[A-List] ZNet Update -- news and Chomsky on Iraq plan...

[Bunga Mawar Merah <bunga_mawar_merah@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
> A Modest Proposal
> The NY Times Internationally Syndicated Version
>
> By Noam Chomsky
>
> The dedicated efforts of the Bush administration to
> take control of Iraq
> -- by war, military coup or some other means -- have
> elicited various
> analyses of the guiding motives.
>
> Offering one interpretation, Anatol Lieven, senior
> associate of the
> Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in
> Washington, D.C.,
> observes that the Bush efforts conform to "the
> classic modern strategy
> of an endangered right-wing oligarchy, which is to
> divert mass
> discontent into nationalism" through fear of
> external enemies.
>
> The administration's goal, Lieven says, is
> "unilateral world domination
> through absolute military superiority," which is why
> much of the world
> is so frightened.
>
> The administration has overlooked a simple
> alternative to invading Iraq,
> however. Let Iran do it. Before elaborating on this
> modest proposal,
> it's worthwhile to examine the antecedents of
> Washington's bellicosity.
>
> Ever since the Sept. 11 attacks, Republicans have
> used the terrorist
> threat as a pretext to push a right-wing political
> agenda. For the
> congressional elections, the strategy has diverted
> attention from the
> economy to war. When the presidential campaign
> begins, Republicans
> surely do not want people to be asking questions
> about their pensions,
> jobs, health care and other matters.
>
> Rather, they should be praising their heroic leader
> for rescuing them
> from imminent destruction by a foe of colossal
> power, and marching on to
> confront the next powerful force bent on our
> destruction.
>
> The Sept. 11 atrocities provided an opportunity and
> pretext to implement
> long-standing plans to take control of Iraq's
> immense oil wealth, a
> central component of the Persian Gulf resources that
> the State
> Department, in 1945, described as a "stupendous
> source of strategic
> power, and one of the greatest material prizes in
> world history."
> Control of energy sources fuels U.S. economic and
> military might, and
> "strategic power" translates to a lever of world
> control.
>
> A different interpretation is that the
> administration believes exactly
> what it says: Iraq has suddenly become a threat to
> our very existence
> and to its neighbors.
>
> So we must ensure that Iraq's weapons of mass
> destruction and the means
> for producing them are destroyed, and Saddam
> Hussein, the monster
> himself, eliminated. And quickly. The war must be
> waged this winter.
> Next winter will be too late. By then the mushroom
> cloud that National
> Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice predicts may have
> already consumed us.
>
> Let us assume that this interpretation is correct.
> If the powers in the
> Middle East fear Washington more than Saddam, as
> they apparently do,
> that just reveals their limited grasp of reality.
>
> It is only an accident that by next winter the U.S.
> presidential
> campaign will be under way. How then can we achieve
> the announced goals?
>
> One simple plan seems to have been ignored, perhaps
> because it would be
> regarded as insane, and rightly so. But it is
> instructive to ask why.
>
> The modest proposal is for the United States to
> encourage Iran to invade
> Iraq, providing the Iranians with the necessary
> logistical and military
> support, from a safe distance (missiles, bombs,
> bases, etc.).
>
> As a proxy, one pole of "the axis of evil" would
> take on another.
>
> The proposal has many advantages over the
> alternatives.
>
> First, Saddam will be overthrown -- in fact, torn to
> shreds along with
> anyone close to him. His weapons of mass destruction
> will also be
> destroyed, along with the means to produce them.
>
> Second, there will be no American casualties. True,
> many Iraqis and
> Iranians will die. But that can hardly be a concern.
> The Bush circles --
> many of them recycled Reaganites -- strongly
> supported Saddam after he
> attacked Iran in 1980, quite oblivious to the
> enormous human cost,
> either then or under the subsequent sanctions
> regime.
>
> Saddam is likely to use chemical weapons. But the
> current leadership
> firmly backed the "Beast of Baghdad" when he used
> chemical weapons
> against Iran in the Reagan years, and when he used
> gas against "his own
> people": Kurds, who were his own people in the sense
> that Cherokees were
> Andrew Jackson's people.
>
> The current Washington planners continued to support
> the Beast after he
> had committed by far his worst crimes, even
> providing him with means to
> develop weapons of mass destruction, nuclear and
> biological, right up to
> the invasion of Kuwait.
>
> Bush No. 1 and Cheney also effectively authorized
> Saddam's slaughter of
> Shi'ites in March 1991, in the interests of
> "stability," as was soberly
> explained at the time. They withdrew their support
> for his attack on the
> Kurds only under great international and domestic
> pressure.
>
> Third, the U.N. will be no problem. It will be
> unnecessary to explain to
> the world that the U.N. is relevant when it follows
> U.S. orders,
> otherwise not.
>
> Fourth, Iran surely has far better credentials for
> war-making, and for
> running a post-Saddam Iraq, than Washington. Unlike
> the Bush
> administration, Iran has no record of support for
> the murderous Saddam
> and his program of weapons of mass destruction.
>
> One might object, correctly, that we cannot trust
> the Iranian
> leadership, but surely that is even more true of
> those who continued to
> aid Saddam well after his worst crimes.
>
> Furthermore, we will be spared the embarrassment of
> professing blind
> faith in our leaders in the manner that we justly
> ridicule in
> totalitarian states.
>
> Fifth, the liberation will be greeted with
> enthusiasm by much of the
> population, far more so than if Americans invade.
