Amy Goodman
In Part 1, Chomsky links the U.S. military industrial complex to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and it support of the Mubarak government.

In Part 2, Chomsky discusses the decades-long “campaign of hatred” in the Middle East against the United States for blocking democracy and progressive developments.

In Part 3, Chomsky discusses the impact of revelations from WikiLeaks on the uprising in Egypt and the consequences of U.S. support for radical Islamism.

In Part 4, Chomsky says U.S. fear of the Muslim Brotherhood is really a fear of democracy in the Middle East.

In Part 5, Chomsky examines the role of U.S. corporations in a “stable” Egypt in the Middle East.

And in the final part of his interview, in Part 6, Chomsky discusses what the Egyptian protests mean for people in the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, you were just talking about the significance of what’s happening in the Middle East, and you were bringing it back to President Dwight Eisenhower.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, in 1958, Eisenhower–this is in internal discussions, since declassified–Eisenhower expressed his concern for what he called the “campaign of hatred against us” in the Arab world, not by the governments, but by the people. Remember, 1958, this was a rather striking moment. Just two years before, Eisenhower had intervened forcefully to compel Israel, Britain and France to withdraw from their invasion of Egyptian territory. And you would have expected enormous enthusiasm and support for the United States at that moment, and there was, briefly, but it didn’t last, because policies returned to the norm. So when he was speaking two years later, there was, as he said, a “campaign of hatred against us.” And he was naturally concerned why. Well, the National Security Council, the highest planning body, had in fact just come out with a report on exactly this issue. They concluded that, yes, indeed, there’s a campaign of hatred. They said there’s a perception in the Arab world that the United States supports harsh and brutal dictators and blocks democracy and development, and does so because we’re interested in–we’re concerned to control their energy resources.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam, I wanted to go for a minute to that famous address of the general, of the Republican president, of the president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

PRESIDENT DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER: My fellow Americans, this evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Three-and-a-half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. The total–economic, political, even spiritual–is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

AMY GOODMAN: That was President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell address in 1961. Special thanks to Eugene Jarecki and his film Why We Fight, that brought it to us in the 21st century. Noam Chomsky, with us on the phone from his home near Boston, Noam, continue with the significance of what Eisenhower was saying and what the times were there and what they have to teach us today about this Middle East uprising.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, the military-industrial complex speech, the famous one, was after what I’ve just been talking about. That was as he was leaving office and a important speech, of course. Needless to say, the situation he described not only persists but indeed has amplified.

It should be mentioned that there’s another element to the military-industrial complex issue, which he didn’t bring up. At that time, in the 1950s, as he certainly knew, the Pentagon was funding what became–a lot of Pentagon funding was going into creating what became the next phase of the high-tech economy at that time: computers, micro-electronics, shortly after, the internet. Much of this developed through a Pentagon subsidy funding procurement, other mechanisms. So it was a kind of a cover for shifting–for a basic theme of contemporary economic development. That is, the public pays the costs and takes the risks, and eventual profit is privatized, in the case of computers and the internet, after decades. So that’s another aspect of the military-industrial complex which is worth keeping in mind.

But Eisenhower was speaking particularly about the military aspect, what’s called “defense,” though in fact it’s mostly aggression, intervention, subversion. It doesn’t defend the country; it harms it, most of the time. But that’s separate from the–not, of course, unrelated, but distinct from the Middle East problem. There, what Eisenhower and the National Security Council were describing is a persistent pattern. He was describing–they were describing it in 1950. And I’ll repeat the basic conclusion: the United States does support brutal and harsh dictatorships, blocks democracy and development; the goal is to maintain control over the incomparable energy resources of the region–incidentally, not to use them. The U.S.–one of the things that Eisenhower was doing at exactly the same time was pursuing a program to exhaust U.S. energy reserves, rather than using much cheaper Middle East energy, for the benefit of Texas oil producers. That’s a program that went on from the late ’50s for about 15 years. So, at the time, it was not a matter of importing oil from Saudi Arabia, but just ensuring the maintenance of control over the world’s major energy resources. And that, as the National Security Council concluded correctly, was leading to the campaign of hatred against us, the support for dictators, for repression, for violence and the blocking of democracy and development.

Now, that was the 1950s. And those words could be written today. You take a look at what’s happening in the Middle East today. There’s a campaign of hatred against the United States, in Tunisia against France, against Britain, for supporting brutal, harsh dictators, repressive, vicious, imposing poverty and suffering in the midst of great wealth, blocking democracy and development, and doing so because of the primary goal, which remains to maintain control over the energy resources of the region. What the National Security Council wrote in 1958 could be restated today in almost the same words.

Right after 9/11, the Wall Street Journal, to its credit, did a–ran a poll in the Muslim world, not of the general population, of the kind of people they are interested in, I think what they called the moneyed Muslims or some phrase like that–professionals, directors of multinational corporations, bankers, people deeply embedded in the whole U.S.-dominated neoliberal project there–so not what’s called anti-American. And it was an interesting poll. In fact, the results were very much like those that were described in 1958. There was tremendous–there wasn’t a campaign of hatred against the U.S. among these people, but there was tremendous antagonism to U.S. policies. And the reasons were pretty much the same: the U.S. is blocking democracy and development; it’s supporting dictators. By that time, there were salient issues that–some of which didn’t exist in 1958. For example, there was a tremendous opposition in these groups to the murderous sanctions in Iraq, which didn’t arouse much attention here, but they certainly did in the region. Hundreds of thousands of people were being killed. The civilian society was being destroyed. The dictator was being strengthened. And that did cause tremendous anger. And, of course, there was great anger about U.S. support for Israeli crimes, atrocities, illegal takeover of occupied territories and so on, settlement programs. Those were other issues, which also, to a limited extent, existed in ’58, but not like 2001.

So that–and in fact, right now, we have direct evidence about attitudes of the Arab population. I think I mentioned this on an earlier broadcast, strikingly not reported, but extremely significant. Now, last August, the Brookings Institute released a major poll of Arab opinion, done by prestigious and respected polling agencies, one of them. They do it regularly. And the results were extremely significant. They reveal that there is again, still, a campaign of hatred against the United States. When asked about threats to the region, the ones that were picked, near unanimously, were Israel and the United States–88 percent Israel, about 77 percent the United States, regarded as the threats to the region. Of course, they asked about Iran. Ten percent of the population thought Iran was a threat. In the list of respected personalities, Erdogan was first. I think there were about 10. Neither Obama or any other Western figure was even mentioned. Saddam Hussein had higher respect.

