IRAN

THE ABSURD TIMES

By now, the fascination (or pick a word) with Trump seems to be dead, so we can go on to other things.

This is despite all the reporters going out and digging up people that still support him, even people of color.  All it really indicates is how degenerate the human species is.  I am often reminded of what is supposedly a quote from Mark Twain as delivered by Hal Holbrook in that Twainish voice: "Man, we are told, is the reasoning animal.  Now I wonder who found that out." 

So, Israel is claiming that one of it's jets was shot down over Israeli airspace: in other words, the Golan Heights.  Actually, that is actually Syrian airspace, but repetition serves for truth these days and so it is.

This interview, below, is over a speech Nikki Haley made, not at the UN where she would have been laughed off the platform, but at a U.S. Military base.  See, the military is happy to see here because, if they are nice enough, they may get to march in a parade and salute the Donald.

We can forget about all the vets who are homeless, suffering from PTSD, missing limbs, and so on.  Some vets, believe it or not, after being welcomed into the military, are in danger of being deported.  Since they came here without being born here, but instead snuck over the border at the age of 3 or 4 years old, the evil and illegal aliens, we have no further use for them.  We want a parade.  Maybe a wall and a parade? 

Anyway, it takes a bit of history to follow this interview with Colin Powell's assistant, the guy who helped him write the speech that got us into Iraq in the first place.  Even this guy has taken to using Gore Vidal's phrase "The United States of Amnesia." 

So, how did it happen?  Well, we wanted to get "communists" out of Afghanistan.  (Never mind that the USSR was never really Marxist.  We needed an enemy and they supplied one for us).    So, we subsidized an bunch of crazy Jihadists (Hey, they believed in God and we Believed in God and the USSR was officially atheist, despite all the Russian Orthodox Churches) to attack them.  Our star player was Bin Laden, a fact so conveniently forgotten.)   He managed to get some place to crash into some building in New York and that gave the Chicken Hawks a chance to attack Afghanistan, and from there to Iraq.

Then there was Saddam Hussein, very valuable in waging war against Iran.  However, he had an uncomfortable way of helping Palestinians, so he had to go.  We started out by claiming that he had nuclear weapons, but we knew that was not true.  We do not attack countries with nuclear weapons.  We finally settled on weapons of mass destruction.  Actually, Bin Laden thought of Saddam as an infidel.

Well, we decided that Saddam had to go.  The rest is explained in the interview:

Fifteen years ago this week, Secretary of State General Colin Powell gave a speech to the United Nations arguing for war with Iraq, saying the evidence was clear: Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It was a speech Powell would later call a blot on his career. Is President Trump doing the same thing now with Iran? We speak to Powell's former chief of staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson. He recently wrote a piece titled "I Helped Sell the False Choice of War Once. It's Happening Again."

---

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to look at the growing threat of war against Iran. In recent weeks, senior members of the Trump administration have repeatedly tried to churn up U.S. support for a war against Iran, while President Trump has reiterated his threats to pull the U.S. out of the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Last month, President Trump issued a waiver to prevent the reimposition of U.S. sanctions against Iran, but warned he would not do so again unless the nuclear deal is renegotiated. The waiver must be reissued every 120 days to avoid the sanctions from kicking back in.

His warning came after U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley spoke at the Anacostia-Bolling military base in Washington, D.C., in front of pieces of metal she claimed were parts of an Iranian-made missile supplied to the Houthis in Yemen, which the Houthis allegedly fired into Saudi Arabia. This is Ambassador Haley speaking December 14th.

NIKKI HALEY: Behind me is an example of one of these attacks. These are the recovered pieces of a missile fired by Houthi militants from Yemen into Saudi Arabia. The missile's intended target was the civilian airport in Riyadh, through which tens of thousands of passengers travel each day. I repeat, the missile was used to attack an international civilian airport in a G20 country. Just imagine if this missile had been launched at Dulles Airport or JFK or the airports in Paris, London or Berlin. That's what we're talking about here. That's what Iran is actively supporting.

AMY GOODMAN: Weapons experts widely criticized Ambassador Haley's speech, saying the evidence was inconclusive and fell far short of proving her allegations that Iran had violated a U.N. Security Council resolution. But to our next guest, Haley's claims were not only inconclusive, they were also oddly reminiscent of the false claims about weapons of mass destruction the George W. Bush administration used to sell the public on the war with Iraq.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, during which time he helped prepare Powell's infamous speech to the U.N. claiming Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Powell's speech was given 15 years ago this week, February 5th, 2003.

SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL: One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents. Let me take you inside that intelligence file and share with you what we know from eyewitness accounts. We have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails. The trucks and train cars are easily moved and are designed to evade detection by inspectors. In a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the Gulf War.

AMY GOODMAN: That was then-Secretary of State General Colin Powell speaking February 5th, 2003, before the U.N. Security Council. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, his chief of staff, has since renounced the speech, which he helped write. Well, his new op-ed for The New York Times is headlined "I Helped Sell the False Choice of War Once. It's Happening Again."

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about what—how you felt at the time, how you came to understand the evidence that General Colin Powell, who himself said—called this speech, later, a blot on his career—how you put this speech together, and the echoes of it, what you hear today, in Ambassador Haley's speech.

LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Amy, we put the speech together with, arguably, the entire U.S. intelligence community, led by George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, literally at Powell's right hand all the time, seven days, seven nights, at Langley and then in New York, before we presented.

When I saw Nikki Haley give her presentation, certainly there was not the gravitas of a Powell, not the statesmanship of a Powell, not the popularity of a Powell. What I saw was a John Bolton. And remember, John Bolton was her predecessor, in terms of being a neoconservative at the United Nations representing the United States. I saw a very amateurish attempt.

