On Power and Ideology

8/8/2018 On Power and Ideology
On Power and Ideology
Noam Chomsky
The New School for Social Research, September 19, 2015
Published at Democracy Now: Part I, Part II, Part III
The role of concentrated power in shaping the ideological framework that dominates perception,
interpretation, discussion, choice of action, all of that is too familiar to require much comment.
Tonight I’d like to discuss a critically important example, but first a couple of words on one of the
most perceptive analysts of this process, George Orwell.
Orwell is famous for his searching and sardonic critique of the way thought is controlled by force
under totalitarian dystopia. But much less known is his discussion of how similar outcomes are
achieved in free societies. He’s speaking, of course, of England. And he wrote that although the
country is quite free, nevertheless unpopular ideas can be suppressed without the use of force.
Gave a couple of examples, provided a few words of explanation, which were to the point. One
particularly pertinent comment was his observation on a quality education in the best schools,
where it is instilled into you that there are certain things that it simply wouldn’t do to say—or, we
may add, even to think. One reason why not much attention is paid to this essay is that it wasn’t
published. It was found decades later in his unpublished papers. It was intended as the introduction
to his famous Animal Farm, bitter satire of Stalinist totalitarianism. Why it wasn’t published is
apparently unknown, but I think perhaps you can speculate.
Orwell’s observations on thought control under freedom come to mind in considering the raging
debate today about the Iran nuclear deal, which currently occupies center stage. I should say it’s a
raging debate in the United States, virtually alone. In almost everywhere else, the deal has been
greeted with relief and optimism and without even a parliamentary review. This is one of the many
striking examples of the famous concept of American exceptionalism.
The fact that America is an exceptional nation is regularly intoned by virtually every political
figure, and, I think more revealingly, the same is true of prominent academic and public
intellectuals. Can select almost at random. Take, for example, the professor of the science of
government at Harvard. He’s a distinguished liberal scholar, government adviser. He’s writing in
Harvard’s prestigious journal, International Security, and there he explains that unlike other
countries, the “national identity” of the United States is “defined by a set of universal political and
economic values,” namely “liberty, democracy, equality, private property, and markets.” So the
U.S. has a solemn duty to maintain its “international primacy” for the benefit of the world. And
https://chomsky.info/on-power-and-ideology/ 1/16
since this is a matter of definition, we can dispense with the tedious work of empirical verification,
so I won’t spend any time on that.
Or let’s turn to the leading left-liberal intellectual journal, The New York Review. There, a couple
of months ago, we read from the former chair of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
that “American contributions to international security, global economic growth, freedom, and
human well-being have been so self-evidently unique and have been so clearly directed to others’
benefit that Americans have long believed that the [United States] amounts to a different kind of
country.” While others push their national interest, the United States “tries to advance universal
principles.” No evidence is given because it’s again a matter of definition. And it’s very easy to
continue.
It’s only fair to add that there’s nothing at all exceptional about this. American exceptionalism was
standard for every great power, very familiar from other imperial states in their days in the sun—
Britain, France, others. And this is true, interestingly, even from very honorable figures from whom
one might have expected better—so, John Stuart Mill, for example, in England, to mention a
significant case—which raises interesting questions about intellectual life and intellectual
standards.
Well, in some respects, American exceptionalism is not in doubt. I just mentioned one example: the
current Iran nuclear deal. Now, here the exceptionalism of the United States, its isolation, is
dramatic and stark. There are actually many other cases, but this is the one I’d like to think about
this evening. And in fact, U.S. isolation might soon increase. The Republican organization—I
hesitate to say “party”—is dedicated to undermining the deal, in interesting ways, with the kind of
unanimity that one doesn’t find in political parties, though it’s familiar in such former organizations
as the old Communist Party—democratic centralism, everyone has to say the same thing. That’s one
of many indications that the Republicans are no longer a political party in the normal sense,
despite pretensions, commentary and so on.
The former Republican Party has now become a “radical insurgency” that’s abandoned
parliamentary politics. I’m quoting two highly respected, very conservative political commentators,
Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. And in fact,
they may succeed in increasing sanctions, and even secondary sanctions on other countries, and
carry out other actions that could lead Iran to opt out of the deal with the United States—with the
United States, that is. That, however, need not mean that the agreement is nullified. Contrary to
the way it’s sometimes presented here, it’s not a U.S.-Iran agreement. It’s an agreement between
Iran and what’s called P5+1, the five veto-holding members of the Security Council plus Germany.
And the other participants might agree to proceed—Iran, as well. They would then join China and
India, which have already been finding ways to evade the U.S. constraints on interactions with Iran.
And in fact, if they do, they’ll join the large majority of the world’s population, the Non-Aligned
Movement, which all along has vigorously supported Iran’s right to pursue its nuclear programs as a
member of the NPT. But remember that they are not part of the international community. So when
we say the international community opposes Iran’s policies or the international community does
some other thing, that means the United States and anybody else who happens to be going along
with it, so we can dismiss them. If others continue to honor the deal, which could happen, the
United States will be isolated from the world, which is not an unfamiliar position.
