Iraq As Trial
Run
By Noam Chomsky and V.K.Ramachandran
On March 21, a he spoke
from his office for half an hour to V. K. Ramachandran on the current
attack on Iraq.
V. K. Ramachandran: Does
the present aggression on Iraq represent a continuation of United States'
international policy in recent years or a qualitatively new stage in
that policy?
Noam Chomsky: It represents a significantly new phase. It is not without
precedent, but significantly new nevertheless.
This should be seen as a
trial run. Iraq is seen as an extremely easy and totally defenceless
target. It is assumed, probably correctly, that the society will collapse,
that the soldiers will go in and that the U.S. will be in control, and
will establish the regime of its choice and military bases. They will
then go on to the harder cases that will follow. The next case could
be the Andean region, it could be Iran, it could be others.
The trial run is to try and
establish what the U.S. calls a "new norm" in international
relations. The new norm is "preventive war" (notice that new
norms are established only by the United States). So, for example, when
India invaded East Pakistan to terminate horrendous massacres, it did
not establish a new norm of humanitarian intervention, because India
is the wrong country, and besides, the U.S. was strenuously opposed
to that action.
This is not pre-emptive war;
there is a crucial difference. Pre-emptive war has a meaning, it means
that, for example, if planes are flying across the Atlantic to bomb
the United States, the United States is permitted to shoot them down
even before they bomb and may be permitted to attack the air bases from
which they came. Pre-emptive war is a response to ongoing or imminent
attack.
The doctrine of preventive
war is totally different; it holds that the United States - alone, since
nobody else has this right - has the right to attack any country that
it claims to be a potential challenge to it. So if the United States
claims, on whatever grounds, that someone may sometime threaten it,
then it can attack them.
The doctrine of preventive
war was announced explicitly in the National Strategy Report last September.
It sent shudders around the world, including through the U.S. establishment,
where, I might say, opposition to the war is unusually high. The National
Strategy Report said, in effect, that the U.S. will rule the world by
force, which is the dimension - the only dimension - in which it is
supreme. Furthermore, it will do so for the indefinite future, because
if any potential challenge arises to U.S. domination, the U.S. will
destroy it before it becomes a challenge.
This is the first exercise
of that doctrine. If it succeeds on these terms, as it presumably will,
because the target is so defenceless, then international lawyers and
Western intellectuals and others will begin to talk about a new norm
in international affairs. It is important to establish such a norm if
you expect to rule the world by force for the foreseeable future.
This is not without precedent,
but it is extremely unusual. I shall mention one precedent, just to
show how narrow the spectrum is. In 1963, Dean Acheson, who was a much
respected elder statesman and senior Adviser of the Kennedy Administration,
gave an important talk to the American Society of International Law,
in which he justified the U. S. attacks against Cuba. The attack by
the Kennedy Administration on Cuba was large-scale international terrorism
and economic warfare. The timing was interesting - it was right after
the Missile Crisis, when the world was very close to a terminal nuclear
war. In his speech, Acheson said that "no legal issue arises when
the United States responds to challenges to its position, prestige or
authority", or words approximating that.
That is also a statement
of the Bush doctrine. Although Acheson was an important figure, what
he said had not been official government policy in the post-War period.
It now stands as official policy and this is the first illustration
of it. It is intended to provide a precedent for the future.
Such "norms" are
established only when a Western power does something, not when others
do. That is part of the deep racism of Western culture, going back through
centuries of imperialism and so deep that it is unconscious.
So I think this war is an
important new step, and is intended to be.
Ramachandran: Is it also
a new phase in that the U. S. has not been able to carry others with
it?
Chomsky: That is not new.
In the case of the Vietnam War, for example, the United States did not
even try to get international support. Nevertheless, you are right in
that this is unusual. This is a case in which the United States was
compelled for political reasons to try to force the world to accept
its position and was not able to, which is quite unusual. Usually, the
world succumbs.
Ramachandran: So does it
represent a "failure of diplomacy" or a redefinition of diplomacy
itself?
Chomsky: I wouldn't call
it diplomacy at all - it's a failure of coercion.
Compare it with the first
Gulf War. In the first Gulf War, the U.S. coerced the Security Council
into accepting its position, although much of the world opposed it.
NATO went along, and the one country in the Security Council that did
not - Yemen - was immediately and severely punished.
In any legal system that
you take seriously, coerced judgments are considered invalid, but in
the international affairs conducted by the powerful, coerced judgments
are fine - they are called diplomacy.
What is interesting about
this case is that the coercion did not work. There were countries -
in fact, most of them - who stubbornly maintained the position of the
vast majority of their populations.
