[A-List] What If Iran Had Invaded Mexico?

[Bill Totten <shimogamo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Putting the Iran crisis in context

by Noam Chomsky

MotherJones.com (April 05 2007)

This article originally appeared on TomDispatch.com.


Unsurprisingly, George W Bush's announcement of a "surge" in Iraq came despite
the firm opposition to any such move of Americans and the even stronger
opposition of the (thoroughly irrelevant) Iraqis. It was accompanied by ominous
official leaks and statements - from Washington and Baghdad - about how Iranian
intervention in Iraq was aimed at disrupting our mission to gain victory, an aim
which is (by definition) noble. What then followed was a solemn debate about
whether serial numbers on advanced roadside bombs (IEDs) were really traceable
to Iran; and, if so, to that country's Revolutionary Guards or to some even
higher authority.

This "debate" is a typical illustration of a primary principle of sophisticated
propaganda. In crude and brutal societies, the Party Line is publicly proclaimed
and must be obeyed - or else. What you actually believe is your own business and
of far less concern. In societies where the state has lost the capacity to
control by force, the Party Line is simply presupposed; then, vigorous debate is
encouraged within the limits imposed by unstated doctrinal orthodoxy. The cruder
of the two systems leads, naturally enough, to disbelief; the sophisticated
variant gives an impression of openness and freedom, and so far more effectively
serves to instill the Party Line. It becomes beyond question, beyond thought
itself, like the air we breathe.

The debate over Iranian interference in Iraq proceeds without ridicule on the
assumption that the United States owns the world. We did not, for example,
engage in a similar debate in the 1980s about whether the US was interfering in
Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, and I doubt that Pravda, probably recognizing the
absurdity of the situation, sank to outrage about that fact (which American
officials and our media, in any case, made no effort to conceal). Perhaps the
official Nazi press also featured solemn debates about whether the Allies were
interfering in sovereign Vichy France, though if so, sane people would then have
collapsed in ridicule.

In this case, however, even ridicule - notably absent - would not suffice,
because the charges against Iran are part of a drumbeat of pronouncements meant
to mobilize support for escalation in Iraq and for an attack on Iran, the
"source of the problem". The world is aghast at the possibility. Even in
neighboring Sunni states, no friends of Iran, majorities, when asked, favor a
nuclear-armed Iran over any military action against that country. From what
limited information we have, it appears that significant parts of the US
military and intelligence communities are opposed to such an attack, along with
almost the entire world, even more so than when the Bush administration and Tony
Blair's Britain invaded Iraq, defying enormous popular opposition worldwide.


"The Iran Effect"

The results of an attack on Iran could be horrendous. After all, according to a
recent study of "the Iraq effect" by terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul
Cruickshank, using government and Rand Corporation data, the Iraq invasion has
already led to a seven-fold increase in terror. The "Iran effect" would probably
be far more severe and long-lasting. British military historian Corelli Barnett
speaks for many when he warns that "an attack on Iran would effectively launch
World War III".

What are the plans of the increasingly desperate clique that narrowly holds
political power in the US? We cannot know. Such state planning is, of course,
kept secret in the interests of "security". Review of the declassified record
reveals that there is considerable merit in that claim - though only if we
understand "security" to mean the security of the Bush administration against
their domestic enemy, the population in whose name they act.

Even if the White House clique is not planning war, naval deployments, 
support for secessionist movements and acts of terror within Iran, and other
provocations could easily lead to an accidental war. Congressional resolutions
would not provide much of a barrier. They invariably permit "national security"
exemptions, opening holes wide enough for the several aircraft-carrier battle
groups soon to be in the Persian Gulf to pass through - as long as an
unscrupulous leadership issues proclamations of doom (as Condoleezza Rice 
did with those "mushroom clouds" over American cities back in 2002). And the
concocting of the sorts of incidents that "justify" such attacks is a familiar
practice. Even the worst monsters feel the need for such justification and adopt
the device: Hitler's defense of innocent Germany from the "wild terror" of the
Poles in 1939, after they had rejected his wise and generous proposals for peace,
is but one example.

The most effective barrier to a White House decision to launch a war is the 
kind of organized popular opposition that frightened the political-military
leadership enough in 1968 that they were reluctant to send more troops to
Vietnam - fearing, we learned from the Pentagon Papers, that they might need
them for civil-disorder control.

Doubtless Iran's government merits harsh condemnation, including for its recent
actions that have inflamed the crisis. It is, however, useful to ask how we
would act if Iran had invaded and occupied Canada and Mexico and was arresting
US government representatives there on the grounds that they were resisting the
Iranian occupation (called "liberation", of course). Imagine as well that Iran
was deploying massive naval forces in the Caribbean and issuing credible threats
to launch a wave of attacks against a vast range of sites - nuclear and
otherwise - in the United States, if the US government did not immediately
terminate all its nuclear energy programs (and, naturally, dismantle all its
nuclear weapons). Suppose that all of this happened after Iran had overthrown
the government of the US and installed a vicious tyrant (as the US did to Iran
in 1953), then later supported a Russian invasion of the US that killed millions
of people (just as the US supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in 1980,
killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians, a figure comparable to millions of
Americans). Would we watch quietly?

It is easy to understand an observation by one of Israel's leading military
historians, Martin van Creveld. After the US invaded Iraq, knowing it to be
defenseless, he noted, "Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons,
they would be crazy".