That’s also the background for the other element of Obama’s—what’s called Obama’s legacy, his
other main foreign policy achievement, the beginning of normalization of relations with Cuba. On
Cuba, the United States has been almost totally isolated for decades. If you look, say, at the annual
votes in the U.N. General Assembly on the U.S. embargo, they’re rarely reported, but the U.S.
essentially votes alone. The last one Israel joined. But, of course, Israel violates the embargo; they
just have to join, because have to join with the master. Occasionally, the Marshall Islands or Palau
or someone else joins. And in the hemisphere, the United States has been totally isolated for years.
The main hemispheric conferences have foundered because the United States will simply not join
the rest of the hemisphere in the major issues that are discussed. Last one in Colombia, the two
major issues were admitting Cuba into the hemisphere—U.S. and Canada refused, everyone else
agreed—and the U.S. drug war, which is devastating Latin America, and they want to get out of it,
but the U.S. and Canada don’t agree. Now that’s actually the background for Obama’s acceptance
of steps towards normalization of relations with Cuba. Another hemispheric conference was coming
up in Panama, and if the United States had not made that move, it probably would have been
thrown out of the hemisphere, so therefore Obama made what’s called here a noble gesture, a
courageous move to end Cuba’s isolation, although in reality it was U.S. isolation that was the
motivating factor.
So if the United States ends up being almost universally isolated on Iran, that won’t be anything
particularly new, and in fact there are quite a few other cases. Well, in the case of Iran, the
reasons for U.S. concerns are very clearly and repeatedly articulated: Iran is the gravest threat to
world peace. We hear that regularly from high places—government officials, commentators, others
—in the United States. There also happens to be a world out there, and it has its own opinions. It’s
quite easy to find these out from standard sources, like the main U.S. polling agency. Gallup polls
takes regular polls of international opinion. And one of the questions it posed—it’s posed is: Which
country do you think is the gravest threat to world peace? The answer is unequivocal: the United
States by a huge margin. Way behind in second place is Pakistan—it’s inflated, surely, by the Indian
vote—and then a couple of others. Iran is mentioned, but along with Israel and a few others, way
down. That’s one of the things that it wouldn’t do to say, and in fact the results that are found by
the leading U.S. polling agency didn’t make it through the portals of what we call the free press.
But it doesn’t go away for that reason.
Well, given the reigning doctrine about the gravity of the Iranian threat, we can understand the
virtually unanimous stand that the United States is entitled to react with military force—
unilaterally, of course—if it claims to detect some Iranian departure from the terms of the
agreement. So, again, picking an example virtually at random from the national press, consider the
lead editorial last Sunday in The Washington Post. It calls on Congress—I’ll quote—to “make clear
that Mr. Obama or his successor will have support for immediate U.S. military action if an Iranian
attempt to build a bomb is detected”—meaning by the United States. So the editors, again, make it
clear that the United States is exceptional. It’s a rogue state, indifferent to international law and
conventions, entitled to resort to violence at will. But the editors can’t be faulted for that stand,
because it’s almost universal among the political class in this exceptional nation, though what it
means is, again, one of those things that it wouldn’t do to say.
Sometimes the doctrine takes quite a remarkable form, and not just on the right, by any means. So
take, for example, the Clinton Doctrine—namely, the United States is free to resort to unilateral
use of military power, even for such purposes as to ensure uninhibited access to key markets,
energy supplies and strategic resources—let alone security or alleged humanitarian concerns. And
adherence to this doctrine is very well confirmed and practiced, as need hardly be discussed among
people willing to look at the facts of current history.
Well, The Washington Post editors also make clear why the United States should be prepared to
take such extreme steps in its role of international primacy. If the United States is not prepared to
resort to military force, they explain, then Iran may—I’m quoting—Iran may “escalate its attempt
to establish hegemony over the Middle East by force.” That’s what the president, President Obama,
calls Iran’s aggression, which we have to contain. For those who are unaware of how Iran has been
attempting to establish hegemony over the Middle East by force—or might even dream of doing so—
the editors do give examples, two examples: its support for the Assad regime and for Hezbollah.
Well, I won’t insult your intelligence by discussing this demonstration that Iran has been seeking to
establish hegemony over the region by force; however, on Iranian aggression, there is an example—I
think one in the last several hundred years—namely, Iranian conquest of two Arab islands in the
Gulf under the U.S.-backed regime of the Shah in the 1970s.