But nonetheless, these kinds of things, when they're made visual and the statements are made so dramatically, have an impact on the American people. I saw her doing essentially the same thing with regard to Iran that Powell had done, and I had done, and others, with regard to Iraq. So it alarms me. I don't think the American people have a memory for these sorts of things. Gore Vidal called this the "United States of Amnesia," with some reason.

So, we need to be reminded of how the intelligence was politicized, how it was cherry-picked, how we moved towards a war that has been an absolute catastrophe for the region, and even, long-term, for Israel's security and the United States' perhaps, with a deftness and with a fluidity that alarmed me then. It really alarms me now that we might be ready to repeat that process.

And your previous speaker, on North Korea, there's another target. This president has so many targets out there that he could avail himself of at almost any moment, that we have to shudder at the prospects for war and destruction over the next three years of Donald Trump's term.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the pieces of metal she was talking about?

LAWRENCE WILKERSON: I can't imagine how anyone could haul some metal in front of the TV cameras and assert, the way she did, with the details she did—some of which was false, just flat false—and expect anyone within any expertise, at least, to believe it. Open parenthesis, (The American people don't necessarily have that expertise), close parenthesis.

Look at her statement about "this could have been shot at Dulles, or it could have been shot at Berlin." Had it been shot at Dulles or Berlin, it would have stopped well short, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean or even shorter. These missiles are not long-range missiles. These missiles are very inaccurate missiles. They have a CEP of miles. That means that, unlike a U.S. nuclear weapon, which would hit within a 10-meter circle or less, it would hit within a mile or two circle. They don't know where it's going to hit when they shoot it. It's not very accurate, in other words.

So the things that she was presenting there, she was presenting with a drama, that even if what she was saying fundamentally was true, that the Houthis got it from Iran and shot it at Saudi Arabia, it simply was so exaggerated that one just looks at it and says, "I can't believe that the United States is represented by that woman."

AMY GOODMAN: Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, it's very interesting that you have this moment now in U.S. history where the Republicans—some of them—are joining with President Trump in trying to discredit the intelligence agencies. And yet you go back to 2003, when you have a fierce criticism of the intelligence agencies, saying they were being used to politicize information, which, oddly, is what President Trump is saying, in a very different context.

LAWRENCE WILKERSON: You would have a lot of sympathy if you asked me if I have some doubts about the U.S. intelligence agencies, all 17 of them now, definitely. But let me tell you what I've done over the last 11 or 12 years, on two university campuses with really brilliant students, in terms of enlightening myself, gaining new insights into what happened not only in 2002 and '03, but what's been happening ever since and, for that matter, what happened ever since Richard Nixon, with regard to the intelligence communities.

What happens is you get people like Tenet, you get people like John Brennan, you get people like John McLaughlin, you get people like Chris Mudd, for example—Phil Mudd, who was head of counterterrorism for George Tenet and who tried at the last minute to get me to put even more stuff into his presentation about the connections between Baghdad and al-Qaeda. You get people like that who are at the top. That screens all the many dedicated, high-moral, high-character professionals down in the bowels of the DIA, the CIA, the NSA and elsewhere. That screens their views, which are often accurate—I'd say probably 80 percent of the time very accurate—from the decision makers. So what you get is you get people like Tenet and McLaughlin and Brennan, who shape whatever they can to fit the policies that the president wishes to carry out. The intelligence, therefore, gets corrupted. So, in that sense, I am still down on the, quote, "U.S. intelligence community," unquote.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it's really interesting, because a number of the people you mention from the past are the current commentators on television.

LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Yes, yes. John McLaughlin—John McLaughlin lied to the secretary of state of the United States on more than one occasion during the preparation for the 5 February, 2003, U.N. Security Council.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to President Trump speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in September.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into. Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States, and I don't think you've heard the last of it. Believe me. It is time for the entire world to join us in demanding that Iran's government end its pursuit of death and destruction. It is time for the regime to free all Americans and citizens of other nations that they have unjustly detained. And above all, Iran's government must stop supporting terrorists, begin serving its own people and respect the sovereign rights of its neighbors.

AMY GOODMAN: Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, respond to President Trump, and talk about the clock being put ever closer to midnight.

LAWRENCE WILKERSON: That agreement, the JCPOA, the nuclear agreement between the U.N. Security Council permanent members, Germany, Iran, that agreement is probably the most insidious and likely way to war with Iran. The Obama regime, in a very, very difficult diplomatic situation, achieved the best it could. That best is a nuclear agreement that keeps Iran from a nuclear weapon and gives us over a year of time, should they try to secretly break out of it, to inspect and find and to stop, even if we had to bomb. So it is an agreement unparalleled in regard to stopping Iran's search for, if it ever had the desire to, a nuclear weapon.

If Trump undermines that, if this administration undermines that, then there is no—and they are moving fast to do that—there is no other alternative, if you look at it. Now, my colleagues and some of my opponents in this will say, "Oh, no, that doesn't necessarily mean war." It certainly does, if you continue this march towards Iran's—unacceptability of Iran's having a nuclear weapon, because then we will have intelligence telling us that Iran is—I know the Foundation for Defense of Democracy and others will never let this rest. We will have everyone telling us that Iran, whether they are or not, is going after a nuclear weapon, once the agreement is abrogated. That means the only way you assure the American people and the international community, the region—Saudi Arabia is salivating for a war with Iran, with American lives at the front—that means the only way you stop Iran, under those circumstances, is to invade—500,000 soldiers and troops, you better have some allies, 10 years, $4 [trillion] or $5 trillion. And at the end of that 10 years, it looks worse than Iraq did at the end of its 10.