The most dramatic case is
Turkey. Turkey is a vulnerable country, vulnerable to U.S. punishment
and inducements. Nevertheless, the new government, I think to everyone's
surprise, did maintain the position of about 90 per cent of its population.
Turkey is bitterly condemned for that here, just as France and Germany
are bitterly condemned because they took the position of the overwhelming
majority of their populations. The countries that are praised are countries
like Italy and Spain, whose leaders agreed to follow orders from Washington
over the opposition of maybe 90 per cent of their populations.
That is another new step.
I cannot think of another case where hatred and contempt for democracy
have so openly been proclaimed, not just by the government, but also
by liberal commentators and others. There is now a whole literature
trying to explain why France, Germany, the so-called "old Europe",
and Turkey and others are trying to undermine the United States. It
is inconceivable to the pundits that they are doing so because they
take democracy seriously and they think that when the overwhelming majority
of a population has an opinion, a government ought to follow it.
That is real contempt for
democracy, just as what has happened at the United Nations is total
contempt for the international system. In fact there are now calls -
from The Wall Street Journal, people in Government and others - to disband
the United Nations.
Fear of the United States
around the world is extraordinary. It is so extreme that it is even
being discussed in the mainstream media. The cover story of the upcoming
issue of Newsweek is about why the world is so afraid of the United
States. The Post had a cover story about this a few weeks ago.
Of course this is considered
to be the world's fault, that there is something wrong with the world
with which we have to deal somehow, but also something that has to be
recognised.
Ramachandran: The idea that
Iraq represents any kind of clear and present danger is, of course,
without any substance at all.
Chomsky: Nobody pays any
attention to that accusation, except, interestingly, the population
of the United States.
In the last few months, there
has been a spectacular achievement of government-media propaganda, very
visible in the polls. The international polls show that support for
the war is higher in the United States than in other countries. That
is, however, quite misleading, because if you look a little closer,
you find that the United States is also different in another respect
from the rest of the world. Since September 2002, the United States
is the only country in the world where 60 per cent of the population
believes that Iraq is an imminent threat - something that people do
not believe even in Kuwait or Iran.
Furthermore, about 50 per
cent of the population now believes that Iraq was responsible for the
attack on the World Trade Centre. This has happened since September
2002. In fact, after the September 11 attack, the figure was about 3
per cent. Government-media propaganda has managed to raise that to about
50 per cent. Now if people genuinely believe that Iraq has carried out
major terrorist attacks against the United States and is planning to
do so again, well, in that case people will support the war.
This has happened, as I said,
after September 2002. September 2002 is when the government-media campaign
began and also when the mid-term election campaign began. The Bush Administration
would have been smashed in the election if social and economic issues
had been in the forefront, but it managed to suppress those issues in
favour of security issues - and people huddle under the umbrella of
power.
This is exactly the way the
country was run in the 1980s. Remember that these are almost the same
people as in the Reagan and the senior Bush Administrations. Right through
the 1980s they carried out domestic policies that were harmful to the
population and which, as we know from extensive polls, the people opposed.
But they managed to maintain control by frightening the people. So the
Nicaraguan Army was two days' march from Texas and about to conquer
the United States, and the airbase in Granada was one from which the
Russians would bomb us. It was one thing after another, every year,
every one of them ludicrous. The Reagan Administration actually declared
a national Emergency in 1985 because of the threat to the security of
the United States posed by the Government of Nicaragua.
If somebody were watching
this from Mars, they would not know whether to laugh or to cry.
They are doing exactly the
same thing now, and will probably do something similar for the presidential
campaign. There will have to be a new dragon to slay, because if the
Administration lets domestic issues prevail, it is in deep trouble.
Ramachandran: You have written
that this war of aggression has dangerous consequences with respect
to international terrorism and the threat of nuclear war.
Chomsky: I cannot claim any
originality for that opinion. I am just quoting the CIA and other intelligence
agencies and virtually every specialist in international affairs and
terrorism. Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the study by the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the high-level Hart-Rudman Commission
on terrorist threats to the United States all agree that it is likely
to increase terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The reason is simple: partly
for revenge, but partly just for self-defence.
There is no other way to
protect oneself from U.S. attack. In fact, the United States is making
the point very clearly, and is teaching the world an extremely ugly
lesson.
Compare North Korea and Iraq.
Iraq is defenceless and weak; in fact, the weakest regime in the region.
While there is a horrible monster running it, it does not pose a threat
to anyone else. North Korea, on the other hand, does pose a threat.
North Korea, however, is not attacked for a very simple reason: it has
a deterrent. It has a massed artillery aimed at Seoul, and if the United
States attacks it, it can wipe out a large part of South Korea.