Well, these shocking Iranian efforts to establish regional hegemony by force can be contrasted with
the actions of U.S. allies—for example, NATO ally Turkey, which is actively supporting the jihadi
forces in Syria. The support is so strong that it appears that Turkey helped its allies in the al-Nusra
Front, the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front, to kill and capture the few dozen fighters that were
introduced into Syria by the Pentagon a few weeks ago. It’s the result of several years and who
knows how many billions of dollars of training. They did enter and were immediately captured or
killed, apparently with the aid of Turkish intelligence. Well, more important than that is the central
role of the leading U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia, for the jihadi rebels in Syria and Iraq, and, more
generally, for Saudi Arabia having been—I’m quoting—”a major source of financing to rebel and
terrorist organizations since the 1980s.” That’s from a study, recent study, by the European
Parliament, repeating what’s well known. And still more generally, the missionary zeal with which
Saudi Arabia promulgates its radical, extremist, Wahhabi-Safafi doctrines by establishing Qur’anic
schools, mosques, sending radical clerics throughout the Muslim world, with enormous impact. One
of the closest observers of the region, Patrick Cockburn, writes that the “Wahhabisation” by Saudi
Arabia—”The ‘Wahhabisation’ of mainstream Sunni Islam is one of the most dangerous
developments of our era”—always with strong U.S. support. These are all things that wouldn’t do to
mention, along with the fact that these pernicious developments are a direct outgrowth of the
long-term tendency of the United States, picking up from Britain before it, to support radical Islam
in opposition to secular nationalism. These are long-standing commitments.
There are others, like U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, who condemn Iran’s destabilization of the
region. Destabilization is an interesting concept of political discourse. So, for example, when Iran
comes to the aid of the government of Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan in defense against the assault of
ISIS, that’s destabilization, and we have to prevent it, if not aggression, perhaps. In contrast, when
the United States invades Iraq and kills a couple hundred thousand people, generates millions of
refugees, destroys the country and sets off a sectarian conflict that’s tearing Iraq and, by now, the
whole region to shreds, and, on the side, increases terrorism worldwide by a factor of seven, just
in the first year, that’s stabilization, part of our mission that we must continue for the benefit of
the world. Actually, the exceptionalism of U.S. doctrinal institutions is quite wondrous to behold.
Well, going on with The Washington Post editors, they join Obama’s negotiator, Obama’s Clinton
negotiator, Dennis Ross, Thomas Friedman, other notables, in calling on Washington to provide
Israel with B-52 bombers, and perhaps even the more advanced B-2 bombers, and also huge, what
are called massive ordnance penetrators—bunker busters, informally. There’s a problem: They
don’t have airstrips for huge planes like that. But they can use maybe Turkey’s airstrips. And none
of this is for defense. These are not defensive weapons, remember. All of these weapons are
offensive weapons for Israel to use to bomb Iran, if it chooses to do so. And, you know, since Israel
is a U.S. client, it inherits from the master the freedom from international law, so nothing
surprising about giving it vast supplies of offensive weapons to use when it chooses.
Well, the violation of international law goes well beyond threat; goes to action, including acts of
war, which are proudly proclaimed, presumably, because that’s our right—as an exceptional nation
again. One example is the successful sabotage of Iranian nuclear installations by cyberwar. The
Pentagon has views about cyberwar. The Pentagon regards cyberwar as an act of war, which
justifies a military response. And a year ago, NATO affirmed the same position, determined that
aggression through cyber-attacks can trigger the collective defense obligations of the NATO
alliance, meaning if any country is attacked by cyberwar, the whole alliance can respond by
military attacks. That means cyberwar attacks against us, not by us against them. And the
significance of these stands is, again, something that wouldn’t do to mention. And you can check to
see that that condition is well observed.
Perhaps the United States and Israel are justified in cowering in terror before Iran because of its
extraordinary military power. And it’s possible to evaluate that concern. For example, you can turn
to the authoritative analysis, detailed analysis, of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, the main source for such information, last April, which conducted and published a long
study of the regional military balance. And they find—I’ll quote—”a conclusive case that the Arab
Gulf states have … an overwhelming advantage [over] Iran in both military spending and access to
modern arms.” That’s the Gulf Cooperation Council states; that’s Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi
Arabia, United Arab Emirates. They outspend Iran on arms by a factor of eight. It’s an imbalance
that goes back decades. And their report observes further that “the Arab Gulf states have acquired
and are acquiring some of the most advanced and effective weapons in the world [while] Iran has
[been essentially] forced to live in the past, often relying on systems originally delivered at the
time of the Shah,” 40 years ago, which are essentially obsolete. And the imbalance is, of course,
even greater with Israel, which, along with the most advanced U.S. weaponry and its role as a
virtual offshore military base of the global superpower, has a huge stock of nuclear weapons.
There are, of course, other threats that justify serious concern and can’t be brushed aside. A
nuclear weapon state might leak nuclear weapons to jihadis. No joke. In the case of Iran, the
threat is minuscule. Not only are the Sunni jihadis the mortal [enemies] of Iran, but the ruling
clerics, whatever one thinks of them, have shown no signs of clinical insanity, and they know that if
there was even a hint that they were the source of a leaked weapon, they and all they possess
would be instantly vaporized. That doesn’t mean that we can ignore the threat, however—not from
Iran, where it doesn’t exist, but from U.S. ally Pakistan, where the threat is in fact very real. It’s
discussed recently by two leading Pakistani nuclear scientists, Pervez Hoodbhoy and Zia Mian. In
Britain’s leading journal of International Affairs, they write that increasing fears of “militants
seizing nuclear weapons or materials and unleashing nuclear terrorism [have led to] the creation of
a dedicated force of over 20,000 troops to guard nuclear facilities. There is no reason to assume,
however, that this force would be immune to the problems associated with the units guarding
regular military facilities,” which have frequently suffered attacks with “insider help.” In other
words, the whole system is laced with jihadi elements, in large measure because of the—of what
Patrick Cockburn described, the “Wahhabisation” of Sunni Islam from Saudi Arabia and with the
strong support of the United States, ever since the Reagan administration. Well, in short, the
problem is real enough, very real, in fact. It’s not being seriously addressed. It’s not even
discussed. Rather, what we’re concerned about is fantasies, concocted for other reasons, about the
current official enemy.