> People will cheer on
> the streets of Basra and Karbala, and we can join
> Iranian journalists in
> hailing the nobility and just cause of the
> liberators.
>
> Sixth, Iran can move toward instituting "democracy."
> The majority CK of
> the population is Shi'ite, and Iran would have fewer
> problems than the
> U.S. in granting them some say in a successor
> government.
>
> There will be no problem in gaining access to Iraqi
> oil, just as U.S.
> companies could easily exploit Iranian energy
> resources right now, if
> Washington would permit it.
>
> Granted, the modest proposal that Iran liberate Iraq
> is insane. Its only
> merit is that it is far more reasonable than the
> plans now being
> implemented -- or it would be, if the
> administration's professed goals
> had any relation to the real ones.
>
>
>
> The above has already appeared internationally via
> the NY TIMES
> Syndicate. An early response follows...
>
> ------
>
> Chomsky's "A Modest Proposal" Causes Head-scratching
> among Policy
> Planners
>
> Lyle Jenkins
>
> Alternative Press (AP) - 12/02/02
>
> Planning for the war in Iraq was thrown topsy-turvy
> today, as planners
> feverishly studied a new plan put forward by former
> Bush administration
> critic, Noam Chomsky.
>
> Chomsky, the latest convert to the doctrine of Pax
> Americana, dropped a
> bombshell into the laps of war planners today, in a
> brief paper on
> strategic planning entitled "A Modest Proposal." The
> proposal calls for
> the U.S. to "encourage Iran to invade Iraq," with
> the U.S. providing
> logistic support and weapons.
>
> William Kristol, of the American Enterprise
> Institute, hailed Chomsky's
> paper. "I think that Chomsky now realizes that
> shibboleths like 'do unto
> others as you would have done unto you,' laudable as
> they may have been
> in a biblical economy, are hopelessly outdated in
> our new global
> economy." Asked to elaborate, Kristol pointed to
> studies ongoing at the
> American Enterprise Institute that show that the "do
> unto others" policy
> is fiscally irresponsible. E.g., Vice President Dick
> Cheney received a
> 20 million dollar golden parachute along with 6
> million dollars in stock
> options for his five years of work in the oil
> industry. "Macroeconomic
> calculations show that it would be unfeasible to
> share the oil wealth in
> the Mideast to improve living standards there. There
> simply aren't
> enough stock options to go around," Kristol noted.
>
> Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and
> International
> Studies, commented on the military implications of
> "A Modest Proposal."
> "A welcome side-effect of Chomsky's proposal,"
> Cordesman said, "is that
> it will help us to avoid an unpopular draft in this
> country, so that we
> don't risk life and limb of young red-blooded
> Americans." Cordesman
> added that it would also spur U.S. arms sales to
> Iran, which have
> languished ever since the missiles-for-hostages
> scandal.
>
> Christopher Hitchens, formerly of the Nation, noted:
> "Chomsky's proposal
> has the added advantage of not only canceling our
> moral debt to Iraq,
> but also our moral debt to Iran for overthrowing
> their democracy and
> installing the murderous regime of the Shah" [1].
>
> Thomas Friedman of the New York Times cautiously
> lauded Chomsky's
> hard-headed proposal. "The plan to partition Iran
> afterwards sounds
> intriguing," said Friedman, "but without knowing
> more about Israel's
> role in the administration of post-partition Iran,
> skepticism is in
> order."
>
> Most enthusiastic about the Chomsky plan was
> Israel's Prime Minister
> Ariel Sharon, who had proposed attacking Iran
> immediately after
> attacking Iraq in an interview for the London Times
> Online [2]. Sharon
> also pledged to liberate South Africa next from the
> "Negro terrorist"
> Nelson Mandela and to resurrect apartheid and
> restart exports of Israeli
> atomic bomb technology to white supremacists there
> [3].
>
> Asked if the President had seen Chomsky's proposal,
> Ari Fleischer,
> Bush's press secretary, said that although the
> President had not
> actually read the paper, he did release the
> following statement: "My
> feeling is that Chomsky's plan probably suffers from
> the same flawed
> idealism of similar humanitarian plans in the past,
> such as the
> ill-conceived effort in 1729 to aid the children of
> poor people in
> Ireland, now in the dustbin of history [4].
>
>  -----------
>
> [1] On canceling "the moral debt" to Iraq by
> removing Saddam, see
> Chistopher Hitchens, "So Long, Fellow Travelers,"
> Washington Post, Oct.
> 20, 2002.
>
> [2] On Sharon's proposal to attack Iran, see Stephen
> Farrell, Robert
> Thomson and Danielle Haas, "Attack Iran the day Iraq
> war ends, demands
> Israel," London Times Online, Nov. 5, 2002,
>
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-469972,00.html>http://www.tim
> esonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-469972,00.html.
>
> [3] On Israel's support of apartheid in South Africa
> and Sharon's role,
> see A. and L. Cockburn, Dangerous Liaison,
> HarperCollins: New York,
> 1991.
>
> [4] On the proposal to aid "the children of poor
> people in Ireland," see
> Jonathan Swift, "A Modest Proposal for preventing
> the children of poor
> people in Ireland from being a burden on their
> parents or country, and
> for making them beneficial to the publick," 1729,
> <http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html>
> http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html.
>
>  Lyle Jenkins, correspondent to the Alternative
> Press (AP)

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