Surely no sane person wants Iran (or any nation) to develop nuclear weapons. 
A reasonable resolution of the present crisis would permit Iran to develop
nuclear energy, in accord with its rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty,
but not nuclear weapons. Is that outcome feasible? It would be, given one
condition: that the US and Iran were functioning democratic societies in 
which public opinion had a significant impact on public policy.

As it happens, this solution has overwhelming support among Iranians and
Americans, who generally are in agreement on nuclear issues. The
Iranian-American consensus includes the complete elimination of nuclear weapons
everywhere (82% of Americans); if that cannot yet be achieved because of elite
opposition, then at least a "nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East that
would include both Islamic countries and Israel" (71% of Americans).
Seventy-five percent of Americans prefer building better relations with Iran to
threats of force. In brief, if public opinion were to have a significant
influence on state policy in the US and Iran, resolution of the crisis might be
at hand, along with much more far-reaching solutions to the global nuclear
conundrum.


Promoting Democracy - at Home

These facts suggest a possible way to prevent the current crisis from exploding,
perhaps even into some version of World War III. That awesome threat might be
averted by pursuing a familiar proposal: democracy promotion - this time at home,
where it is badly needed. Democracy promotion at home is certainly feasible and,
although we cannot carry out such a project directly in Iran, we could act to
improve the prospects of the courageous reformers and oppositionists who are
seeking to achieve just that. Among such figures who are, or should be,
well-known, would be Saeed Hajjarian, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, and Akbar
Ganji, as well as those who, as usual, remain nameless, among them labor
activists about whom we hear very little; those who publish the Iranian Workers
Bulletin may be a case in point.

We can best improve the prospects for democracy promotion in Iran by sharply
reversing state policy here so that it reflects popular opinion. That would
entail ceasing to make the regular threats that are a gift to Iranian hardliners.
These are bitterly condemned by Iranians truly concerned with democracy
promotion (unlike those "supporters" who flaunt democracy slogans in the West
and are lauded as grand "idealists" despite their clear record of visceral
hatred for democracy).

Democracy promotion in the United States could have far broader consequences. 
In Iraq, for instance, a firm timetable for withdrawal would be initiated at
once, or very soon, in accord with the will of the overwhelming majority of
Iraqis and a significant majority of Americans. Federal budget priorities would
be virtually reversed. Where spending is rising, as in military supplemental
bills to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would sharply decline.
Where spending is steady or declining (health, education, job training, the
promotion of energy conservation and renewable energy sources, veterans benefits,
funding for the UN and UN peacekeeping operations, and so on), it would sharply
increase. Bush's tax cuts for people with incomes over $200,000 a year would be
immediately rescinded.

The US would have adopted a national health-care system long ago, rejecting the
privatized system that sports twice the per-capita costs found in similar
societies and some of the worst outcomes in the industrial world. It would have
rejected what is widely regarded by those who pay attention as a "fiscal train
wreck" in-the-making. The US would have ratified the Kyoto Protocol to reduce
carbon-dioxide emissions and undertaken still stronger measures to protect the
environment. It would allow the UN to take the lead in international crises,
including in Iraq. After all, according to opinion polls, since shortly after
the 2003 invasion, a large majority of Americans have wanted the UN to take
charge of political transformation, economic reconstruction, and civil order in
that land.

If public opinion mattered, the US would accept UN Charter restrictions on the
use of force, contrary to a bipartisan consensus that this country, alone, has
the right to resort to violence in response to potential threats, real or
imagined, including threats to our access to markets and resources. The US
(along with others) would abandon the Security Council veto and accept majority
opinion even when in opposition to it. The UN would be allowed to regulate arms
sales; while the US would cut back on such sales and urge other countries to do
so, which would be a major contribution to reducing large-scale violence in the
world. Terror would be dealt with through diplomatic and economic measures, not
force, in accord with the judgment of most specialists on the topic but again in
diametric opposition to present-day policy.

Furthermore, if public opinion influenced policy, the US would have diplomatic
relations with Cuba, benefiting the people of both countries (and, incidentally,
US agribusiness, energy corporations, and others), instead of standing virtually
alone in the world in imposing an embargo (joined only by Israel, the Republic
of Palau, and the Marshall Islands). Washington would join the broad
international consensus on a two-state settlement of the Israel-Palestine
conflict, which (with Israel) it has blocked for thirty years - with scattered
and temporary exceptions - and which it still blocks in word, and more
importantly in deed, despite fraudulent claims of its commitment to diplomacy.
The US would also equalize aid to Israel and Palestine, cutting off aid to
either party that rejected the international consensus.

Evidence on these matters is reviewed in my book Failed States (Metropolitan
Books, 2006) as well as in The Foreign Policy Disconnect (University of Chicago
Press, 2006) by Benjamin Page (with Marshall Bouton), which also provides
extensive evidence that public opinion on foreign (and probably domestic) policy
issues tends to be coherent and consistent over long periods. Studies of public
opinion have to be regarded with caution, but they are certainly highly
suggestive.

Democracy promotion at home, while no panacea, would be a useful step towards
helping our own country become a "responsible stakeholder" in the international
order (to adopt the term used for adversaries), instead of being an object of
fear and dislike throughout much of the world. Apart from being a value in
itself, functioning democracy at home holds real promise for dealing
constructively with many current problems, international and domestic, including
those that literally threaten the survival of our species.

_____

Noam Chomsky is the author of Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault
on Democracy (Metropolitan Books, 2006), just published in paperback, among many
other works.

Copyright 2007 Noam Chomsky

_____

This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the
Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.

(c) 2007 The Foundation for National Progress


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