Opponents of the Iran nuclear deal maintain that Iran is intent on developing nuclear weapons. U.S.
intelligence can discern no evidence for this, but there is no doubt at all that in the past they have,
in fact, intended to do so. And we know this because it was clearly stated by the highest
authorities in Iran. The highest authority of the Iranian state informed foreign journalists that Iran
would develop nuclear weapons “certainly, and sooner than one thinks.” The father of Iran’s
nuclear energy program, former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, expressed his
confidence that the leadership’s plan is “to build a nuclear bomb.” And a CIA report also had, in
their words, “no doubt” that Iran would develop nuclear weapons if neighboring countries do, as of
course they have.
All of this was under the Shah, the “highest authority” just quoted. That is during the period when
high U.S. officials—Cheney, Rumsfeld and Kissinger—were urging the Shah to proceed with nuclear
programs, and they were also pressuring universities to accommodate these efforts. My own
university was an example, MIT. Under government pressure, it made a deal with the Shah to admit
Iranian students to the nuclear engineering department in return for grants from the Shah. This was
done over the very strong objections of the student body, but with comparably strong faculty
support. That’s a distinction that raises a number of interesting questions about academic
institutions and how they function. The faculty or the students of a couple years ago would have a
different institutional place. Opponents of the nuclear—in fact, some of these MIT students are now
running the Iranian nuclear programs.
Opponents of the nuclear deal argue that it didn’t go far enough. You’ve heard a lot of that. And
interestingly, some of the supporters of the deal agree, demanding that it go beyond what has been
achieved and that the whole Middle East should rid itself of nuclear weapons and, in fact, weapons
of mass destruction generally. Actually, I’m quoting Iran’s minister of foreign affairs, Javad Zarif.
He is reiterating the call of the Non-Aligned Movement—most of the world—and the Arab states, for
many years, to establish a weapons of mass destruction-free zone in the Middle East. Now that
would be a very straightforward way to address whatever threat Iran is alleged to pose. But a lot
more than that is at stake. This was discussed recently in the leading U.S. world arms control
journal, Arms Control Today, by two leading figures in the international anti-nuclear movement,
two scientists who are veterans of Pugwash and U.N. agencies. They observe that “The successful
adoption in 1995 of the resolution on the establishment of a zone free of weapons of mass
destruction in the Middle East was the main element of a package that permitted the … extension
of the [Non-Proliferation Treaty].” That’s the most important arms control treaty there is, and its
continuation is conditioned on acceptance of moves towards establishing a weapons of mass
destruction-free zone, a nuclear-free zone, in the Middle East.
Repeatedly, implementation of this plan has been blocked by the United States at the annual five-
year review meetings of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, most recently by Obama in 2010 and again in
2015, a couple of months ago. The same two anti-nuclear specialists comment that in 2015 this
effort was again blocked by the United States “on behalf of a state that is not party to the [Non-
Proliferation Treaty] and is widely believed to be the only one in the region possessing nuclear
weapons.” That’s a polite and understated reference to Israel. Washington’s sabotage of the
possibility, in defense of Israeli nuclear weapons, may well undermine the Non-Proliferation Treaty,
as well as maintaining dangerous instability in the Middle East—always, of course, in the name of
stability. This is, incidentally, not the only case when opportunities to end the alleged Iranian
threat have been undermined by Washington—some quite interesting cases; no time, and I won’t go
into them. But all of this raises quite interesting questions, which we should be asking, about what
actually is at stake.
So, turning to that, what actually is the threat posed by Iran? Plainly, it’s not a military threat.
That’s obvious. We can put aside the fevered pronouncements about Iranian aggression, support for
terror, seeking hegemony over the region by force, or the still more outlandish notion that even if
Iran had a bomb, it might use it, therefore suffering instant obliteration. The real threat has been
clearly explained by U.S. intelligence in its reports to Congress on the global security situation. Of
course, they deal with Iran. And they point out—I’m quoting U.S. intelligence—”Iran’s nuclear
program and its willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a central
part of its deterrent strategy.” Right? It’s part of Iran’s deterrent strategy—no offensive policies,
but they are trying to construct a deterrent. And that Iran has a serious interest in a deterrent
strategy is not in doubt among serious analysts. It’s recognized, for example, by U.S. intelligence.