Now, this is quite striking, especially in the light of the WikiLeaks revelations. The most–the one that won the headlines and that was–led to great enthusiasm and euphoria was the revelation, whether accurate or not–we don’t know–but the claim, at least, by diplomats that the Arab dictators were supporting the U.S. in its confrontation with Iran. And, you know, enthusiastic headlines about how Arab states support–the Arabs support the United States. That’s very revealing. What the commentators and the diplomats were saying is the Arab dictators support us, even though the population is overwhelming opposed, everything’s fine, everything’s under control, it’s quiet, they’re passive, and the dictators support us, so what could be a problem? In fact, Arab opinion was so antagonistic to the United States in this–as revealed in this poll, that a majority of the Arab population, 57 percent, actually thought the region would be better off if Iran had nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, the conclusion here, and in England and the continent, was it’s all wonderful. The dictators support us. We can disregard the population, because they’re quiet. As long as they’re quiet, who cares? People don’t matter. Actually, there’s an analog of that internal to the United States. And it’s of course the same policy elsewhere in the world. All of that reveals a contempt for democracy and for public opinion which is really profound. And one has to listen with jaws dropping when Obama, in the clip you ran, talks about how, of course, governments depend on the people. Our policy is the exact opposite.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, I wanted to read to you what Robert Fisk has written from the streets of Cairo today. Robert Fisk, the well-known reporter from The Independent of London. He said, “One of the blights of history will now involve a U.S. president who held out his hand to the Islamic world and then clenched his fist when it fought a dictatorship and demanded democracy.” Noam Chomsky, your response?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, Fisk’s reporting, as usual, has been inspiring and phenomenal. And yeah, he’s exactly right. And it is the old pattern. As I say, it goes back 50 years right there in Egypt and the region, and it’s the same elsewhere. As long as the population is passive and obedient, it doesn’t matter if there’s a campaign of hatred against us. It doesn’t matter if they believe that our official enemy can perhaps save them from our attacks. In fact, nothing matters, as long as the dictators support us. That’s the view here.

We should remember there’s an analog here. I mean, it’s not the same, of course, but the population in the United States is angry, frustrated, full of fear and irrational hatreds. And the folks not far from you on Wall Street are just doing fine. They’re the ones who created the current crisis. They’re the ones who were called upon to deal with it. They’re coming out stronger and richer than ever. But everything’s fine, as long as the population is passive. If one-tenth of one percent of the population is gaining a preponderant amount of the wealth that’s produced, while for the rest there 30 years of stagnation, just fine, as long as everyone’s quiet. That’s the scenario that has been unfolding in the Middle East, as well, just as it did in Central America and other domains.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam, I wanted to ask you if you think the revelations from WikiLeaks,–right?–the U.S. diplomatic cables, before that, Iraq and Afghan war logs, this massive trove of documents that have been released, Julian Assange talking about the critical issue of transparency–have played a key role here. I mean, in terms of Tunisia, a young university graduate who ended up, because there were no jobs, just selling vegetables in a market, being harassed by police, immolates himself–that was the spark. But also, the documents that came out on Tunisia confirming the U.S. knowledge, while it supported the Tunisian regime, that it was wholly corrupt, and what this means from one country to another, Yemen, as well. Do you think there is a direct relationship?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, actually, the fact of the matter is that WikiLeaks are not really telling us anything dramatically new. They’re providing confirmation, often, of reasonable surmises. Tunisia was a very interesting case. So the ambassador did have a–one of the leaks comes from the ambassador, July 2009, and he describes Tunisia. He says it’s a police state with little freedom of expression or association, serious human rights problems, ruled by a dictator whose family is despised for their corruption, robbery of the population and so on. That’s the assessment of the ambassador. Not long after that, the U.S. singled out Tunisia for an extra shipment of military aid. Not just Tunisia, also two other Arab dictatorships–Egypt and Jordan–and of course Israel–it’s routine–and one other country, namely Colombia, the country with the worst human rights record in the western hemisphere for years and the leading recipient of U.S. military aid for years, two elements that correlate quite closely, it’s been shown.

Well, this tells you what the understanding was about Tunisia–namely, police state, a bitterly hated dictator and so on. But we send them more arms afterwards, because the population is quiet, so everything’s fine. Actually, there was a description by–a very succinct account of all of this by a former high Jordanian official who’s now director of Middle East research for the Carnegie Endowment, Marwan Muasher. He said, “This is the principle.” He said, “There is nothing wrong. Everything is under control.” Meaning, as long as the population is quiet, acquiescent–maybe fuming with rage, but doing nothing about it–everything’s fine, there’s nothing wrong, it’s all under control. That’s the operative principle.

AMY GOODMAN: He’s a former Jordanian diplomat.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Former Jordanian official, high official.

AMY GOODMAN: What about what’s happening now in Jordan, what you think is going to happen, and also in Saudi Arabia, how much it drives this and what you feel Obama needs to do and what you think he actually is doing?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, Jordan, the prime minister was just replaced. He was replaced with an ex-general who seems to be–is claimed to be moderately popular, at least not hated by the population. But essentially nothing changed. There are changes of the Jordanian cabinet frequently, and the basic system remains. Whether the population will accept that, whether the Muasher principle will work–nothing’s wrong, everything’s under control–that, we don’t know.

Saudi Arabia is an interesting case. Saudi Arabia–the king of Saudi Arabia has been, along with Israel, the strongest supporter, most outspoken supporter of Mubarak. And the Saudi Arabian case should remind us of something about the regular commentary on this issue. The standard line and commentary is that, of course, we love democracy, but for pragmatic reasons we must sometimes reluctantly oppose it, in this case because of the threat of radical Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood. Well, you know, there’s maybe some–whatever one thinks of that. Take a look at Saudi Arabia. That’s the leading center of radical Islamist ideology. That’s been the source of it for years. The United States has–it’s also the support of Islamic terror, the source for Islamic terror or the ideology that supports it. That’s the leading U.S. ally, and has been for a long, long time. The U.S. supported–U.S. relations, close relations, with Israel, incidentally, after the 1967 war, escalated because Israel had struck a serious blow against secular Arab nationalism, the real enemy, Nasser’s Egypt, and in defense of radical Islam, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and Egypt had been in a proxy war just before that, and there was a major conflict. And that’s quite typical.

Probably the most–going back to WikiLeaks, maybe the most significant revelation has to do with Pakistan. In Pakistan, the WikiLeaks cables show that the ambassador, Ambassador Patterson, is pretty much on top of what’s going on. There’s enormous–the phrase “campaign of hatred against the United States” is an understatement. The population is passionately anti-American, increasingly so, largely, as she points out, as a result of U.S. actions in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the pressure on the Pakistani military to invade the tribal zones, the drone attacks and so on. And she goes on to say that this may even lead to the–what is in fact the ultimate nightmare, that Pakistan’s enormous nuclear facilities, which incidentally are being increased faster than anywhere else in the world, that these–there might be leakage of fissile materials into the hands of the radical Islamists, who are growing in strength and gaining popular support as a result of–in part, as a result of actions that we’re taking.