That's what you're looking at over the long haul, if you say this agreement is no good and abrogate it, because if it's still unacceptable, that Iran not get a nuclear weapon, the only way that you assure that is by invasion. Bombing won't do it. All bombing will do is drive them underground. They will develop a weapon. They'll work with the North Koreans and so forth. We know they have worked with the North Koreans in the past. And they will develop one. And then they'll be like Kim Jong-un: They'll present us with the fait accompli.

Nuclear proliferation is a real threat right now. And I agree with the Bulletin of Atomic—the Atomic Scientists Bulletin that the hands on the Doomsday Clock are now at two, two-and-a-half minutes or so from midnight. We are more in danger of a nuclear exchange on the face of the Earth than we were in probably any time since 1945. And that includes the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and the Berlin crisis that more or less preceded it. This is a dangerous time, and we have a man in the White House who is a dangerous president.

AMY GOODMAN: Colonel Wilkerson, on Wednesday, Defense Secretary James Mattis defended a Pentagon request to develop new so-called low-yield nuclear weapons, telling reporters the U.S. needed a more complete range of nuclear options. And this comes as the Trump administration has unveiled its new nuclear weapons strategy, which involves spending at least $1.2 trillion to upgrade, they say, the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Your response?

LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Make that about two to three, maybe even four, trillion dollars, because that's what the cost overruns will be, and that's what we'll spend over the next 10 to 15 years to do this. And we do not need it. Just look at some of the components of this. We're looking at a B-21 bomber for the Air Force, for example, that's going to be so expensive the Air Force won't even tell the Congress how much it's going to cost. We're looking at a nuclear-tipped cruise missile for that bomber, which negates the need for the bomber. It's redundant, but we're going to do it anyway.

This is to assuage the military-industrial complex in America that deals with nuclear weapons. This is to spend lots of money and keep lots of nuclear scientists and others in their jobs. I understand that, but I don't condone this kind of money being spent. This is to respond to the Russians, whose military doctrine now includes using small-yield nuclear weapons, should they be invaded by NATO. It's written in their doctrine. This is to further perturbate the situation with the Chinese, who are taking Mao Zedong's nuclear philosophy and throwing it out the window and thinking, "Oh, maybe we better build lots more nuclear weapons so we can ride out a first strike and retaliate." This is all because of the United States. It's all because of what's happening in the world post-Cold War, that we all thought was going to be more peaceful and is turning out to be more catastrophically dangerous.

AMY GOODMAN: Colonel Wilkerson, Trump just tweeted, "Just signed Bill"—he's talking about the spending bill. "Our Military will now be stronger than ever before. We love and need our Military and gave them everything — and more. First time this has happened in a long time." Your last 10-second response?

LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Yeah, not the first time. Ronald Reagan did it, '82, '83, '84. And he did it on politicized intelligence about the Soviet Union. We knew it was falling apart at that time, but that didn't go along with his arms buildup. That's exactly what Trump is doing. And he's using the military to gain more votes.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you so much for being with us. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson served as the secretary—as the chief of staff of the secretary of state, of Colin Powell, from 2002 to 2005.

That does it for our show. A very happy birthday Mohamed Taguine!

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Preposterous

THE ABSURD TIMES

Latuff and Trump: Muslim Ban

Israelis and Trump

PREPOSTEROUS

If you think things cannot get any worse, you have not been paying attention. 

So, quick updates:

The day after we sent out the edition on the WAR ON FACT AND SANITY, we received an invitation to subscribe to the Scientic American help fight the War on Fact and Truth.

Trump talked on the phone with the Prime Minister of Australia.  He told the Aussie that he was sending "the next Boston Bomber" to the United States, the Aussie said the "talks were frank and …. .," Which is diplomatic speak for "Shove it up your ass!" He reportedly hung up on him, or vice versa.  Australia is al lot like the U.S. in its attitudes, well represented by the likes of Paul Hogan and Slim Dusty (best song: "The Pub's Got No Beer," actually better than many of what passes for Country these days).

Next call to Mexico: "Stop sending those 'bad Hombres' here.  Your Army is afraid of them, but ours isn't.  We can send ours in."  Right. 

Administration warned Iran about their recent missile test:  "You are hereby on official notice!"  What the hell does that mean?  "Nothing is off the table," just announced a few minutes ago.  So, still, what the hell does that mean?  If we abandon the treaty, Iran is free to start its nuclear production.

Trump says to the people of the United States about his rude and obnoxious behavior on the phone to foreign leaders "Don't worry about it."  Somehow, that is not comforting.

Speaking of nuclear: Trump announced his Supreme Court nomination.  It is actually a move toward diversity since there are already all Catholics and Jews on the court, this one is a Protestant.  He has told the senate to confirm him, even without the needed 60 votes for debate.

His Vice President, Pence, will probably have to cast the divided vote of him Secretary of Education since two Republicans will vote against her.  Murkowski and Collins.  "I just can't vote for her," said Collins.

So, at a national prayer breakfast, Trump called for a number of prayers, INCLUDING A PRAYER FOR ARNOLD SCHWARTZENEGGER!  This defies comment!

Trump currently has a higher approval rating in Poland than in the United States.   This may be because people in Poland don't live here.  There may be other reasons for it.

This is getting ludicrous.  One bright spot is Trump's failure to specifically mention Jews during Holocaust Memorial day.  It may move AIPAC to reduce its approval of Trump?

