Noam Chomsky on Obama’s Foreign Policy,
His Own History of Activism,
and the Importance of Speaking Out

From Democracy Now:

NOAM CHOMSKY: And the threat of force is not just idle. So, for example, Israel is sending its nuclear submarines into the Gulf, firing distance—they’re undetectable, basically—into areas where they could fire nuclear missiles—of course, Israel has plenty of nuclear weapons—fire them at Iran. The US and others are—its allies are carrying out field operations, you know, the exercises, plainly aimed at Iran. And there’s a little hitch, because Turkey is refusing to go along, but that’s what they’ve been trying to do. So there are regular threats, verbal and in policy. Israel actually is sending the nuclear submarines and other warships through the Suez Canal, with the tacit agreement of Egypt, the Egyptian dictatorship, another US client in the region. Well, those are all threats—constant, verbal, actual.

And the threats do have the effect of inducing Iran to develop a deterrent. Whether they’re doing it or not, I don’t know. Maybe they are. But if they are, the reason, as I think almost all serious analysts would agree, is not because they intend to use nuclear weapons and missiles with nuclear weapons. If they even loaded a missile was nuclear weapons, assuming they had them, the country would be vaporized in five minutes. And nobody believes that the ruling clerics, whatever one thinks about them, have a kind of a death wish and want to see the entire country and society and everything they own destroyed. In fact, US intelligence figures pretty high, who have talked about it, estimate the possibility of Iran ever actually using a nuclear weapon is maybe one percent, you know, so low that you can’t estimate it. But it’s possible that they develop them as a deterrent.

One of Israel’s leading military historians, Martin van Creveld, a couple of years ago, after the invasion of Iraq, wrote in the international press that of course he doesn’t want to see Iran have nuclear weapons, he said, but if they’re not developing them, they’re crazy. The US had just invaded Iraq, knowing that it was totally defenseless. It was part of the reason why they felt free to invade. Everybody can understand that. The Iranian leaders could certainly understand it. So, therefore, to quote van Creveld again, “if they’re not developing a nuclear deterrent, they’re crazy.”

Click here to watch, read, or listen to the rest.

So here in the US, the discourse about Iran is something along the lines of, "They're crazy Muslims, and the worst possible thing that could happen is their getting nuclear weapons; we just can't let it happen, just can't let it happen!" Rarely mentioned is Israel's formidable nuclear arsenal, and when it is mentioned, it is never observed that these missiles are literally aimed at Iran, never associated with Iran's desire to arm itself. Also rarely mentioned is the US invasion of Iraq, right next door to Iran, on obviously false pretenses, as a motivation for Iran's nuclear weapons program. Indeed, from an Iranian perspective, their leaders should be thrown out of office if they don't pursue a nuclear option. Iran isn't crazy; they're simply in pursuit of very rational self-interest.

Actually, what's crazy is American discussion on the Middle East. Frankly, I just didn't understand it until I started reading Chomsky. And that's his great strength as a dissident writer. He reports what's downplayed by the establishment, and, with simple logic and indefatigable documentation, shreds the conventional wisdom.

Indeed, much of my writing here at Real Art, and the way I think about things more generally, owe a lot to Chomsky. If I had to quickly describe his style of analysis, I'd reference Hans Christian Anderson's short story "The Emperor's New Clothes." Chomsky is the kid willing to point out the obvious, in spite of what everyone else thinks, that the Emperor's new suit not only isn't invisible, but rather, it doesn't even exist. Of course, this has earned him a great deal of scorn and derision in the mainstream. That is, when the mainstream pays any attention to him at all. His arguments, in their simplicity, are extraordinarily solid, really difficult to attack without first admitting a great many inconvenient truths. It's easier simply to ignore him, which is what establishment voices and thinkers usually do.

At any rate, go check out the interview and pay close attention to how he approaches the issues. It's not really so much that it's true because Chomsky says it's true: it's how he sidesteps the myths and propaganda, what we're supposed to think about the way the world works, and proceeds to examine the way things actually are.

Everyone, the whole world even, would be much better off if we all learned a thing or two about how Chomsky analyzes issues. You, too.

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