Well, this goes back to–this didn’t happen overnight. The major factor behind this is the rule of the dictator Zia-ul-Haq back in the 1980s. He was the one who carried out radical Islamization of Pakistan, with Saudi funding. He set up these extremist madrassas. The young lawyers who were in the streets recently shouting their support for the assassin of the political figure who opposed the blasphemy laws, they’re a product of those madrassas. Who supported him? Ronald Reagan. He was Reagan’s favorite dictator in the region. Well, you know, events have consequences. You support radical Islamization, and there are consequences. But the talk about concern about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, whatever its reality, is a little bit ironic, when you observe that the U.S. and, I should say, Britain, as well, have traditionally supported radical Islam, in part, sometimes as a barrier to secular nationalism.

What’s the real concern is not Islam or radicalism; it’s independence. If the radical Islamists are independent, well, they’re an enemy. If secular nationalists are independent, they are an enemy. In Latin America, for decades, when the Catholic Church, elements of the Catholic Church, were becoming independent, the liberation theology movement, they were an enemy. We carried out a major war against the church. Independence is what’s intolerable, and pretty much for the reasons that the National Security Council described in the case of the Arab world 50 years ago.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, I wanted to read to you what two people are writing. One is Ethan Bronner in the New York Times, saying, “Despite [Mr.] Mubarak’s supportive relations with Israel, many Israelis on both the left and right are sympathetic [to] the Egyptians’ desire to rid themselves of his autocracy and build a democracy. But they fear what will follow if things move too quickly.” He quotes a top Israeli official saying, “We know this has to do with the desire for freedom, prosperity and opportunity, and we support people who don’t want to live under tyranny, but who will take advantage of what is happening in its wake?” The official goes on to say, “The prevailing sense here is that you need a certain stability followed by reform. Snap elections are likely to bring a very different outcome,” the official said.

And then there’s Richard Cohen, who’s writing in the Washington Post. And Richard Cohen writes–and let me see if I can find this clip. Richard Cohen writes that–let’s see if I can find it–”Things are about to go from bad to worse in the Middle East. An Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is nowhere in sight.”

Noam Chomsky, your response?

NOAM CHOMSKY: The comment of the Israeli official is standard boilerplate. Stalin could have said it. Yes, of course, the people want peace and freedom, democracy; we’re all in favor of that. But not now, please. Because we don’t like what the outcome will be. In fact, it’s worth bearing–in the case–it’s the same with Obama. It’s more or less the same comment. On the other hand, the Israeli officials have been vociferous and outspoken in support of Mubarak and denunciation of the popular movement and the demonstrations. Perhaps only Saudi Arabia has been so outspoken in this regard. And the reason is the same. They very much fear what democracy would bring in Egypt.

After all, they’ve just seen it in Palestine. There has been one free election in the Arab world, exactly one really free election–namely, in Palestine, January 2006, carefully monitored, recognized to be free, fair, open and so on. And right after the election, within days, the United States and Israel announced publicly and implemented policies of harsh attack against the Palestinian people to punish them for running a free election. Why? The wrong people won. Elections are just fine, if they come out the way we want them to.

So, if in, say, Poland under Russian rule, popular movements were calling for freedom, we cheer. On the other hand, if popular movements in Central America are trying to get rid of brutal dictatorships, we send–we arm the military and carry out massive terrorist wars to crush it. We will cheer Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia standing up against the enemy, and at the very same moment, elite forces, fresh from renewed training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, under command of the military, blow the brains out of six leading Latin American intellectuals, Jesuit priests, in El Salvador. That passes in silence. But those are the–that’s exactly the pattern that we see replicated over and over again.

And it’s even recognized by conservative scholarship. The leading studies of–scholarly studies of what’s called “democracy promotion” happen to be by a good, careful scholar, Thomas Carruthers, who’s a neo-Reaganite. He was in Reagan’s State Department working on programs of democracy promotion, and he thinks it’s a wonderful thing. But he concludes from his studies, ruefully, that the U.S. supports democracy, if and only if it accords with strategic and economic objectives. Now, he regards this as a paradox. And it is a paradox if you believe the rhetoric of leaders. He even says that all American leaders are somehow schizophrenic. But there’s a much simpler analysis: people with power want to retain and maximize their power. So, democracy is fine if it accords with that, and it’s unacceptable if it doesn’t.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam, there’s a sign, a big banner that people are holding in the square, in Tahrir, that says, “Yes, we can, too.”

NOAM CHOMSKY: Let’s what? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear.

AMY GOODMAN: The banner says, “Yes, we can, too.”

NOAM CHOMSKY: Oh, “Yes, we can, too.” Yeah. You know where they got that from. Well, except that they mean it. Whether they can or not, no one knows. I mean, the situation has–we should recognize, has ominous aspects. The dispatch of pro-Mubarak thugs to the square is dangerous and frightening. Mubarak, presumably with U.S. backing, feels that–clearly feels that he can reestablish control. They’ve opened the internet again. The army is sitting by. We don’t know what they’ll do. But they might very well use the conflicts in the streets, caused by the pro-Mubarak gangs that have been sent in, to say, “Well, we have to establish military control,” and they’ll be another form of the military dictatorships that have been, you know, the effective power in Egypt for a long time.

Another crucial is how long the demonstrators can sustain themselves, not only against terror and violence, but also just against economic crisis. Within a short time, maybe beginning already, there isn’t going to be bread, water. The economy is collapsing. They have shown absolutely incredible courage and determination, but, you know, there’s a limit to what human flesh can bear. So, amazing as all this is, there’s no guarantee of success.

If the United States, the population of the United States, Europe–if there is substantial vocal, outspoken support, that could make a difference. Now, remember the Muasher principle: as long as everyone’s quiet, everything’s under control, it’s all fine. But when they break those bonds, it’s not fine. You have to do something.

AMY GOODMAN: If you were president today, what would you do right now, president of the United States?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, if I were–if I had made it to the presidency, meaning with the kind of constituency and support that’s required to be a president in the United States, I’d probably do what Obama’s doing. But what ought to be done is what Erdogan is doing. Turkey is becoming the most significant country in the region, and it’s recognized. Erdogan is far and away the most popular figure. And they’ve taken a pretty constructive role on many issues. And in this case, he is the one leading public figure, leader, who has been frank, outspoken, clear, and says Mubarak must go now. Now is when we must have change. That’s the right stand. Nothing like that in Europe, and nothing like that here.

AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think of the role of the U.S. corporations? We spoke to Bill Hartung, who wrote this book, Prophets of Power, P-R-O-P-H-E-T-S, about Lockheed Martin. The overwhelming amount of money, the billions, that have gone to Egypt, haven’t really gone to Egypt; they’ve gone to U.S. weapons manufacturers, like General Dynamics, like Lockheed Martin, like Boeing, etc. In fact, Boeing owns Narus, which is the digital technology that’s involved with surveillance of the cell phone, of the internet system there, where they can find dissident voices for the Egyptian regime. And who knows what they will do with those voices, just among others? But these corporations that have made such a killing off the repression, where are they standing right now in terms of U.S. policy?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, they don’t issue press releases, so we have to speculate. But it’s pretty obvious that they have a major stake in the dictatorships, not just Egypt. So, for example, a couple of months ago, Obama announced the biggest military sale in history to Saudi Arabia, $60 billion worth of jet planes, helicopters, armored vehicles and so on and so forth. The pretext is that we have to defend Saudi Arabia against Iran. Remember that among the population, if anyone cares about them, 10 percent regard Iran as a threat, and a majority think the region would be better off if Iran had nuclear weapons. But we have to defend them against Iran by sending them military equipment, which would do them absolutely no good in any confrontation with Iran. But it does a lot of good for the American military-industrial complex that Eisenhower was referring to in that clip you ran a while back. So, yes, William Hartung was quite right about this.

In fact, a part of the reason why there is such strong support for Israel in the military lobby, in the military-industrial lobby in the United States, is that the massive arms transfers to Israel, which, whatever they’re called, end up essentially being gifts, they go from the U.S.–the pocket of the U.S. taxpayer into the pocket of military industry. But there’s also a secondary effect, which is well understood. They’re a kind of a teaser. When the U.S. sends, you know, the most advanced jet aircraft, F-35s, to Israel, then Saudi Arabia says, “Well, we want a hundred times as much second-rate equipment,” which is a huge bonanza for military industry, and it also recycles petrodollars, which is an important–a necessity for the U.S. economy. So these things are quite closely tied together.

And it’s not just military industry. Construction projects, development, telecommunications–in the case of Israel, high-tech industry. So, Intel Corporation, the major–the world’s major chip producer, has announced a new generation of chips, which they hope will be the next generation of chips, and they’re building their main factory in Israel. Just announced an expansion of it. The relations are very close and intimate all the way through–again, in the Arab world, certainly not among the people, but we have the Muasher principle. As long as they’re quiet, who cares? We can disregard them.

AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of Mubarak in the Israel-Palestine-Egypt axis? I mean, going back to 1979, if you could briefly remind people why he’s so important, as the media keeps saying he has meant peace and stability with Israel, he gives the U.S. access to their air space, he guarantees access to the Suez Canal. Talk about that and what the change would mean.

NOAM CHOMSKY: We should actually go back a little further. In 1971, President Sadat of Egypt offered Israel a full peace treaty in return for withdrawal from the Occupied Territories. He cared about the Sinai, not–but Israel considered it, rejected it. Henry Kissinger, national security adviser, supported the rejection. State Department then supported Sadat. And Israel–it was a fateful decision. That’s the point at which Israel quite explicitly chose expansion over security. They were then expanding into the Sinai, planning to build a city of a million people, Egyptian Sinai, settlements driving farmers out into the desert and so on. Well, that was the background for the 1973 war, which made it clear that Egypt can’t simply be dismissed. Then we move on to the negotiations which led, in 1979, to the U.S. and Israel pretty much accepting Sadat’s offer of 1971: withdrawal from the Sinai in return for a peace treaty. That’s called a great diplomatic triumph. In fact, it was a diplomatic catastrophe. The failure to accept it in 1971 led to a very dangerous war, suffering, brutality and so on. And finally, the U.S. and Israel essentially, more or less, accepted it.

Now, as soon as that settlement was made, 1979, Israeli strategic analysts–the main one was Avner Yaniv, but others, too–recognized right away that now that Egypt is excluded from the confrontation, Israel is free to use force in other areas. And indeed, it very soon after that attacked Lebanon, didn’t have to worry about an Egyptian deterrent. Now, that was gone, so we can attack Lebanon. And that was a brutal, vicious attack, killed 15,000, 20,000 people, led finally to the Sabra-Shatila massacre, destroyed lots of–most of southern Lebanon. And no defensive rationale. In fact, it wasn’t even pretended. It was an effort to–as it was said, it was a war for the West Bank. It was an effort to block embarrassing Palestinian negotiation, diplomatic offers, and move forward on integrating the Occupied Territories. Well, they were free to do that once the Egyptian deterrent was gone. And that continues. Egypt is the major Arab state, the biggest military force by far, and neutralizing Egypt does free Israel–and when I say Israel, I mean the United States and Israel, because they work in tandem–it frees them to carry out the crimes of the occupation, attacks on Lebanon–there have been five invasions already, there might be another one–and Egypt does not interfere.

Furthermore, Egypt cooperates in the crushing of Gaza. That terrible free election in January 2006 not only frightened the U.S. and Israel–they didn’t like the outcome, so turned instantly to punishing the Palestinians–but the same in Egypt. The victor in the election was Hamas, which is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. That was very much feared by the Egyptian dictatorship, because if they ever allowed anything like a free election, the Muslim Brotherhood would no doubt make out quite well, maybe not a majority, but it would be a substantial political force. And they don’t want that, so therefore they cooperate. Egypt, under Mubarak, cooperates with Israel in crushing [Gaza], built a huge fence on the Egyptian border, with U.S. engineering help, and it sort of monitors the flow of goods in and out of Gaza on the Egyptian side. It essentially completes the siege that the U.S. and Israel have imposed. Well, all of that could erode if there was a democratic movement that gained influence in Egypt, just as it did in Palestine.

I should mention that there’s one other semi-democratic election in the Arab world, regularly. Now, that’s in Lebanon. Lebanon is a complex story. It’s a confessional democracy, so the Shiite population, which is the largest of the sects, is significantly underrepresented under the confessional system. But nevertheless the elections are not just state elections under dictatorships. And they have outcomes, too, which are suppressed here. So, for example, in the last election, the majority, a popular majority, was the Hezbollah-led coalition. They were the popular majority in the last election. I think about 53 percent. Well, that’s not the way it was described here. If you read, say, Thomas Friedman, he wrote an ode about the election about–he was practically shedding tears of joy at free elections, in which Obama won over Ahmadinejad. Well, you know, what he meant is that in the representation under the confessional system, which seriously underrepresents the Shiite population, the pro-U.S. coalition won the most seats. That again reflects the standard contempt for democracy. All we care–we don’t care that the majority of the population went the other way, as long as they’re quiet and passive. And interestingly, Hezbollah quietly accepted the outcome, didn’t protest about it at the time. But since then, their power has increased, and now there’s a serious threat in Lebanon, which we should not overlook.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam, finally, as we wrap up, I’ve asked you a lot about what this means for the Middle East, this rolling revolution, from Tunisia to Egypt, what we’re seeing in Jordan, in Yemen and beyond. But what about what these mass protests mean for people in the United States?