Fidel and our Media

THE ABSURD TIMES

Time Announces the "Decay of Revolution"

We are very sad to see the vast ignorance displayed about Fidel Castro and Cuba, ignorance furthered by right-wing fanatics and our politicians.  We can understand Little Marco [Rubio] and Daffy Donald [Trump] joining in on celebrating Fidel's death, but they certainly must know better about how things happened.  If they don't, we are even in worse condition than we could have imagined.

Wikipedia, surprisingly, gives a fairly honest account of Castro, so we will content ourselves with clarifying a few other points.

First of all, his original interest was baseball.  A pitcher, the New York Yankees had the opportunity to sign him, but capitalism seems to be its own worst enemy.  He went to Law school instead.  Then the trouble started.

For a fairly accurate idea of what things were like under Batiste, however, even popular entertainment here is more accurate that our news media.  The "Godfather" movies, especially those scenes in Havana, depict very well the operation of that government and in whose interest it was run as well as its effect on the people.  In one scene, we see all the major corporations seated around the table with some major gangsters and also Batiste.   They were all very harmonious.

Castro nationalized the major industries so that they could be run in the interest of the people.  He offered to pay the corporations their value, but the corporations said that they were worth much more than he offered.  He replied that he was offering their appraised value, but they were adamant.  He then offered to buy them at their own valuation, but first they would have to pay back taxes on that amount.  They would not allow that either.  So, he just took them.  This did not go over very well with the Eisenhower administration.

There was the "Bay of Pigs" invasion that failed, a CIA operation that surprised JFK so far as we are led to believe.  The "Cuban Missile Crisis" was an interesting event.  Castro was now justifiable concerned about U.S. intentions to invade and also to assassinate him (over 300 attempts were made with estimates as high as 800) and the Soviet Union, particularly Russia, had always been surrounded by enemies as far back as the 16^th century, and we had missiles aimed at them from Turkey and other places.   Castro, on the other hand, was concerned with further invasions from the U.S.

Much has been made about the standoff and how valiant the Kennedy brothers were at the time, but what really stopped a nuclear war was the refusal of a singular Soviet submarine to disobey the order to fire on the U.S. ships. 

Most of the invasions were during the early days (he only had 1,000 in all) of the Kennedy administration.  However, John Foster Dulles who had deposed a democratically elected leader of Iran and installed the right-wing Shah who supplied oil to Israel and in general did our bidding authorized them during the last years of the Eisenhower administration.  His brother Allen Dulles who often said that all his actions were "approved at the highest levels of the government," meaning his brother John, carried out these invasions.  When Kennedy saw what a disaster the CIA was, he fired Allen Dulles.  Kennedy was assassinated a year later. 

Castro was extremely worried that he would be accused of the assassination and was very much aware of the attempts.  He did what he could to warn John, despite their differences.  Oliver Stone presented the most plausible version of the conspiracy.  Obviously, no one of any familiarity with the facts believe the so-called "Warren Report," which was basically run by, that's right, the same Allen Dulles whom Kennedy fired.

Much is made of the political prisoners in Cuba.  Once Jimmie Carter demanded their release and Fidel maintained that they were all either criminals or insane.  Fidel bowed to the pressure and released them to the U.S., and they turned out to be criminals and lunatics. 

We can tolerate deliberate distortions, but there is no justification for genuine ignorance.  There is much more such as universal health care, aid to other countries, and so on, but this is enough and the Pope's visit should indicate at least something to our citizens. 

Summary of Reality Today

THE ABSURD TIMES

 Illustration: Why we are after Assad, also was true of Gaddafi and Saddam

Summary of Reality Today

            by

Czar Donic

            Far too many idiotic things have been going on lately that we were at a loss as to how to address them.  We have better things to do than communicate facts and truths to those morons (the bulk of the world, with the largest concentration in the U.S.) who simply will not understand.  There are simply too many things going on, and going on wrong, to even hope to scratch the surface.

            At this point, enter Noam Chomsky who is able to deal with many of them in one lecture or speech.  We simply reproduce it below.  Much of this material will sound very Orwellian to many and all is true and accurate as well.  We suspect that he wears his hair so strangely these days, in addition to keeping a soft monologue, simply not to appear as dangerous to those in power.

            Later, there is a question and answer session and that will be presented separately, in another edition.  One question that may not seem clear is why the republicans are no longer really a Party.  The answer can perhaps be understood by likening it to a swarm of termites.  Each particular member has a very limited intelligence and purpose, but just like a swarm of termites, or an ant colony, collectively, somehow working together, they adapt and focus merely on their own survival and growth until they threaten to overwhelm any opposition or kill their host and thereby die out.  In such cases they become less lethal until most host becomes available and then they become even more virulent. 

            Here, then, is his speech that covers the mideast and imperialism along with domestic oppression of the truth:

         TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

Noam Chomsky on George Orwell, the Suppression of Ideas and the Myth of American Exceptionalism

In a Democracy Now! special, we spend the hour with Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author and institute professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he’s taught for more than half a century. Chomsky has written more than 100 books, including his latest, "Because We Say So," a collection of his monthly columns. On Saturday, Chomsky spoke before a sold-out audience of nearly 1,000 people at The New School’s John L. Tishman Auditorium in New York City. In a speech titled “On Power and Ideology,” he discussed the persistence of U.S. exceptionalism, Republican efforts to torpedo the Iran nuclear deal, and the normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Today, in a Democracy Now! special, we spend the hour with Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author and institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he’s taught for more than half a century. Noam Chomsky has penned more than a hundred books; his newest, Because We Say So, a collection of his columns.