So the influential analyst, CIA veteran Bruce Riedel, who’s by no means a dove, he writes that “If I
was an Iranian national security planner, I would want nuclear weapons” as a deterrent. And the
reasons are pretty obvious.
He also makes another crucial comment. He points out that Israel’s strategic room for maneuver in
the region would be constrained by an Iranian nuclear deterrent. And it’s, of course, also true of
the United States. “Room for maneuver” means resort to aggression and violence. And it’s—yes, it
would be constrained by an Iranian deterrent. For the two rogue states that rampage freely in the
region—the United States and Israel—any deterrent is, of course, unacceptable. And for those who
are accustomed and take for granted their right to rule by force, that concern is easily escalated to
what’s called an existential threat. The threat of deterrence is very severe, if you expect to resort
to force unilaterally at will to achieve your goals, as the U.S. and, secondarily, Israel do commonly.
And more recently, the second U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia, has been trying to get into the club, pretty
incompetently, with its invasion of Bahrain to prevent mild reformist measures, and more recently
its extensive bombing of Yemen, which is causing a huge humanitarian crisis. So for them, a
deterrent is a problem, maybe even an existential threat.
That, I think, is the heart of the matter, even if it wouldn’t do to say or to think. And except for
those who hope to fend off possible disaster and to move towards a more peaceful and just world,
it’s necessary to keep to these injunctions. These are things that wouldn’t do to say, wouldn’t do to
think—you don’t read about them, you don’t hear about them—but they are, I think, the heart of
the issue. Thanks.
Q&A
“How has the United States supported radical Islam?”
As I mentioned, just as Britain did before it. I won’t comment on the British rule, but if you want to
learn about it, there’s quite a good book on it by a very good British diplomatic historian, Mark
Curtis, who discusses in detail, going back to the documentary record, how England, Britain
supported radical Islam during its period of dominance. The U.S. has done it always. The major
center of radical Islam, extremist radical Islam, is Saudi Arabia, unquestionably. They are the
source of the Wahhabization of the region, which Patrick Cockburn points out is one of the major
developments of the modern era. Who’s the main supporter of Saudi Arabia? You are. You know,
that’s where your tax dollars go. It’s been for a long time. Right now tens of billions of dollars of
arms being sent under Obama, but it goes way back.
In fact, the strong U.S. relation with Israel developed out of this. The United States and Israel had
close relations, but not unusual, through the 1950s and early ’60s. That changed in 1967. What
happened in 1967? Israel performed a huge service to the United States and its Saudi Arabian ally.
Saudi Arabia has been and remains the center of extremist, radical, fundamentalist Islam, with
offshoots in the jihadi movements and so on, including ISIS. At the time, the center of secular
nationalism was Nasser’s Egypt, and there was a conflict between the two of them. In fact, they
were at war. They were at war in the Yemen at the time. Israel administered a very serious blow to
secular nationalism. It devastated the Egyptian army and Syria, and it saved Saudi Arabia and
offered a great boon to the United States. And, in fact, if you check back, it’s at that time that the
unusual—in fact, unique—relationship between Israel and the United States developed.
And in fact it continues after that. I could give more examples if there was time. But that has been
a consistent pattern. There are a few exceptions here and there. So sometimes the United States
has supported secular Islamic states. The most extreme and interesting example is Saddam Hussein,
who was greatly loved by the Reagan administration and by the Bush I administration. I could give
you the details, but they were so supportive of Saddam Hussein that he was even given a gift that
otherwise only Israel has been granted, no other country. He was permitted to attack a U.S. naval
vessel, killing a couple of dozen American sailors, and to get away with it with just a tap on the
wrist. Israel had done the same thing in 1967. Saddam Hussein did it in 1987. And the friendship for
Saddam Hussein was so enormous that he was granted that right. And that was a secular state. In
fact, George Bush number one even invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the United States for
advanced training in nuclear weapons production. That’s a pretty supportive relationship. So there
are cases where the United States has supported secular Islam, but typically it’s radical Islam that
has been the beneficiary of U.S. support, like Britain before it.
“Why isn’t the United States doing more to help Syrian refugees?”
Well, that’s a question you should ask yourselves. Why aren’t we doing more? After all, we’re
pretty munificent already. I think 2,000 have been accepted, after several years’ wait. But yes,
that’s a very serious question. Can be generalized. There are other refugees. What about people
fleeing from Honduras? The main—that’s the main source of what’s called the refugee crisis here.
Most of them are coming from Honduras. Why? Well, something happened in Honduras a couple
years ago. There was a military coup, which overthrew the democratic government. The United
States was about the only country that gave its support. And the result of the military coup is a real
horror story. It was bad enough before, but it’s become horrendous since. So people are fleeing,
and therefore we have to build, you know, a mile-high wall on the Texas border or wherever it is.
So, yeah, these are fair questions.
“The Obama doctrine vis-à-vis Syria?”
It’s a good question. Washington hasn’t a clue. It’s obvious. And it’s a little hard to fault them for
that. It’s very hard to think of a constructive outcome to this utter disaster.