NOAM CHOMSKY: I think they mean a lot, and I’ve been trying to hint about that. The doctrine that everything is fine as long as the population is quiet, that applies in the Middle East, applies in Central America, it applies in the United States. For the last 30 years, we have had state-corporate policies specifically designed–specifically designed, not accidentally–to enrich and empower a tiny sector of the population, one percent–in fact, one-tenth of one percent. That’s the basic source of the extreme inequality. Tax policies, rules of corporate governance, a whole mass of policies, have been very explicitly designed to achieve this end–deregulation and so on. Well, for most of the population, that’s meant pretty much stagnation over a long period. Now, people have been getting by, by sharply increasing the number of work hours, far beyond Europe, by debt, by asset inflation like the recent housing bubble. But those things can’t last.

And as soon as Obama came into office, he came in in the midst of the worst crisis since the Depression. In fact, Ben Bernanke, we know from recent testimony that was released, head of the Fed, said it was even worse than the banking crisis in 1929. So there was a real crisis. Who did he pick to patch up the crisis? The people who had created it, the Robert Rubin gang, Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, basically the people who were responsible for the policies that led to the crisis. And it’s not surprising. I mean, Obama’s primary constituency was financial institutions. They were the core of the funding for his campaign. They expect to be paid back. And they were. They were paid back by coming out richer and more powerful than they were before the crisis that they created.

Meanwhile, the population, much of the population, is literally in depression. If you look at the unemployment figures, among the top few percent, maybe 10, 20 percent, unemployment is not particularly high. In fact, it’s rather low. When you go down to the bottom of the income ladder, you know, the lower quintiles, unemployment is at Depression levels. In manufacturing industry, it is at Depression levels.

And it’s different from the Depression. In the Depression, which I’m old enough to remember, it was very severe. My own family was mostly unemployed working class. But there was a sense of hopefulness. Something is–we can do something. There’s CIO organizing. There’s sitdown strikes, that compelled New Deal measures, which were helpful and hopeful. And there was a sense that somehow we’ll get out of this, that we’re in it together, we can work together, we can get out of it. That’s not true now. Now there’s a general atmosphere of hopelessness, despair, anger and deep irrationality. That’s a very dangerous mix. Hatred of foreigners, you know, a mix of attitudes which is volatile and dangerous, quite different from the mood in the Depression.

But the same governing principle applies: as long as the population is–accepts what’s going on, is directing their anger against teachers, you know, firemen, policemen, pensions and so on, as long as they’re directing their anger there, and not against us, the rulers, everything’s under control, everything’s fine. Until it erupts. Well, it hasn’t erupted here yet, and if it does erupt, it might not be at a constructive direction, given the nature of what’s happening in the country now. But yes, those Egyptian lessons should be taken to heart. We can see clearly what people can do under conditions of serious duress and repression far beyond anything that we face, but they’re doing it. If we don’t do it, the outcome could be quite ugly.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Noam, author, Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT, and most recent book, Hopes and Prospects, has written more than a hundred books.

Noam Chomsky [ Enlarge ] About The Authors: Noam Chomsky, who has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1955, developed a theory of transformational (sometimes called generative or transformational-generative) grammar that revolutionized the scientific study of language. Chomsky is a prolific author whose principal linguistic works after Syntactic Structures include Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (1964), The Sound Pattern of English (with Morris Halle, 1968), Language and Mind (1972), Studies on Semantics in Generative Grammar (1972), and Knowledge of Language (1986). In addition, he has wide-ranging political interests. He was an early and outspoken critic of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and has written extensively on many political issues from a generally left-wing point of view. Among his political writings are American Power and the New Mandarins (1969), Peace in the Middle East? (1974), Some Concepts and Consequences of the Theory of Government and Binding (1982) [ this is actually a book on linguistics, not politics -- http://www.chomsky.info ], Manufacturing Consent (with E. S. Herman, 1988), Profit over People (1998), and Rogue States (2000). Chomsky’s controversial bestseller 9-11 (2002) is an analysis of the World Trade Center attack that, while denouncing the atrocity of the event, traces its origins to the actions and power of the United States, which he calls “a leading terrorist state.” [ FIND MORE INFO AT: http://www.chomsky.info/bios.htm ] —————————————————— Amy Goodman — is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 800 TV and radio stations in North America. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its “Pick of the Podcasts,” along with NBC’s Meet the Press.

Anyone Convinced that Depleted Uranium Is Safe Should Read This

What follows summarizes one article, already produced, and synopsizes another narrative, forthcoming in a few days. The rationale for giving folks a summary and a preview is twofold.

In the first place, these are extremely complicated issues, a full understanding of which inevitably involves digging pretty deeply into background, technical data, and divergent perspectives about the evidence and how to analyze it. Under such circumstance, many people prefer to know ‘the skinny’ or ‘executive summary’ and leave the heavy-lifting for nerds and policy wonks.

In the second place, even if someone shoulders the responsibility to plow through the intricacies of such problems, she might not have time right now. He might markedly prefer to receive a briefing, with appropriate coordinates to find the more complete account, so as to be able to have a sense of context going in, choosing the moment to try to take in the bigger picture, as it were.

In any case, here readers see a short queue. The first place tells of a piece posted a couple of weeks ago. The second stop proffers the essence of an upcoming installment.

A RECAP

In the initial article of this partnered pair, the narrative introduced the fiery clash that has occurred over the impacts of Depleted Uranium munitions. Given such deep-seated differences of opinion, a widespread, grassroots dialog and policy consideration might serve purposes both scientific and political. An increase in knowledge almost always attends such processes; popular decision-making is impossible without the necessary understanding and nexus of participation.

A contextualization of DU followed, in which the general historical omnipresence of class oppression and imperial-industrial growth arguably went hand-in-hand. What Jeremiah Wright called a ‘theology of liberation’ has acted as a counterpoise to this central tendency of domination by propertied elites.

Taking DU as a plausible expression of both ruling-class self-interest and imperial hegemony, last week’s text focused on a particular effort of the Manhattan Project’s S-I Uranium Committee. A subcommittee of that body, so vital to the success of the race for atomic weapons, examined with some care the question of creating lethal instruments from fission, creating ‘dirty bombs’ out of waste and by-products of the inherent work of trying to construct an atomic explosive.

The likely formulation of such deadly machines would have been as poison gas bombs of some sort. From this demonstrable fact, various opponents of contemporary DU weaponry have concluded that this ‘Groves-Memorandum’ acted as the inception of the United States’ pathway toward the present deployment of DU as a devastating component of bullets and cannon shells and bombs of various sizes.