On Saturday, Chomsky spoke before a sold-out audience of nearly 1,000 people at The New School’s Auditorium here in New York City. Chomsky discussed the persistence of U.S. exceptionalism, Republican efforts to torpedo the Iran nuclear deal and the normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations. Professor Chomsky also explained why he believes the U.S. and its closest allies, namely Saudi Arabia and Israel, are undermining prospects for peace in the Middle East. His speech was titled "On Power and Ideology."

NOAM CHOMSKY: The role of concentrated power in shaping the ideological framework that dominates perception, interpretation, discussion, choice of action, all of that is too familiar to require much comment. Tonight I’d like to discuss a critically important example, but first a couple of words on one of the most perceptive analysts of this process, George Orwell.

Orwell is famous for his searching and sardonic critique of the way thought is controlled by force under totalitarian dystopia. But much less known is his discussion of how similar outcomes are achieved in free societies. He’s speaking, of course, of England. And he wrote that although the country is quite free, nevertheless unpopular ideas can be suppressed without the use of force. Gave a couple of examples, provided a few words of explanation, which were to the point. One particularly pertinent comment was his observation on a quality education in the best schools, where it is instilled into you that there are certain things that it simply wouldn’t do to say—or, we may add, even to think. One reason why not much attention is paid to this essay is that it wasn’t published. It was found decades later in his unpublished papers. It was intended as the introduction to his famous Animal Farm, bitter satire of Stalinist totalitarianism. Why it wasn’t published is apparently unknown, but I think perhaps you can speculate.

Orwell’s observations on thought control under freedom come to mind in considering the raging debate today about the Iran nuclear deal, which currently occupies center stage. I should say it’s a raging debate in the United States, virtually alone. In almost everywhere else, the deal has been greeted with relief and optimism and without even a parliamentary review. This is one of the many striking examples of the famous concept of American exceptionalism.

The fact that America is an exceptional nation is regularly intoned by virtually every political figure, and, I think more revealingly, the same is true of prominent academic and public intellectuals. Can select almost at random. Take, for example, the professor of the science of government at Harvard. He’s a distinguished liberal scholar, government adviser. He’s writing in Harvard’s prestigious journal,International Security, and there he explains that unlike other countries, the "national identity" of the United States is "defined by a set of universal political and economic values," namely "liberty, democracy, equality, private property, and markets." So the U.S. has a solemn duty to maintain its "international primacy" for the benefit of the world. And since this is a matter of definition, we can dispense with the tedious work of empirical verification, so I won’t spend any time on that.

Or let’s turn to the leading left-liberal intellectual journal, The New York Review. There, a couple of months ago, we read from the former chair of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that "American contributions to international security, global economic growth, freedom, and human well-being have been so self-evidently unique and have been so clearly directed to others’ benefit that Americans have long believed that the [United States] amounts to a different kind of country." While others push their national interest, the United States "tries to advance universal principles." No evidence is given because it’s again a matter of definition. And it’s very easy to continue.

It’s only fair to add that there’s nothing at all exceptional about this. American exceptionalism was standard for every great power, very familiar from other imperial states in their days in the sun—Britain, France, others. And this is true, interestingly, even from very honorable figures from whom one might have expected better—so, John Stuart Mill, for example, in England, to mention a significant case—which raises interesting questions about intellectual life and intellectual standards.

Well, in some respects, American exceptionalism is not in doubt. I just mentioned one example: the current Iran nuclear deal. Now, here the exceptionalism of the United States, its isolation, is dramatic and stark. There are actually many other cases, but this is the one I’d like to think about this evening. And in fact, U.S. isolation might soon increase. The Republican organization—I hesitate to say "party"—is dedicated to undermining the deal, in interesting ways, with the kind of unanimity that one doesn’t find in political parties, though it’s familiar in such former organizations as the old Communist Party—democratic centralism, everyone has to say the same thing. That’s one of many indications that the Republicans are no longer a political party in the normal sense, despite pretensions, commentary and so on.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, speaking Saturday at The New School in New York. When we come back, he addresses Iran, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the U.S. presidential elections, in a moment.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

Noam Chomsky: The United States, Not Iran, Poses Greatest Threat to World Peace

In a speech Saturday at The New School in New York, Noam Chomsky explained why he believes the U.S. poses the greatest threat to world peace. "[The United States] is a rogue state, indifferent to international law and conventions, entitled to resort to violence at will. … Take, for example, the Clinton doctrine—namely, the United States is free to resort to unilateral use of military power, even for such purposes as to ensure uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic resources—let alone security or alleged humanitarian concerns. And adherence to this doctrine is very well confirmed and practiced, as need hardly be discussed among people willing to look at the facts of current history." Chomsky also explained why he believes the U.S. and its closest allies, namely Saudi Arabia and Israel, are undermining prospects for peace in the Middle East. "When we say the international community opposes Iran’s policies or the international community does some other thing, that means the United States and anybody else who happens to be going along with it."

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We spend the hour with MIT professor, author, activist, political dissident, Noam Chomsky. Over the weekend, he spoke to a packed audience at The New School here in New York City.