The United States has taken a somewhat hands-off position, except that it’s supporting its allies,
who are very clear. As I mentioned, Turkey, a NATO ally, has been supporting the al-Qaeda-related
jihadi front, namely the al-Nusra Front, a couple of others. The Gulf states, also U.S. ally, Saudi
Arabia, where they have been strong supporters of what’s now become the Islamic State—
technically, Saudi Arabia, the government, no longer—claims no longer to support them directly,
but surely did in the past, and funders from the Gulf—wealthy Gulf states are still presumably
funding them, as they have in the past. It’s pretty open in the case of Qatar. So there’s—these are
indirect U.S. policies.
The only conceivable hope for some resolution of this horrendous crisis, which is totally destroying
the country, is the kind of negotiated settlement that was worked on by serious negotiators, like
Lakhdar Brahimi, an international negotiator, very respectable, sensible. And the main idea, which
—shared by any analyst with a grey cell functioning, is some kind of negotiated settlement which
will involve the Assad government, like it or not, and involve the opposition elements, like it or
not. There can’t be negotiations that don’t involve the parties that are fighting. That’s pretty
obvious, just as South African negotiations had to involve the leadership of the apartheid state.
There’s no other way. They can’t have other negotiations. It’s perfectly obvious that the Assad
government is not going to enter into negotiations that are based on the condition that it commits
suicide. If that’s the condition, they’re just going to keep destroying the country. That
unfortunately is the—has been the U.S. position of the negotiations. U.S. and its allies have
demanded that negotiations be based on the precondition that the Assad government will not
survive. It’s a horrible government, and I’d like it not to survive, but that’s a prescription for
destroying Syria, because it’s not going to enter into negotiations on those terms.
Right now, and in fact in the past, these have been proposals pretty much supported by the
Russians. And, in fact, you may not have seen this, but for those of you who read the international
press, British press, a couple of days ago there was a very interesting revelation that in 2012 the
Russians had apparently presented a proposal for an interim regime which would not include Assad,
and it was turned down by the United States and the West. That was reported in practically the
entire British press—Guardian, The Independent, Daily Telegraph, across the spectrum. Didn’t
appear in the United States for a while, but finally it did appear, not in print, as far as I can tell,
but in an online edition of The Washington Post, where there’s an article of the usual type. It sort
of mentions that this is rumored, but can’t take it seriously, and, you know, so on, probably didn’t
mean it, and so on and so forth. Well, OK, you can draw your own conclusions.
But as far as—if you ask what the Obama doctrine is, it doesn’t exist. We saw the Obama doctrine a
couple of weeks ago when the Pentagon sent in these 50 fighters, who had been trained for years,
and they were immediately captured, killed, or just defected, by Turkey’s ally, the al-Nusra Front,
as I mentioned, apparently with Turkish intelligence support. Now that’s the doctrine, is nothing,
except to support the allies, which are in fact supporting jihadi forces. But what the doctrine ought
to be, I think, is pretty clear. What the chances are for settlement of those terms is hard to say—
not very high. But if you can think of an alternative, you should present it. No other alternative has
been proposed.
“What do you think about the antics of Donald Trump, in tangent to your earlier idea about
American exceptionalism?”
Well, actually, I think we should recognize that the other candidates are not that different. I mean,
if you take a look at—just take a look at their views. You know, they tell you their views, and
they’re astonishing. So just to keep to Iran, a couple of weeks ago, the two front-runners—they’re
not the front-runners any longer—were Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. And they differed on Iran.
Walker said we have to bomb Iran; when he gets elected, they’re going to bomb Iran immediately,
the day he’s elected. Bush was a little—you know, he’s more serious: He said he’s going to wait ’til
the first Cabinet meeting, and then they’ll bomb Iran. I mean, this is just off the spectrum of not
only international opinion, but even relative sanity.
This is—I think Ornstein and Mann are correct: It’s a radical insurgency; it’s not a political party. You
can tell that even by the votes. I mean, any issue of any complexity is going to have some diversity
of opinion. But when you get a unanimous vote to kill the Iranian deal or the Affordable Care Act or
whatever the next thing may be, you know you’re not dealing with a political party.
It’s an interesting question why that’s true. I think what’s actually happened is that during the
whole so-called neoliberal period, last generation, both political parties have drifted to the right.
Today’s Democrats are what used to be called moderate Republicans. The Republicans have just
drifted off the spectrum. They’re so committed to extreme wealth and power that they cannot get
votes, can’t get votes by presenting those positions. So what has happened is that they’ve
mobilized sectors of the population that have been around for a long time. It is a pretty
exceptional country in many ways. One is it’s extremely religious. It’s one of the most extreme
fundamentalist countries in the world. And by now, I suspect the majority of the base of the
Republican Party is evangelical Christians, extremists, not—they’re a mixture, but these are the
extremist ones, nativists who are afraid that, you know, “they are taking our white Anglo-Saxon
country away from us,” people who have to have guns when they go into Starbucks because, who
knows, they might get killed by an Islamic terrorist and so on. I mean, all of that is part of the
country, and it goes back to colonial days. There are real roots to it. But these have not been an
organized political force in the past. They are now. That’s the base of the Republican Party. And
you see it in the primaries. So, yeah, Trump is maybe comic relief, but it’s just a—it’s not that
different from the mainstream, which I think is more important.