Stentorian and frequent and derisive critique of these arguments has emanated from the ranks of Health Physics experts and from former members of the military who dismiss any contention of significant dangers flowing from DU weapons. Such disputants hammer on the otherwise accurate summation that nowhere in either the summary memo or the original report’s easily available text do the authors–Conant, Compton, and Urey–make any mention of Uranium.

Instead of engaging in a dialog about this interpretation, however, these voluble naysayers condemned the anti-DU proponents of this position as frauds and charlatans. In fact, quite the opposite is, reasonably, a much more legitimate conclusion.

The horrific toxicity of Uranium is well-established. The USG inclination to develop weapons of indiscriminate effect, putting poison by-products to ‘productive’ use, is incontrovertible. Mass murder repeatedly happened at the behest of the U.S. Government, through the technology of fission weapons and their aftermath. Moreover, the USG approached these matters as opportunities for human experiment.

As well, Leuren Moret, whose analysis led the way in linking DU with the Manhattan Project, offers testimony from Manhattan-Engineering District participants that scientists and bureaucrats involved with the S-1 subcommittee did in fact intend to include Uranium in the lethal stew that this small group was contemplating. In no obvious way do the supposed scholars so busily casting aspersions refute Moret’s directly pertinent rebuttal.

Thus, any wholesale rejection of the notion that 1940′s experts imagined the possibility of weaponizing Uranium is at best one plausible assertion. In fact, such a view goes against both analytical and evidentiary elements of this case.

However, rather than merely proposing that the DU decriers have clearly won this battle of wits, this humble correspondent proceeded to call for a Peoples Congress on this particular issue, and on the wider questions associated with the employment of DU ordnance and the insistence that a ‘renaissance’ of the Nuclear Fool Cycle is in the best interest, here or elsewhere, of citizens and soldiers and civilians. Without going into devilish details, THC does insist that such a community-led conversation may be the only way to achieve anything akin to justice or consensus on DU.

The present pages provide further background useful to the creation of such a forum. The nature of this explication is the articulation, development, and defense of a thesis that might account for the attendant facts of DU and the dogfights which it has engendered.

A BRIEF PREFACE

In the first portion of this duo, readers may easily have gained adequate background to begin to speak, ask questions about, and generally learn more regarding the origins of ‘atomic energy,’ which, of course, started out exclusively as a modality for creating ‘gadgets’ that killed tens of thousands in one fell swoop. The data and background that these articles and the many other resources about DU provide permit at least a general discussion of the nuclear genie to move forward.

The present narrative installment seeks to accomplish one basic task, which is to proffer a hypothesis as to why such a toxic metal, in the context of ongoing doubts and fears about its safety, would end up the default choice of the USG and its military branches. This premise is fairly easy to state. Something like the following would fit the bill necessary to develop the argument here.

‘The development of nuclear weaponry, and all the attendant events and processes related to them–such as the so-called Nuclear Fuel Cycle of the both weapons and power based on fission or fusion; such as the problem of atomic wastes and such opportunistic ‘solutions’ to that problem as the manufacture and use of DU ordnance; such as the policy choices to pursue a ‘Nuclear Renaissance;’ and so forth–not only emanate from and serve both the dominance of capitalism, but they also represent the primary, and some would say the only, focus or methodology that financial Plutocrats, who have come to predominate the entire system, will accept to resolve capitalism’s inherent and ever-recurring crises.‘

Readers should note that this leaves aside all judgments about the viability of these glowing, radioactive choices. It completely ignores the opinions, more or less informed, that the Fuel-Cycle is in fact a ‘Fool-Cycle’ that guarantees human mayhem, dissolution, and decline as the best possible outcome. Of course, such beliefs are typical of this humble correspondent and many wiser than he.

However, the point of the forthcoming investigation and analysis, which these paragraphs merely summarized, is to explore the rationality of the thesis. Does capital necessitate a nuclear highway? That would be the preliminary conclusion of THC, and the pages-to-come are the initial presentation of a proof about that.

This first pass, though, will not attempt a complete telling of the tale of the hypothesis-in-action, but instead will circumscribe the assessment by tending to revolve an examination of DU in the process. In part, this is the result of the alleged, and quite plausible, social damage that has accompanied the political and economic underpinnings of DU’s deployment. In part, the emphasis on DU follows from the way that this unfolding catastrophe–or, if one prefers, highly charged controversy–sheds so much light on how capital created this situation and how its manifestation illustrates the chief proposition itself.

The choice here, to make a radical excision in order to present an overview of multifaceted difficulties, may or may not end up making the other materials more digestible. But the idea seemed a worthy experiment, in the same sense that long reports and other texts often begin with such brief statements of the case.

Besides, my wife be me that this would be a good idea. I couldn’t resist the wager.

   By: Noam Chomsky [ Enlarge ]
The dire threat of Iran is widely recognized to be the most serious foreign policy crisis facing the Obama administration.

The term “stability” here has its usual technical meaning: firmly under US control.

In June 2010 Congress strengthened the sanctions against Iran, with even more severe penalties against foreign companies. The Obama administration has been rapidly expanding US offensive capacity in the African island of Diego Garcia, claimed by Britain, which had expelled the population so that the US could build the massive base it uses for attacks in the Central Command area. The Navy reports sending a submarine tender to the island to service nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines with Tomahawk missiles, which can carry nuclear warheads. Each submarine is reported to have the striking power of a typical carrier battle group. According to a US Navy cargo manifest obtained by the Sunday Herald (Glasgow), the substantial military equipment Obama has dispatched includes 387 “bunker busters” used for blasting hardened underground structures. Planning for these “massive ordnance penetrators,” the most powerful bombs in the arsenal short of nuclear weapons, was initiated in the Bush administration, but languished. On taking office, Obama immediately accelerated the plans, and they are to be deployed several years ahead of schedule, aiming specifically at Iran.

“They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran,” according to Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London. “US bombers and long range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours,” he said. “The firepower of US forces has quadrupled since 2003,” accelerating under Obama.

The Arab press reports that an American fleet (with an Israeli vessel) passed through the Suez Canal on the way to the Persian Gulf, where its task is “to implement the sanctions against Iran and supervise the ships going to and from Iran.” British and Israeli media report that Saudi Arabia is providing a corridor for Israeli bombing of Iran (denied by Saudi Arabia). On his return from Afghanistan to reassure NATO allies that the US will stay the course after the replacement of General McChrystal by his superior, General Petraeus, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen visited Israel to meet IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and senior military staff along with intelligence and planning units, continuing the annual strategic dialogue between Israel and the U.S. The meeting focused “on the preparation by both Israel and the U.S. for the possibility of a nuclear capable Iran,” according to Haaretz, which reports further that Mullen emphasized that “I always try to see challenges from Israeli perspective.” Mullen and Ashkenazi are in regular contact on a secure line.

