[Peace-discuss] The people vs. the parties

[C. G. Estabrook]

["The Bush administration has been far to the radical ... extreme of the policy 
spectrum, and was subjected to unprecedented mainstream criticism for that 
reason," writes Noam Chomsky.  But, altho' a Democratic presidential candidate 
is "likely to shift more towards the centrist norm ... it is hard to see much 
reason to expect significant changes in policy in the Middle East."]


	Can a Democrat change US Middle East policy?
	BY NOAM CHOMSKY
	3 April 2008

RECENTLY, when Vice-President Cheney was asked by ABC News correspondent Martha 
Raddatz about polls showing that an overwhelming majority of US citizens oppose 
the war in Iraq, he replied, "So?"

"So — you don't care what the American people think?" Raddatz asked.

"No," Cheney replied, and explained, "I think you cannot be blown off course by 
the fluctuations in public opinion polls."

Later, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, explaining Cheney's comments, was 
asked whether the public should have "input."

Her reply: "You had your input. The American people have input every four years, 
and that's the way our system is set up."

That's correct. Every four years the American people can choose between 
candidates whose views they reject, and then they should shut up.

Evidently failing to understand democratic theory, the public strongly disagrees.

"Eighty-one per cent say when making 'an important decision' government leaders 
'should pay attention to public opinion polls because this will help them get a 
sense of the public's views,"' reports the Program on International Policy 
Attitudes, in Washington.

And when asked "whether they think that 'elections are the only time when the 
views of the people should have influence, or that also between elections 
leaders should consider the views of the people as they make decisions,' an 
extraordinary 94 per cent say that government leaders should pay attention to 
the views of the public between elections."

The same polls reveal that the public has few illusions about how their wishes 
are heeded: 80 per cent "say that this country is run by a few big interests 
looking out for themselves," not "for the benefit of all the people."

With its unbounded disregard for public opinion, the Bush administration has 
been far to the radical nationalist and adventurist extreme of the policy 
spectrum, and was subjected to unprecedented mainstream criticism for that reason.

A Democratic candidate is likely to shift more towards the centrist norm. 
However, the spectrum is narrow. Looking at the records and statements of 
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, it is hard to see much reason to expect 
significant changes in policy in the Middle East.

IRAQ

IT IS Important to bear in mind that neither Democratic candidate has expressed 
a principled objection to the invasion of Iraq. By that I mean the kind of 
objection that was universally expressed when the Russians invaded Afghanistan 
or when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait: condemnation on the grounds that 
aggression is a crime — in fact the "supreme international crime," as the 
Nuremberg Tribunal determined. No one criticised those invasions merely as a 
"strategic blunder" or as involvement in "another country's civil war, a war 
(they) can't win" (Obama, Clinton, respectively, on the Iraq invasion).

The criticism of the Iraq war is on grounds of cost and failure; what are called 
"pragmatic reasons," a stance that is considered hardheaded, serious, moderate — 
in the case of Western crimes.

The intentions of the Bush administration, and presumably McCain, were outlined 
in a Declaration of Principles released by the White House in November 2007, an 
agreement between Bush and the U.S.-backed Nuri al-Maliki government of Iraq.

The Declaration allows U.S. forces to remain indefinitely to "deter foreign 
aggression" (though the only threat of aggression in the region is posed by the 
United States and Israel, presumably not the intention) and for internal 
security, though not, of course, internal security for a government that would 
reject US. domination. The Declaration also commits Iraq to facilitate and 
encourage "the flow of foreign investments to Iraq, especially American 
investments" — an unusually brazen expression of imperial will.

In brief, Iraq is to remain a client state, agreeing to allow permanent US 
military installations (called "enduring" in the preferred Orwellism) and 
ensuring US investors priority in accessing its huge oil resources — a 
reasonably clear statement of goals of the invasion that were evident to anyone 
not blinded by official doctrine.

What are the alternatives of the Democrats? They were clarified in March 2007, 
when the House and Senate approved Democratic proposals setting deadlines for 
withdrawal. Gen. Kevin Ryan (retired), senior fellow at Harvard University's 
Belfer Center of International Affairs, analysed the proposals for The Boston Globe.

The proposals permit the president to waive their restrictions in the interests 
of "national security," which leaves the door wide open, Ryan writes. They 
permit troops to remain in Iraq "as long as they are performing one of three 
specific missions: protecting U.S. facilities, citizens or forces; combating Al 
Qaeda or international terrorists; and training Iraqi security forces." The 
facilities include the huge U.S. military bases being built around the country 
and the U.S. Embassy — actually a self-contained city within a city, unlike any 
embassy in the world. None of these major construction projects are under way 
with the expectation that they will be abandoned.

The other conditions are also open-ended. "The proposals are more correctly 
understood as a re-missioning of our troops," Ryan sums up: "Perhaps a good 
strategy — but not a withdrawal."

It is difficult to see much difference between the March 7 Democratic proposals 
and those of Obama and Clinton.

IRAN

WITH regard to Iran, Obama is considered more moderate than Clinton, and his 
leading slogan is "change." So let us keep to him.

Obama calls for more willingness to negotiate with Iran, but within the standard 
constraints. His reported position is that he "would offer economic inducements 
and a possible promise not to seek 'regime change' if Iran stopped meddling in 
Iraq and cooperated on terrorism and nuclear issues," and stopped "acting 
irresponsibly" by supporting Shia militant groups in Iraq.