“U.S. exceptionalism has existed since the”—what’s that?
ANTHONY ARNOVE: “Doctrine.”
NOAM CHOMSKY: “… since the doctrine of manifest destiny in the 18th”—actually 19th—”century.
What has changed?”
Well, what’s changed is the capacity to implement the doctrines. So take, say, the Monroe
Doctrine, 1823. The Monroe Doctrine essentially declared that the United States must rule the
hemisphere. It didn’t say it in those words, but that’s what it amounted to. And it was the
intellectual father of the Monroe Doctrine, it was John Quincy Adams, who was also the intellectual
author of manifest destiny. Well, there was a problem. This was the 1820s. There was a deterrent.
The deterrent was Britain. Britain was the hated enemy. They were the big military power, and
they prevented the United States from achieving its first foreign policy goal. By “foreign,” I mean
outside the national territory. That’s also aggression, but it’s not called aggression, but conquest of
the national territory, what’s now the national territory. Of course, there was a war, against the
indigenous population, who were exterminated and expelled. But the first so-called foreign goal
was to take over Cuba. Goes back to the 1820s. Couldn’t do it. British navy was in the way.
John Quincy Adams, who was an astute ground strategist, pointed out to his colleagues that we just
have to wait. He said, “Sooner or later, U.S. power will increase, British power will decline. And,”
as he put it, “Cuba will fall into our hands by the laws of political gravitation, just the way an
apple falls from the tree,” which indeed happened. Over the 19th century, U.S. power increased,
British power declined. The U.S. was able to take further steps in the Western Hemisphere. And in
1898, in fact, it was able to conquer Cuba. That’s—if you go to school in the United States, you
learn that the United States liberated Cuba in 1898. In fact, the U.S. invaded to prevent Cuba from
liberating itself from Spain, which is what happened. And since—after that, it just became a virtual
colony, until liberation finally in 1959, and ever since then the United States has been trying to
reverse it.
And the same is true generally. The United States did not—it was a—it may have been—it was
probably the richest country in the world back in the early 19th century, but not the most powerful
country. Britain was the most powerful. France was a powerful country. And that changed over the
years, especially with the First World War and finally with the Second World War. So,
exceptionalism has greatly expanded as power expanded. And I say again that this exceptionalism
was also true of other great powers during their day of imperial power and domination.
“World leaders will meet in New York City next week for a new set of global anti-poverty targets,
sustainable development goals. Do you think these targets are sufficient?”
That has an easy answer: two letters. And furthermore, nothing will be achieved. That’s pretty safe
to say.
“Can you comment on the important of WikiLeaks cables?”
Now, they’ve been really revealing. You learn a lot from them. Some of them are really interesting,
including ones that aren’t discussed much. I mean, most of them you’ve seen. But, for example,
one of the WikiLeaks—one interesting question that should be on everybody’s mind is: What is the
basis for the extraordinary relationship between the United States and Israel? There are a lot of
reasons for it, but one interesting aspect was revealed by a WikiLeaks cable, which I think wasn’t
reported.
One of the cables listed—of the leaks, listed a document, an internal U.S. document, Pentagon
document, which listed the top strategic priorities of the United States, regions in the world that
were so important that we had to protect them at all costs. There were maybe—I forget how many,
a dozen or so. One of them was right outside Haifa, Rafael military industries, major military
industry. That’s one of the main places where drone technology has been developed. The links
between U.S. and Israeli high-tech military industry are extremely close. In fact, in this case,
Rafael, the biggest industry, our ties are so close that Rafael actually moved its management
headquarters to Washington, where the money is.
Well, what that tells you, that gives an interesting insight into the nature of the relationship. Israel
is now—does play a major role—small country, but good high-tech industry, and it plays a major role
in repression and aggression. It’s developed—the Israeli arms fairs, where they sell their arms, they
advertise, correctly, that they have developed advanced means of repression and control, and that
the arms that they’re displaying are battlefield-tested, namely against the Palestinians. So they’ve
refined the techniques of control. And they contribute to that all over the place—in Central
America, even in the United States. They’re providing advice on how to bar Honduran immigrants,
say, from coming to the United States. They help train police and so on, many examples.
Well, that’s only one case, but there have been many other cases of the WikiLeaks materials. It’s
really worth reading through them, not just the ones that, you know, do get reported, but many
other ones. There’s actually a volume that just came out on WikiLeaks, which is important reading.
“Do you think that U.N. foreign policy is—U.S. foreign policy, sorry, is driven exclusively by
economic interests? What other factors influence U.S. foreign policy, and to what extent?”