The increasing threats of military action against Iran are of course in violation of the UN Charter, and in specific violation of Security Council resolution 1887 of September 2009 which reaffirmed the call to all states to resolve disputes related to nuclear issues peacefully, in accordance with the Charter, which bans the use or threat of force.

Some analysts who seem to be taken seriously describe the Iranian threat in apocalyptic terms. Amitai Etzioni warns that “The U.S. will have to confront Iran or give up the Middle East,” no less. If Iran’s nuclear program proceeds, he asserts, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other states will “move toward” the new Iranian “superpower.” To rephrase in less fevered rhetoric, a regional alliance might take shape independent of the US. In the US army journal Military Review, Etzioni urges a US attack that targets not only Iran’s nuclear facilities but also its non-nuclear military assets, including infrastructure — meaning, the civilian society. “This kind of military action is akin to sanctions – causing ‘pain’ in order to change behaviour, albeit by much more powerful means.”

Such inflammatory pronouncements aside, what exactly is the Iranian threat? An authoritative answer is provided by military and intelligence reports to Congress in April 2010 [Lieutenant General Ronald L. Burgess, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, Statement before the Committee on Armed Services, US Senate, 14 April 2010; Unclassified Report on Military Power of Iran, April 2010; John J. Kruzel, American Forces Press Service, "Report to Congress Outlines Iranian Threats," April 2010.

The brutal clerical regime is doubtless a threat to its own people, though it does not rank particularly high in that respect in comparison to US allies in the region. But that is not what concerns the military and intelligence assessments. Rather, they are concerned with the threat Iran poses to the region and the world.

The reports make it clear that the Iranian threat is not military. Iran's military spending is "relatively low compared to the rest of the region," and of course minuscule as compared to the US. Iranian military doctrine is strictly "defensive, ... designed to slow an invasion and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities." Iran has only "a limited capability to project force beyond its borders." With regard to the nuclear option, "Iran's nuclear program and its willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a central part of its deterrent strategy."

Though the Iranian threat is not military aggression, that does not mean that it might be tolerable to Washington. Iranian deterrent capacity is considered an illegitimate exercise of sovereignty that interferes with US global designs. Specifically, it threatens US control of Middle East energy resources, a high priority of planners since World War II. As one influential figure advised, expressing a common understanding, control of these resources yields "substantial control of the world" (A. A. Berle).

But Iran's threat goes beyond deterrence. It is also seeking to expand its influence. Iran's "current five-year plan seeks to expand bilateral, regional, and international relations, strengthen Iran's ties with friendly states, and enhance its defense and deterrent capabilities. Commensurate with that plan, Iran is seeking to increase its stature by countering U.S. influence and expanding ties with regional actors while advocating Islamic solidarity." In short, Iran is seeking to "destabilize" the region, in the technical sense of the term used by General Petraeus. US invasion and military occupation of Iran's neighbors is "stabilization." Iran's efforts to extend its influence in neighboring countries is "destabilization," hence plainly illegitimate. It should be noted that such revealing usage is routine. Thus the prominent foreign policy analyst James Chace, former editor of the main establishment journal Foreign Affairs, was properly using the term "stability" in its technical sense when he explained that in order to achieve "stability" in Chile it was necessary to "destabilize" the country (by overthrowing the elected Allende government and installing the Pinochet dictatorship).

Beyond these crimes, Iran is also carrying out and supporting terrorism, the reports continue. Its Revolutionary Guards "are behind some of the deadliest terrorist attacks of the past three decades," including attacks on US military facilities in the region and "many of the insurgent attacks on Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces in Iraq since 2003." Furthermore Iran backs Hezbollah and Hamas, the major political forces in Lebanon and in Palestine -- if elections matter. The Hezbollah-based coalition handily won the popular vote in Lebanon's latest (2009) election. Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian election, compelling the US and Israel to institute the harsh and brutal siege of Gaza to punish the miscreants for voting the wrong way in a free election. These have been the only relatively free elections in the Arab world. It is normal for elite opinion to fear the threat of democracy and to act to deter it, but this is a rather striking case, particularly alongside of strong US support for the regional dictatorships, emphasized by Obama with his strong praise for the brutal Egyptian dictator Mubarak on the way to his famous address to the Muslim world in Cairo.

The terrorist acts attributed to Hamas and Hezbollah pale in comparison to US-Israeli terrorism in the same region, but they are worth a look nevertheless.

On May 25 Lebanon celebrated its national holiday Liberation Day, commemorating Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon after 22 years, as a result of Hezbollah resistance -- described by Israeli authorities as "Iranian aggression" against Israel in Israeli-occupied Lebanon (Ephraim Sneh). That too is normal imperial usage. Thus President John F. Kennedy condemned the "the assault from the inside" in South Vietnam, "which is manipulated from the North." This criminal assault by the South Vietnamese resistance against Kennedy's bombers, chemical warfare, programs to drive peasants to virtual concentration camps, and other such benign measures was denounced as "internal aggression" by Kennedy's UN Ambassador, liberal hero Adlai Stevenson. North Vietnamese support for their countrymen in the US-occupied South is aggression, intolerable interference with Washington's righteous mission. Kennedy advisors Arthur Schlesinger and Theodore Sorenson, considered doves, also praised Washington's intervention to reverse "aggression" in South Vietnam -- by the indigenous resistance, as they knew, at least if they read US intelligence reports. In 1955 the US Joint Chiefs of Staff had defined several types of "aggression," including "Aggression other than armed, i.e., political warfare, or subversion." For example, an internal uprising against a US-imposed police state, or elections that come out the wrong way. The usage is also common in scholarship and political commentary, and makes sense on the prevailing assumption that We Own the World.

Hamas resists Israel's military occupation and its illegal and violent actions in the occupied territories. It is accused of refusing to recognize Israel (political parties do not recognize states). In contrast, the US and Israel not only do not recognize Palestine, but have been acting relentlessly and decisively for decades to ensure that it can never come into existence in any meaningful form. The governing party in Israel, in its 1999 campaign platform, bars the existence of any Palestinian state -- a step towards accommodation beyond the official positions of the US and Israel a decade earlier, which held that there cannot be "an additional Palestinian state" between Israel and Jordan, the latter a "Palestinian state" by US-Israeli fiat whatever its benighted inhabitants and government might believe.

Hamas is charged with rocketing Israeli settlements on the border, criminal acts no doubt, though a fraction of Israel's violence in Gaza, let alone elsewhere. It is important to bear in mind, in this connection, that the US and Israel know exactly how to terminate the terror that they deplore with such passion. Israel officially concedes that there were no Hamas rockets as long as Israel partially observed a truce with Hamas in 2008. Israel rejected Hamas's offer to renew the truce, preferring to launch the murderous and destructive Operation Cast Lead against Gaza in December 2008, with full US backing, an exploit of murderous aggression without the slightest credible pretext on either legal or moral grounds.