NOAM CHOMSKY: The former Republican Party has now become a "radical insurgency" that’s abandoned parliamentary politics. I’m quoting two highly respected, very conservative political commentators, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. And in fact, they may succeed in increasing sanctions, and even secondary sanctions on other countries, and carry out other actions that could lead Iran to opt out of the deal with the United States—with the United States, that is. That, however, need not mean that the agreement is nullified. Contrary to the way it’s sometimes presented here, it’s not a U.S.-Iran agreement. It’s an agreement between Iran and what’s called P5+1, the five veto-holding members of the Security Council plus Germany. And the other participants might agree to proceed—Iran, as well. They would then join China and India, which have already been finding ways to evade the U.S. constraints on interactions with Iran. And in fact, if they do, they’ll join the large majority of the world’s population, the Non-Aligned Movement, which all along has vigorously supported Iran’s right to pursue its nuclear programs as a member of the NPT. But remember that they are not part of the international community. So when we say the international community opposes Iran’s policies or the international community does some other thing, that means the United States and anybody else who happens to be going along with it, so we can dismiss them. If others continue to honor the deal, which could happen, the United States will be isolated from the world, which is not an unfamiliar position.

That’s also the background for the other element of Obama’s—what’s called Obama’s legacy, his other main foreign policy achievement, the beginning of normalization of relations with Cuba. On Cuba, the United States has been almost totally isolated for decades. If you look, say, at the annual votes in the U.N. General Assembly on the U.S. embargo, they’re rarely reported, but the U.S. essentially votes alone. The last one Israel joined. But, of course, Israel violates the embargo; they just have to join, because have to join with the master. Occasionally, the Marshall Islands or Palau or someone else joins. And in the hemisphere, the United States has been totally isolated for years. The main hemispheric conferences have foundered because the United States will simply not join the rest of the hemisphere in the major issues that are discussed. Last one in Colombia, the two major issues were admitting Cuba into the hemisphere—U.S. and Canada refused, everyone else agreed—and the U.S. drug war, which is devastating Latin America, and they want to get out of it, but the U.S. and Canada don’t agree. Now that’s actually the background for Obama’s acceptance of steps towards normalization of relations with Cuba. Another hemispheric conference was coming up in Panama, and if the United States had not made that move, it probably would have been thrown out of the hemisphere, so therefore Obama made what’s called here a noble gesture, a courageous move to end Cuba’s isolation, although in reality it was U.S. isolation that was the motivating factor.

So if the United States ends up being almost universally isolated on Iran, that won’t be anything particularly new, and in fact there are quite a few other cases. Well, in the case of Iran, the reasons for U.S. concerns are very clearly and repeatedly articulated: Iran is the gravest threat to world peace. We hear that regularly from high places—government officials, commentators, others—in the United States. There also happens to be a world out there, and it has its own opinions. It’s quite easy to find these out from standard sources, like the main U.S. polling agency. Gallup polls takes regular polls of international opinion. And one of the questions it posed—it’s posed is: Which country do you think is the gravest threat to world peace? The answer is unequivocal: the United States by a huge margin. Way behind in second place is Pakistan—it’s inflated, surely, by the Indian vote—and then a couple of others. Iran is mentioned, but along with Israel and a few others, way down. That’s one of the things that it wouldn’t do to say, and in fact the results that are found by the leading U.S. polling agency didn’t make it through the portals of what we call the free press. But it doesn’t go away for that reason.

Well, given the reigning doctrine about the gravity of the Iranian threat, we can understand the virtually unanimous stand that the United States is entitled to react with military force—unilaterally, of course—if it claims to detect some Iranian departure from the terms of the agreement. So, again, picking an example virtually at random from the national press, consider the lead editorial last Sunday in The Washington Post. It calls on Congress—I’ll quote—to "make clear that Mr. Obama or his successor will have support for immediate U.S. military action if an Iranian attempt to build a bomb is detected"—meaning by the United States. So the editors, again, make it clear that the United States is exceptional. It’s a rogue state, indifferent to international law and conventions, entitled to resort to violence at will. But the editors can’t be faulted for that stand, because it’s almost universal among the political class in this exceptional nation, though what it means is, again, one of those things that it wouldn’t do to say.

Sometimes the doctrine takes quite a remarkable form, and not just on the right, by any means. So take, for example, the Clinton doctrine—namely, the United States is free to resort to unilateral use of military power, even for such purposes as to ensure uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic resources—let alone security or alleged humanitarian concerns. And adherence to this doctrine is very well confirmed and practiced, as need hardly be discussed among people willing to look at the facts of current history.

Well, The Washington Post editors also make clear why the United States should be prepared to take such extreme steps in its role of international primacy. If the United States is not prepared to resort to military force, they explain, then Iran may—I’m quoting—Iran may "escalate its attempt to establish hegemony over the Middle East by force." That’s what the president, President Obama, calls Iran’s aggression, which we have to contain. For those who are unaware of how Iran has been attempting to establish hegemony over the Middle East by force—or might even dream of doing so—the editors do give examples, two examples: its support for the Assad regime and for Hezbollah. Well, I won’t insult your intelligence by discussing this demonstration that Iran has been seeking to establish hegemony over the region by force; however, on Iranian aggression, there is an example—I think one in the last several hundred years—namely, Iranian conquest of two Arab islands in the Gulf under the U.S.-backed regime of the Shah in the 1970s.