That’s quite an interesting question. It’s certainly not driven entirely by economic interests. In
fact, there are very striking cases. Usually, by and large, the U.S. foreign policy, like other major
states, is driven by the dominant domestic forces. That’s kind of natural. And the dominant
domestic forces are, of course, the corporate sector. That’s not in question. So, by and large,
foreign policy is driven by their interests. And what I—the Clinton Doctrine, which I quoted, is an
obvious case, but there are plenty of others. However, there are exceptions, and there are very
interesting ones.
Actually, Iran is an exception, quite an interesting one. And that goes back to the first U.S. serious
involvement with Iran. Iran was a kind of a British virtual colony. The British were involved in
preventing Iran from developing, getting—either economically or politically. But that changed in
1953, when Britain was too weak to overthrow the parliamentary regime, and the U.S. took over
and carried out—basically, carried out the coup that installed the Shah. Something quite interesting
happened at that time. The United States government wanted U.S. energy corporations to take
over 40 percent of the British concession. It was a British—the British were taking Iranian oil. But
the Eisenhower administration wanted U.S. energy corporations to take 40 percent of it. That’s an
economic interest. They didn’t want to. They didn’t want to for good reasons. It was much cheaper
then to get oil from Saudi Arabia, so that just for straight business reasons they didn’t want to have
to go to Iran. And furthermore, they were concerned that that might harm their relations with the
Saudi dictators, Saudi family that essentially owns and runs the country, and they didn’t want to
bother with that. The U.S. government actually forced them, forced the oil companies, to take a
40 percent concession. The Eisenhower administration threatened them with antitrust suits and
other threats, if they didn’t do it. So, of course, they backed down and did it. That’s pretty
unusual.
And I think it’s happening now, too. We don’t have documents from the present period. You know,
you get documents from earlier periods. But you can be pretty confident that the U.S. energy
corporations would be delighted to break into the Iranian market. They don’t like the idea every
other—just about every other major country is sending, you know, business delegations, investors
and others to try to profit from the opening of Iran, which they support, and the U.S. energy
corporations and other U.S. businesses are blocked by state power. And you can be sure that they
don’t like it. If we had access to their internal deliberations, I’m sure it would say that. Well, that’s
a case where state power, in this case, overwhelms even economic interests. Iran has to be
punished. Iran committed a serious crime: They disobeyed orders. And you don’t disobey orders.
One of the major doctrines of international affairs, which doesn’t appear in the literature, is the
Mafia doctrine. International affairs are run like the—very much like the Mafia. The godfather does
not tolerate disobedience. It’s much too dangerous. So, if some small storekeeper somewhere, say,
doesn’t pay protection money, the don doesn’t accept it. You send their goons to beat him to a
pulp, even if you don’t need the money, because others might get the idea, then things might start
to erode. That is a dominant principle of international affairs. In fact, that was the reason for the
1953 coup, when you look back. And it’s also the reason why—for U.S. hostility to Iran, which is
extreme. I mentioned the support for Saddam Hussein. That was an attack on Iran, and a serious
one. But they defied orders. They overthrew a U.S.-imposed tyrant. They thumbed their nose at
the United States. And you don’t get away with that.
Actually, Cuba is very similar, since Cuba is extremely—the hostility to Cuba is quite interesting. I
mean, for decades, ever since polls were taken, the majority of the U.S. population has been in
favor of normalization of relations. OK, it’s normal to disregard the population in a democracy—
they don’t count. But what is unusual in this case is that major sectors of U.S. economic power
have been in favor of normalization, big sectors—pharmaceuticals, energy industries, agribusiness.
They’ve all wanted to get into the Cuban market. And the state has blocked it, which is quite
unusual. And there’s another case where state power has overwhelmed even the power of its major
domestic sources. In fact, these are two quite striking examples. And it’s the same thing. And in
the case of Cuba, we know it. If you go back to the Kennedy administration, you know, when the
war against Cuba really took off, it was very explicit. The State Department said we can’t tolerate
what they called successful defiance of U.S. policies, that go back to the Monroe Doctrine. Arthur
Schlesinger, Kennedy’s Latin American adviser, reported to him the report of his Latin American
mission, said the problem is the Castro idea of taking matters into your own hands, which appeals
to others in the hemisphere where people suffer similar repression, and you can’t let that idea
spread. It’s the Mafia doctrine again, powerful enough to sharply conflict with economic interests.
So there are cases, but they’re rare. And they’re illuminating.
ANTHONY ARNOVE: I think this has to be the last one. We got all of these, but time’s running out.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Oh, OK. “What is intelligence?”
Well, it’s something that’s lacking in certain places. Let’s put it like that. Thanks.
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8/8/2018 On Power and Ideology

On Power and Ideology

The New School for Social Research, September 19, 2015

Published at Democracy Now: Part I, Part II, Part III

“How has the United States supported radical Islam?”

“The Obama doctrine vis-à-vis Syria?”

“U.S. exceptionalism has existed since the”—what’s that?

ANTHONY ARNOVE: “Doctrine.”

“Can you comment on the important of WikiLeaks cables?”

NOAM CHOMSKY: Oh, OK. “What is intelligence?”

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