Some obvious questions come to mind. For example, how would we react Iran's 
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he would offer a possible promise not to seek 
"regime change" in Israel if it stopped its illegal activities in the occupied 
territories and cooperated on terrorism and nuclear issues?

Obama's moderate approach is well to the militant side of public opinion — a 
fact that passes unnoticed, as is often the case. Like all other viable 
candidates, Obama has insisted throughout the electoral campaign that the United 
States must threaten Iran with attack (the standard phrase is: "keep all options 
open"), a violation of the U.N. Charter, if anyone cares. But a large majority 
of Americans have disagreed: 75 per cent favour building better relations with 
Iran, as compared with 22 per cent who favour "implied threats," according to 
PIPA.  All the surviving candidates, then, are opposed by three-fourths of the 
public on this issue.

American and Iranian opinion on the core issue of nuclear policy has been 
carefully studied. In both countries, a large majority holds that Iran should 
have the rights of any signer of the Nonproliferation Treaty: to develop nuclear 
power but not nuclear weapons.

The same large majorities favour establishing a "nuclear-weapons-free zone in 
the Middle East that would include both Islamic countries and Israel." More than 
80 per cent of Americans favour eliminating nuclear weapons altogether — a legal 
obligation of the states with nuclear weapons, officially rejected by the Bush 
administration.

And surely Iranians agree with Americans that Washington should end its military 
threats and turn towards normal relations.

At a forum in Washington when the PIPA polls were released in January 2007, 
Joseph Cirincione, senior vice-president for National Security and International 
Policy at the Center for American Progress (and Obama adviser), said the polls 
showed "the common sense of both the American people and the Iranian people, 
(who) seem to be able to rise above the rhetoric of their own leaders to find 
common sense solutions to some of the most crucial questions" facing the two 
nations, favouring pragmatic diplomatic solutions to their differences.

Though we do not have internal records, there is good reason to believe that the 
Pentagon is opposed to an attack on Iran. The March 11 resignation of Admiral 
William Fallon as head of the Central Command, responsible for the Middle East, 
was widely interpreted to trace to his opposition to an attack, probably shared 
with the military command generally.

The December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate reporting that Iran had not 
pursued a nuclear weapons program since 2003, when it sought and failed to reach 
a comprehensive settlement with the United States, perhaps reflects opposition 
of the intelligence community to military action.

There are many uncertainties. But it is hard to see concrete signs that a 
Democratic presidency would improve the situation very much, let alone bring 
policy into line with American or world opinion.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

ON ISRAEL-Palestine too, the candidates have provided no reason to expect any 
constructive change.

On his web site, Obama, the candidate of "change" and "hope," states that he 
"strongly supports the US-Israel relationship, believes that our first and 
incontrovertible commitment in the Middle East must be to the security of 
Israel, America's strongest ally in the Middle East."

Transparently, it is the Palestinians who face by far the most severe security 
problem, in fact a problem of survival. But Palestinians are not a "strong 
ally." At most, they might be a very weak one. Hence their plight merits little 
concern, in accord with the operative principle that human rights are largely 
determined by contributions to power, profit and ideological needs.

Obama's web site presents him as a superhawk on Israel. "He believes that 
Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state should never be challenged." He is not 
on record as demanding that the right of countries to exist as Muslim 
(Christian, White) states "should never be challenged."

Obama calls for increasing foreign aid "to ensure that (the) funding priorities 
(for military and economic assistance to Israel) are met." He also insists 
forcefully that the United States must not "recognise Hamas unless it renounced 
its fundamental mission to eliminate Israel." No state can recognise Hamas, a 
political party, so what he must be referring to is the government formed by 
Hamas after a free election that came out "the wrong way" and is therefore 
illegitimate, in accord with prevailing elite concepts of "democracy."

And it is considered irrelevant that Hamas has repeatedly called for a two-state 
settlement in accord with the international consensus, which the United States 
and Israel reject.

Obama does not ignore Palestinians: "Obama believes that a better life for 
Palestinian families is good for both Israelis and Palestinians." He also adds a 
reference to two states living side by side that is vague enough to be 
unproblematic to U.S. and Israeli hawks.

For Palestinians, there are now two options. One is that the United States and 
Israel will abandon their unilateral rejectionism of the past 30 years and 
accept the international consensus on a two-state settlement, in accord with 
international law and, incidentally, in accord with the wishes of a large 
majority of Americans. That is not impossible, though the two rejectionist 
states are working hard to render it so.

A second possibility is the one that the US-Israel are actually implementing. 
Palestinians will be consigned to their Gaza prison and to West Bank cantons, 
virtually separated from one another by Israeli settlements and huge 
infrastructure projects, the whole imprisoned as Israel takes over the Jordan 
Valley.

Nevertheless, circumstances may change, and perhaps the candidates along with 
them, to the benefit of the United States and the region. Public opinion may not 
remain marginalised and easily ignored. The concentrations of domestic economic 
power that largely shape policy may come to recognise that their interests are 
better served by joining the general public, and the rest of the world, than by 
accepting Washington's hard line.

(This article is adapted from the updated paperback edition of Perilous Power: 
The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy. By Noam Chomsky and Gilbert Achcar 
published by Paradigm Publishers, September 2008)

Noam Chomsky is emeritus professor of linguistics and philosophy at the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.