Well, these shocking Iranian efforts to establish regional hegemony by force can be contrasted with the actions of U.S. allies—for example,NATO ally Turkey, which is actively supporting the jihadi forces in Syria. The support is so strong that it appears that Turkey helped its allies in the al-Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front, to kill and capture the few dozen fighters that were introduced into Syria by the Pentagon a few weeks ago. It’s the result of several years and who knows how many billions of dollars of training. They did enter and were immediately captured or killed, apparently with the aid of Turkish intelligence. Well, more important than that is the central role of the leading U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia, for the jihadi rebels in Syria and Iraq, and, more generally, for Saudi Arabia having been—I’m quoting—"a major source of financing to rebel and terrorist organizations since the 1980s." That’s from a study, recent study, by the European Parliament, repeating what’s well known. And still more generally, the missionary zeal with which Saudi Arabia promulgates its radical, extremist, Wahhabi-Safafi doctrines by establishing Qur’anic schools, mosques, sending radical clerics throughout the Muslim world, with enormous impact. One of the closest observers of the region, Patrick Cockburn, writes that the "Wahhabisation" by Saudi Arabia—"The 'Wahhabisation' of mainstream Sunni Islam is one of the most dangerous developments of our era"—always with strong U.S. support. These are all things that wouldn’t do to mention, along with the fact that these pernicious developments are a direct outgrowth of the long-term tendency of the United States, picking up from Britain before it, to support radical Islam in opposition to secular nationalism. These are long-standing commitments.

There are others, like U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, who condemn Iran’s destabilization of the region. Destabilization is an interesting concept of political discourse. So, for example, when Iran comes to the aid of the government of Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan in defense against the assault of ISIS, that’s destabilization, and we have to prevent it, if not aggression, perhaps. In contrast, when the United States invades Iraq and kills a couple hundred thousand people, generates millions of refugees, destroys the country and sets off a sectarian conflict that’s tearing Iraq and, by now, the whole region to shreds, and, on the side, increases terrorism worldwide by a factor of seven, just in the first year, that’s stabilization, part of our mission that we must continue for the benefit of the world. Actually, the exceptionalism of U.S. doctrinal institutions is quite wondrous to behold.

Well, going on with The Washington Post editors, they join Obama’s negotiator, Obama’s Clinton negotiator, Dennis Ross, Thomas Friedman, other notables, in calling on Washington to provide Israel with B-52 bombers, and perhaps even the more advanced B-2 bombers, and also huge, what are called massive ordnance penetrators—bunker busters, informally. There’s a problem: They don’t have airstrips for huge planes like that. But they can use maybe Turkey’s airstrips. And none of this is for defense. These are not defensive weapons, remember. All of these weapons are offensive weapons for Israel to use to bomb Iran, if it chooses to do so. And, you know, since Israel is a U.S. client, it inherits from the master the freedom from international law, so nothing surprising about giving it vast supplies of offensive weapons to use when it chooses.

Well, the violation of international law goes well beyond threat; goes to action, including acts of war, which are proudly proclaimed, presumably, because that’s our right—as an exceptional nation again. One example is the successful sabotage of Iranian nuclear installations by cyberwar. The Pentagon has views about cyberwar. The Pentagon regards cyberwar as an act of war, which justifies a military response. And a year ago, NATO affirmed the same position, determined that aggression through cyber-attacks can trigger the collective defense obligations of the NATO alliance, meaning if any country is attacked by cyberwar, the whole alliance can respond by military attacks. That means cyberwar attacks against us, not by us against them. And the significance of these stands is, again, something that wouldn’t do to mention. And you can check to see that that condition is well observed.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, speaking Saturday at The New School in New York. When we come back, Professor Chomsky continues on the issue of the Middle East, U.S.-Israel relations, presidential politics and Donald Trump. More in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: In our Democracy Now! special, we continue our full-hour broadcast with Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author, institute professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he’s taught for more than half a century. He’s author of more than a hundred books. As we bring you the remainder of his speech, "On Power and Ideology," which he delivered this weekend at The New School here in New York.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Perhaps the United States and Israel are justified in cowering in terror before Iran because of its extraordinary military power. And it’s possible to evaluate that concern. For example, you can turn to the authoritative analysis, detailed analysis, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the main source for such information, last April, which conducted and published a long study of the regional military balance. And they find—I’ll quote—"a conclusive case that the Arab Gulf states have ... an overwhelming advantage [over] Iran in both military spending and access to modern arms." That’s the Gulf Cooperation Council states; that’s Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates. They outspend Iran on arms by a factor of eight. It’s an imbalance that goes back decades. And their report observes further that "the Arab Gulf states have acquired and are acquiring some of the most advanced and effective weapons in the world [while] Iran has [been essentially] forced to live in the past, often relying on systems originally delivered at the time of the Shah," 40 years ago, which are essentially obsolete. And the imbalance is, of course, even greater with Israel, which, along with the most advanced U.S. weaponry and its role as a virtual offshore military base of the global superpower, has a huge stock of nuclear weapons.

There are, of course, other threats that justify serious concern and can’t be brushed aside. A nuclear weapon state might leak nuclear weapons to jihadis. No joke. In the case of Iran, the threat is minuscule. Not only are the Sunni jihadis the mortal [enemies] of Iran, but the ruling clerics, whatever one thinks of them, have shown no signs of clinical insanity, and they know that if there was even a hint that they were the source of a leaked weapon, they and all they possess would be instantly vaporized. That doesn’t mean that we can ignore the threat, however—not from Iran, where it doesn’t exist, but from U.S. ally Pakistan, where the threat is in fact very real. It’s discussed recently by two leading Pakistani nuclear scientists, Pervez Hoodbhoy and Zia Mian. In Britain’s leading journal of International Affairs, they 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 other words, the whole system is laced with jihadi elements, in large measure because of the—of what Patrick Cockburn described, the "Wahhabisation" of Sunni Islam from Saudi Arabia and with the strong support of the United States, ever since the Reagan administration. Well, in short, the problem is real enough, very real, in fact. It’s not being seriously addressed. It’s not even discussed. Rather, what we’re concerned about is fantasies, concocted for other reasons, about the current official enemy.