So the United States is telling
the countries of the world: if you are defenceless, we are going to
attack you when we want, but if you have a deterrent, we will back off,
because we only attack defenceless targets. In other words, it is telling
countries that they had better develop a terrorist network and weapons
of mass destruction or some other credible deterrent; if not, they are
vulnerable to "preventive war".
For that reason alone, this
war is likely to lead to the proliferation of both terrorism and weapons
of mass destruction.
Ramachandran: How do you
think the U.S. will manage the human - and humanitarian - consequences
of the war?
Chomsky: No one knows, of
course. That is why honest and decent people do not resort to violence
- because one simply does not know.
The aid agencies and medical
groups that work in Iraq have pointed out that the consequences can
be very severe. Everyone hopes not, but it could affect up to millions
of people. To undertake violence when there is even such a possibility
is criminal.
There is already - that is,
even before the war - a humanitarian catastrophe. By conservative estimates,
ten years of sanctions have killed hundreds of thousands of people.
If there were any honesty, the U.S. would pay reparations just for the
sanctions.
The situation is similar
to the bombing of Afghanistan, of which you and I spoke when the bombing
there was in its early stages. It was obvious the United States was
never going to investigate the consequences.
Ramachandran: Or invest the
kind of money that was needed.
Chomsky: Oh no. First, the
question is not asked, so no one has an idea of what the consequences
of the bombing were for most of the country. Then almost nothing comes
in. Finally, it is out of the news, and no one remembers it any more.
In Iraq, the United States
will make a show of humanitarian reconstruction and will put in a regime
that it will call democratic, which means that it follows Washington's
orders. Then it will forget about what happens later, and will go on
to the next one.
Ramachandran: How have the
media lived up to their propaganda-model reputation this time?
Chomsky: Right now it is
cheerleading for the home team. Look at CNN, which is disgusting - and
it is the same everywhere. That is to be expected in wartime; the media
are worshipful of power.
More interesting is what
happened in the build-up to war. The fact that government-media propaganda
was able to convince the people that Iraq is an imminent threat and
that Iraq was responsible for September 11 is a spectacular achievement
and, as I said, was accomplished in about four months. If you ask people
in the media about this, they will say, "Well, we never said that,"
and it is true, they did not. There was never a statement that Iraq
is going to invade the United States or that it carried out the World
Trade Centre attack. It was just insinuated, hint after hint, until
they finally got people to believe it.
Ramachandran: Look at the
resistance, though. Despite the propaganda, despite the denigration
of the United Nations, they haven't quite carried the day.
Chomsky: You never know.
The United Nations is in a very hazardous position.
The United States might move
to dismantle it. I don't really expect that, but at least to diminish
it, because when it isn't following orders, of what use is it?
Ramachandran: Noam, you have
seen movements of resistance to imperialism over a long period - Vietnam,
Central America, Gulf War I. What are your impressions of the character,
sweep and depth of the present resistance to U.S. aggression? We take
great heart in the extraordinary mobilisations all over the world.
Chomsky: Oh, that is correct;
there is just nothing like it. Opposition throughout the world is enormous
and unprecedented, and the same is true of the United States. Yesterday,
for example, I was in demonstrations in downtown Boston, right around
the Boston Common. It is not the first time I have been there. The first
time I participated in a demonstration there at which I was to speak
was in October 1965. That was four years after the United States had
started bombing South Vietnam. Half of South Vietnam had been destroyed
and the war had been extended to North Vietnam. We could not have a
demonstration because it was physically attacked, mostly by students,
with the support of the liberal press and radio, who denounced these
people who were daring to protest against an American war.
On this occasion, however,
there was a massive protest before the war was launched officially and
once again on the day it was launched - with no counter-demonstrators.
That is a radical difference. And if it were not for the fear factor
that I mentioned, there would be much more opposition.
The government knows that
it cannot carry out long-term aggression and destruction as in Vietnam
because the population will not tolerate it.
There is only one way to
fight a war now. First of all, pick a much weaker enemy, one that is
defenceless. Then build it up in the propaganda system as either about
to commit aggression or as an imminent threat. Next, you need a lightning
victory. An important leaked document of the first Bush Administration
in 1989 described how the U.S. would have to fight war. It said that
the U.S. had to fight much weaker enemies, and that victory must be
rapid and decisive, as public support will quickly erode. It is no longer
like the 1960s, when a war could be fought for years with no opposition
at all.
In many ways, the activism
of the 1960s and subsequent years has simply made a lot of the world,
including this country, much more civilised in many domains.