in a meeting that older
faculty will doubtless remember well).
Asked later why he supported such programs under the
Shah but opposed them more recently, Kissinger responded honestly that Iran was
an ally then.
Putting aside absurdities, what is the real threat of
Iran that inspires such fear and fury? A natural place to turn for an answer
is, again, U.S. intelligence. Recall its analysis that Iran poses no military
threat, that its strategic doctrines are defensive, and that its nuclear
programs (with no effort to produce bombs, as far as can be determined) are
"a central part of its deterrent strategy."
Who, then, would be concerned by an Iranian deterrent?
The answer is plain: the rogue states that rampage in the region and do not
want to tolerate any impediment to their reliance on aggression and violence.
In the lead in this regard are the U.S. and Israel, with Saudi Arabia trying
its best to join the club with its invasion of Bahrain (to support the crushing
of a reform movement there) and now its murderous assault on Yemen,
accelerating a growing humanitarian catastrophe in that country.
For the United States, the characterization is
familiar. Fifteen years ago, the prominent political analyst Samuel Huntington,
professor of the science of government at Harvard, warned in the establishment
journal Foreign Affairs that for much of the world the U.S. was "becoming
the rogue superpower... the single greatest external threat to their
societies." Shortly after, his words were echoed by Robert Jervis, the
president of the American Political Science Association: "In the eyes of
much of the world, in fact, the prime rogue state today is the United
States." As we have seen, global opinion supports this judgment by a
substantial margin.
Furthermore, the mantle is worn with pride. That is
the clear meaning of the insistence of the political class that the U.S.
reserves the right to resort to force if it unilaterally determines that Iran
is violating some commitment. This policy is of long standing, especially for
liberal Democrats, and by no means restricted to Iran. The Clinton Doctrine,
for instance, confirmed that the U.S. was entitled to resort to the
"unilateral use of military power" even to ensure "uninhibited
access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources," let
alone alleged "security" or "humanitarian" concerns.
Adherence to various versions of this doctrine has been well confirmed in
practice, as need hardly be discussed among people willing to look at the facts
of current history.
These are among the critical matters that should be
the focus of attention in analyzing the nuclear deal at Vienna, whether it
stands or is sabotaged by Congress, as it may well be.
C 2015 Reader Supported News
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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