Opponents of the Iran nuclear deal maintain that Iran is intent on developing nuclear weapons. U.S. intelligence can discern no evidence for this, but there is no doubt at all that in the past they have, in fact, intended to do so. And we know this because it was clearly stated by the highest authorities in Iran. The highest authority of the Iranian state informed foreign journalists that Iran would develop nuclear weapons "certainly, and sooner than one thinks." The father of Iran’s nuclear energy program, former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, expressed his confidence that the leadership’s plan is "to build a nuclear bomb." And a CIA report also had, in their words, "no doubt" that Iran would develop nuclear weapons if neighboring countries do, as of course they have.

All of this was under the Shah, the "highest authority" just quoted. That is during the period when high U.S. officials—Cheney, Rumsfeld and Kissinger—were urging the Shah to proceed with nuclear programs, and they were also pressuring universities to accommodate these efforts. My own university was an example, MIT. Under government pressure, it made a deal with the Shah to admit Iranian students to the nuclear engineering department in return for grants from the Shah. This was done over the very strong objections of the student body, but with comparably strong faculty support. That’s a distinction that raises a number of interesting questions about academic institutions and how they function. The faculty or the students of a couple years ago would have a different institutional place. Opponents of the nuclear—in fact, some of these MIT students are now running the Iranian nuclear programs.

Opponents of the nuclear deal argue that it didn’t go far enough. You’ve heard a lot of that. And interestingly, some of the supporters of the deal agree, demanding that it go beyond what has been achieved and that the whole Middle East should rid itself of nuclear weapons and, in fact, weapons of mass destruction generally. Actually, I’m quoting Iran’s minister of foreign affairs, Javad Zarif. He is reiterating the call of the Non-Aligned Movement—most of the world—and the Arab states, for many years, to establish a weapons of mass destruction-free zone in the Middle East. Now that would be a very straightforward way to address whatever threat Iran is alleged to pose. But a lot more than that is at stake. This was discussed recently in the leading U.S. world arms control journal, Arms Control Today, by two leading figures in the international anti-nuclear movement, two scientists who are veterans of Pugwash and U.N. agencies. They observe that "The successful adoption in 1995 of the resolution on the establishment of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East was the main element of a package that permitted the ... extension of the [Non-Proliferation Treaty]." That’s the most important arms control treaty there is, and its continuation is conditioned on acceptance of moves towards establishing a weapons of mass destruction-free zone, a nuclear-free zone, in the Middle East.

Repeatedly, implementation of this plan has been blocked by the United States at the annual five-year review meetings of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, most recently by Obama in 2010 and again in 2015, a couple of months ago. The same two anti-nuclear specialists comment that in 2015 this effort was again blocked by the United States "on behalf of a state that is not party to the [Non-Proliferation Treaty] and is widely believed to be the only one in the region possessing nuclear weapons." That’s a polite and understated reference to Israel. Washington’s sabotage of the possibility, in defense of Israeli nuclear weapons, may well undermine the Non-Proliferation Treaty, as well as maintaining dangerous instability in the Middle East—always, of course, in the name of stability. This is, incidentally, not the only case when opportunities to end the alleged Iranian threat have been undermined by Washington—some quite interesting cases; no time, and I won’t go into them. But all of this raises quite interesting questions, which we should be asking, about what actually is at stake.

So, turning to that, what actually is the threat posed by Iran? Plainly, it’s not a military threat. That’s obvious. We can put aside the fevered pronouncements about Iranian aggression, support for terror, seeking hegemony over the region by force, or the still more outlandish notion that even if Iran had a bomb, it might use it, therefore suffering instant obliteration. The real threat has been clearly explained by U.S. intelligence in its reports to Congress on the global security situation. Of course, they deal with Iran. And they point out—I’m quoting U.S. intelligence—"Iran’s nuclear program and its willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a central part of its deterrent strategy." Right? It’s part of Iran’s deterrent strategy—no offensive policies, but they are trying to construct a deterrent. And that Iran has a serious interest in a deterrent strategy is not in doubt among serious analysts. It’s recognized, for example, by U.S. intelligence. So the influential analyst, CIA veteran Bruce Riedel, who’s by no means a dove, he writes that "If I was an Iranian national security planner, I would want nuclear weapons" as a deterrent. And the reasons are pretty obvious.

He also makes another crucial comment. He points out that Israel’s strategic room for maneuver in the region would be constrained by an Iranian nuclear deterrent. And it’s, of course, also true of the United States. "Room for maneuver" means resort to aggression and violence. And it’s—yes, it would be constrained by an Iranian deterrent. For the two rogue states that rampage freely in the region—the United States and Israel—any deterrent is, of course, unacceptable. And for those who are accustomed and take for granted their right to rule by force, that concern is easily escalated to what’s called an existential threat. The threat of deterrence is very severe, if you expect to resort to force unilaterally at will to achieve your goals, as the U.S. and, secondarily, Israel do commonly. And more recently, the second U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia, has been trying to get into the club, pretty incompetently, with its invasion of Bahrain to prevent mild reformist measures, and more recently its extensive bombing of Yemen, which is causing a huge humanitarian crisis. So for them, a deterrent is a problem, maybe even an existential threat.

That, I think, is the heart of the matter, even if it wouldn’t do to say or to think. And except for those who hope to fend off possible disaster and to move towards a more peaceful and just world, it’s necessary to keep to these injunctions. These are things that wouldn’t do to say, wouldn’t do to think—you don’t read about them, you don’t hear about them—but they are, I think, the heart of the issue. Thanks.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Noam Chomsky, speaking at The New School this weekend.

---

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.