The model for democracy in the Muslim world, despite serious flaws, is Turkey, which has relatively free elections, and has also been subject to harsh criticism in the US. The most extreme case was when the government followed the position of 95% of the population and refused to join in the invasion of Iraq, eliciting harsh condemnation from Washington for its failure to comprehend how a democratic government should behave: under our concept of democracy, the voice of the Master determines policy, not the near-unanimous voice of the population.

The Obama administration was once again incensed when Turkey joined with Brazil in arranging a deal with Iran to restrict its enrichment of uranium. Obama had praised the initiative in a letter to Brazil's president Lula da Silva, apparently on the assumption that it would fail and provide a propaganda weapon against Iran. When it succeeded, the US was furious, and quickly undermined it by ramming through a Security Council resolution with new sanctions against Iran that were so meaningless that China cheerfully joined at once -- recognizing that at most the sanctions would impede Western interests in competing with China for Iran's resources. Once again, Washington acted forthrightly to ensure that others would not interfere with US control of the region.

Not surprisingly, Turkey (along with Brazil) voted against the US sanctions motion in the Security Council. The other regional member, Lebanon, abstained. These actions aroused further consternation in Washington. Philip Gordon, the Obama administration's top diplomat on European affairs, warned Turkey that its actions are not understood in the US and that it must "demonstrate its commitment to partnership with the West," AP reported, "a rare admonishment of a crucial NATO ally."

The political class understands as well. Steven A. Cook, a scholar with the Council on Foreign Relations, observed that the critical question now is "How do we keep the Turks in their lane?" -- following orders like good democrats. A New York Times headline captured the general mood: "Iran Deal Seen as Spot on Brazilian Leader's Legacy." In brief, do what we say, or else.

There is no indication that other countries in the region favor US sanctions any more than Turkey does. On Iran's opposite border, for example, Pakistan and Iran, meeting in Turkey, recently signed an agreement for a new pipeline. Even more worrisome for the US is that the pipeline might extend to India. The 2008 US treaty with India supporting its nuclear programs -- and indirectly its nuclear weapons programs -- was intended to stop India from joining the pipeline, according to Moeed Yusuf, a South Asia adviser to the United States Institute of Peace, expressing a common interpretation. India and Pakistan are two of the three nuclear powers that have refused to sign the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), the third being Israel. All have developed nuclear weapons with US support, and still do.

No sane person wants Iran to develop nuclear weapons; or anyone. One obvious way to mitigate or eliminate this threat is to establish a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East. The issue arose (again) at the NPT conference at United Nations headquarters in early May 2010. Egypt, as chair of the 118 nations of the Non-Aligned Movement, proposed that the conference back a plan calling for the start of negotiations in 2011 on a Middle East NWFZ, as had been agreed by the West, including the US, at the 1995 review conference on the NPT.

Washington still formally agrees, but insists that Israel be exempted -- and has given no hint of allowing such provisions to apply to itself. The time is not yet ripe for creating the zone, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated at the NPT conference, while Washington insisted that no proposal can be accepted that calls for Israel's nuclear program to be placed under the auspices of the IAEA or that calls on signers of the NPT, specifically Washington, to release information about "Israeli nuclear facilities and activities, including information pertaining to previous nuclear transfers to Israel." Obama's technique of evasion is to adopt Israel's position that any such proposal must be conditional on a comprehensive peace settlement, which the US can delay indefinitely, as it has been doing for 35 years, with rare and temporary exceptions.

At the same time, Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, asked foreign ministers of its 151 member states to share views on how to implement a resolution demanding that Israel "accede to" the NPT and throw its nuclear facilities open to IAEA oversight, AP reported.

It is rarely noted that the US and UK have a special responsibility to work to establish a Middle East NWFZ. In attempting to provide a thin legal cover for their invasion of the Iraq in 2003, they appealed to Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), which called on Iraq to terminate its development of weapons of mass destruction. The US and UK claimed that they had not done so. We need not tarry on the excuse, but that Resolution commits its signers to move to establish a NWFZ in the Middle East.

Parenthetically, we may add that US insistence on maintaining nuclear facilities in Diego Garcia undermines the NWFZ established by the African Union, just as Washington continues to block a Pacific NWFZ by excluding its Pacific dependencies.

Obama's rhetorical commitment to non-proliferation has received much praise, even a Nobel peace prize. One practical step in this direction is establishment of NWFZs. Another is to withdraw support for the nuclear programs of the three non-signers of the NPT. As often, rhetoric and actions are hardly aligned, in fact are in direct contradiction in this case, facts that pass with as little attention as most of what has just been briefly reviewed.

Instead of taking practical steps towards reducing the truly dire threat of nuclear weapons proliferation, the US is taking major steps towards reinforcing US control of the vital Middle East oil-producing regions, by violence if other means do not suffice. That is understandable and even reasonable, under prevailing imperial doctrine, however grim the consequences, yet another illustration of "the savage injustice of the Europeans" that Adam Smith deplored in 1776, with the command center since shifted to their imperial settlement across the seas.

NOTES: The Need For Diplomacy With Iran

U.S. and Russia Aim For A Nuclear Free World | Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Background Info: The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks refers to two rounds of bilateral talks and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union-the Cold War superpowers–on the issue of armament control. There were two rounds of talks and agreements: SALT I and SALT II. A subsequent treaty was START.

The first ever negotiations started in Helsinki, Finland, in 1970. They were held during Apollo 12′s flight – four months after astronauts from Apollo 11 had returned safely home. Primarily Focused on limiting the two countries’ stocks of nuclear weapons, the treaties then led to START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty). START I (a 1991 agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union) and START II (a 1993 agreement between the United States and Russia) which placed specific caps on each side’s number of nuclear weapons. [ READ MORE ]

START for (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. The treaty was signed on 31 July 1991 and entered into force on 5 December 1994. The treaty was signed by the United States and the USSR, that barred its signatories from deploying more than 6,000 nuclear warheads atop a total of 1,600 ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and bombers. START negotiated the largest and most complex arms control treaty in history, and its final implementation in late 2001 resulted in the removal of about 80 percent of all strategic nuclear weapons then in existence. Proposed by United States President Ronald Reagan, it was renamed START I after negotiations began on the second START treaty, which became START II.

The START I treaty expired 5 December 2009. On 8 April 2010, the new START treaty was signed in Prague by U.S. President Obama and Russian President Medvedev. It will enter into force after its ratification through the parliaments of both countries. [ READ MORE ]

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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The need for real diplomacy with Iran

By JustForeignPolicy.org

Notes: