[Peace-discuss] “This is the most remarkable regional uprising that I can remember”

[C. G. Estabrook]

*“This is the most remarkable regional uprising that I can remember”
Noam Chomsky on /Democracy Now!/ 2 February 2011
*
In recent weeks, popular uprisings in the Arab world have led to the ouster of 
Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the imminent end of Egyptian 
President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, a new Jordanian government, and a pledge by 
Yemen’s longtime dictator to leave office at the end of his term. We speak to 
MIT Professor Noam Chomsky about what this means for the future of the Middle 
East and U.S. foreign policy in the region. When asked about President Obama’s 
remarks last night on Mubarak, Chomsky said: "Obama very carefully didn’t say 
anything... He’s doing what U.S. leaders regularly do. As I said, there is a 
playbook: whenever a favored dictator is in trouble, try to sustain him, hold 
on; if at some point it becomes impossible, switch sides."

AMY GOODMAN: For analysis of the Egyptian uprising and its implications for the 
Middle East and beyond, we’re joined now by the world-renowned political 
dissident and linguist Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology, author of over a hundred books, including his latest, 
Hopes and Prospects.

Noam, welcome to Democracy Now! Your analysis of what’s happening now in Egypt 
and what it means for the Middle East?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, first of all, what’s happening is absolutely spectacular. 
The courage and determination and commitment of the demonstrators is remarkable. 
And whatever happens, these are moments that won’t be forgotten and are sure to 
have long-term consequences, as the fact that they overwhelmed the police, took 
Tahrir Square, are staying there in the face of organized pro-Mubarak mobs, 
organized by the government to try to either drive them out or to set up a 
situation in which the army will claim to have to move in to restore order and 
then to maybe install some kind of military rule, whatever. It’s very hard to 
predict what’s going to happen. But the events have been truly spectacular. And, 
of course, it’s all over the Middle East. In Yemen, in Jordan, just about 
everywhere, there are the major consequences.

The United States, so far, is essentially following the usual playbook. I mean, 
there have been many times when some favored dictator has lost control or is in 
danger of losing control. There’s a kind of a standard routine—Marcos, Duvalier, 
Ceausescu, strongly supported by the United States and Britain, Suharto: keep 
supporting them as long as possible; then, when it becomes 
unsustainable—typically, say, if the army shifts sides—switch 180 degrees, claim 
to have been on the side of the people all along, erase the past, and then make 
whatever moves are possible to restore the old system under new names. That 
succeeds or fails depending on the circumstances.

And I presume that’s what’s happening now. They’re waiting to see whether 
Mubarak can hang on, as it appears he’s intending to do, and as long as he can, 
say, "Well, we have to support law and order, regular constitutional change," 
and so on. If he cannot hang on, if the army, say, turns against him, then we’ll 
see the usual routine played out. Actually, the only leader who has been really 
forthright and is becoming the most—maybe already is—the most popular figure in 
the region is Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan, who’s been very straight and 
outspoken.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam, I wanted to play for you what President Obama had to say 
yesterday.

     PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We have spoken out on behalf of the need for 
change. After his speech tonight, I spoke directly to President Mubarak. He 
recognizes that the status quo is not sustainable and that a change must take 
place. Indeed, all of us who are privileged to serve in positions of political 
power do so at the will of our people. Through thousands of years, Egypt has 
known many moments of transformation. The voices of the Egyptian people tell us 
that this is one of those moments, this is one of those times. Now, it is not 
the role of any other country to determine Egypt’s leaders. Only the Egyptian 
people can do that. What is clear, and what I indicated tonight to President 
Mubarak, is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be 
peaceful, and it must begin now.

AMY GOODMAN: That was President Obama speaking yesterday in the White House. 
Noam Chomsky, your response to what President Obama said, the disappointment of 
many that he didn’t demand that Mubarak leave immediately? More importantly, the 
role of the United States, why the U.S. would have any say here, when it comes 
to how much it has supported the regime?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, Obama very carefully didn’t say anything. Mubarak would 
agree that there should be an orderly transition, but to what? A new cabinet, 
some minor rearrangement of the constitutional order—it’s empty. So he’s doing 
what U.S. leaders regularly do. As I said, there is a playbook: whenever a 
favored dictator is in trouble, try to sustain him, hold on; if at some point it 
becomes impossible, switch sides.

The U.S. has an overwhelmingly powerful role there. Egypt is the second-largest 
recipient over a long period of U.S. military and economic aid. Israel is first. 
Obama himself has been highly supportive of Mubarak. It’s worth remembering that 
on his way to that famous speech in Cairo, which was supposed to be a 
conciliatory speech towards the Arab world, he was asked by the press—I think it 
was the BBC—whether he was going to say anything about what they called 
Mubarak’s authoritarian government. And Obama said, no, he wouldn’t. He said, "I 
don’t like to use labels for folks. Mubarak is a good man. He has done good 
things. He has maintained stability. We will continue to support him. He is a 
friend." And so on. This is one of the most brutal dictators of the region, and 
how anyone could have taken Obama’s comments about human rights seriously after 
that is a bit of a mystery. But the support has been very powerful in diplomatic 
dimensions. Military—the planes flying over Tahrir Square are, of course, U.S. 
planes. The U.S. has been the strongest, most solid, most important supporter of 
the regime. It’s not like Tunisia, where the main supporter was France. They’re 
the primary guilty party there. But in Egypt, it’s clearly the United States, 
and of course Israel. Of all the countries in the region, Israel, and I suppose 
Saudi Arabia, have been the most outspoken and supportive of the Mubarak regime. 
In fact, Israeli leaders were angry, at least expressed anger, that Obama hadn’t 
taken a stronger stand in support of their friend Mubarak.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about what this means for the Middle East, Noam Chomsky. I 
mean, we’re talking about the massive protests that have taken place in Jordan, 
to the point where King Abdullah has now dismissed his cabinet, appointed a new 
prime minister. In Yemen there are major protests. There is a major protest 
called for Syria. What are the implications of this, the uprising from Tunisia 
to Egypt now?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, this is the most remarkable regional uprising that I can 
remember. I mean, it’s sometimes compared with Eastern Europe, but that’s not 
much of a comparison. For one thing, in this case, there’s no counterpart to 
Gorbachev in the United States or other great powers supporting the 
dictatorships. That’s a huge difference. Another is that in the case of Eastern 
Europe, the United States and its allies followed the timeworn principle that 
democracy is fine, at least up to a point, if it accords with strategic and 
economic objectives, so therefore acceptable in enemy domains, but not in our 
own. That’s a well-established principle, and of course that sharply 
differentiates these two cases. In fact, about the only moderately reasonable 
comparison would be to Romania, where Ceausescu, the most vicious of the 
dictators of the region, was very strongly supported by the United States right 
up ’til the end. And then, when he was overthrown and killed, the first Bush 
administration followed the usual rules: postured about being on the side of the 
people, opposed to dictatorship, tried to arrange for a continuation of close 
relations.

But this is completely different. Where it’s going to lead, nobody knows. I 
mean, the problems that the protesters are trying to address are extremely 
deep-seated, and they’re not going to be solved easily. There is a tremendous 
poverty, repression, a lack of not just democracy, but serious development. 
Egypt and other countries of the region have just been through a neoliberal 
period, which has led to growth on paper, but with the usual consequences: high 
concentration of extreme wealth and privilege, tremendous impoverishment and 
dismay for most of the population. And that’s not easily changed. We should also 
remember that, as far as the United States is concerned, what’s happening is a 
very old story. As far back as the 1950s, President Eisenhower - this is in 
internal discussions, since declassified - expressed his concern for what he 
called the "campaign of hatred against us" in the Arab world, not by the 
governments, but by the people. Remember, [this was]1958, this was a rather 
striking moment. Just two years before, Eisenhower had intervened forcefully to 
compel Israel, Britain and France to withdraw from their invasion of Egyptian 
territory. And you would have expected enormous enthusiasm and support for the 
United States at that moment, and there was, briefly, but it didn’t last, 
because policies returned to the norm. So when he was speaking two years later, 
there was, as he said, a "campaign of hatred against us." And he was naturally 
concerned why. Well, the National Security Council, the highest planning body, 
had in fact just come out with a report on exactly this issue. They concluded 
that, yes, indeed, there’s a campaign of hatred. They said there’s a perception 
in the Arab world that the United States supports harsh and brutal dictators and 
blocks democracy and development, and does so because we’re concerned to control 
their energy resources.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam, I wanted to go for a minute to that famous address of the 
general, of the Republican president, of the president of the United States, 
Dwight D. Eisenhower.

     PRESIDENT DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER: My fellow Americans, this evening I come to 
you with a message of leave-taking and farewell and to share a few final 
thoughts with you, my countrymen. We have been compelled to create a permanent 
armaments industry of vast proportions. Three-and-a-half million men and women 
are directly engaged in the defense establishment. The total—economic, 
political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every state house, every office 
of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this 
development, yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. In the 
councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted 
influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The 
potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

AMY GOODMAN: That was President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell address in 
1961. Special thanks to Eugene Jarecki and his film Why We Fight, that brought 
it to us in the 21st century. Noam Chomsky, with us on the phone from his home 
near Boston, Noam, continue with the significance of what Eisenhower was saying 
and what the times were there and what they have to teach us today about this 
Middle East uprising.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, the military-industrial complex speech, the famous one, was 
after what I’ve just been talking about. That was as he was leaving office and a 
important speech, of course. Needless to say, the situation he described not 
only persists but indeed has amplified.

It should be mentioned that there’s another element to the military-industrial 
complex issue, which he didn’t bring up. At that time, in the 1950s, as he 
certainly knew, the Pentagon was funding what became the next phase of the 
high-tech economy at that time: computers, micro-electronics, shortly after, the 
internet. Much of this developed through a Pentagon subsidy funding procurement, 
other mechanisms. So it was a kind of a cover for a basic theme of contemporary 
economic development. That is, the public pays the costs and takes the risks, 
and eventual profit is privatized, in the case of computers and the internet, 
after decades. So that’s another aspect of the military-industrial complex which 
is worth keeping in mind.

But Eisenhower was speaking particularly about the military aspect, what’s 
called "defense," though in fact it’s mostly aggression, intervention, 
subversion. It doesn’t defend the country; it harms it, most of the time. But 
that’s separate — not, of course, unrelated, but distinct from the Middle East 
problem. There, what Eisenhower and the National Security Council were 
describing is a persistent pattern. They were describing it in 1950. And I’ll 
repeat the basic conclusion: the United States does support brutal and harsh 
dictatorships, blocks democracy and development; the goal is to maintain control 
over the incomparable energy resources of the region—incidentally, not to use 
them. One of the things that Eisenhower was doing at exactly the same time was 
pursuing a program to exhaust U.S. energy reserves, rather than using much 
cheaper Middle East energy, for the benefit of Texas oil producers. That’s a 
program that went on from the late '50s for about 15 years. So, at the time, it 
was not a matter of importing oil from Saudi Arabia, but just ensuring the 
maintenance of control over the world's major energy resources. And that, as the 
National Security Council concluded correctly, was leading to the campaign of 
hatred against us, the support for dictators, for repression, for violence and 
the blocking of democracy and development.

Now, that was the 1950s. And those words could be written today. You take a look 
at what’s happening in the Middle East today. There’s a campaign of hatred 
against the United States, in Tunisia against France, against Britain, for 
supporting brutal, harsh dictators, repressive, vicious, imposing poverty and 
suffering in the midst of great wealth, blocking democracy and development, and 
doing so because of the primary goal, which remains to maintain control over the 
energy resources of the region. What the National Security Council wrote in 1958 
could be restated today in almost the same words.

Right after 9/11, the Wall Street Journal, to its credit, ran a poll in the 
Muslim world, not of the general population, [but] of the kind of people they 
are interested in, I think what they called the moneyed Muslims or some phrase 
like that—professionals, directors of multinational corporations, bankers, 
people deeply embedded in the whole U.S.-dominated neoliberal project there—so 
not what’s called anti-American. And it was an interesting poll. In fact, the 
results were very much like those that were described in 1958. There wasn’t a 
campaign of hatred against the U.S. among these people, but there was tremendous 
antagonism to U.S. policies. And the reasons were pretty much the same: the U.S. 
is blocking democracy and development; it’s supporting dictators. By that time, 
there were salient issues, some of which didn’t exist in 1958. For example, 
there was a tremendous opposition in these groups to the murderous sanctions in 
Iraq, which didn’t arouse much attention here, but they certainly did in the 
region. Hundreds of thousands of people were being killed. The civilian society 
was being destroyed. The dictator was being strengthened. And that did cause 
tremendous anger. And, of course, there was great anger about U.S. support for 
Israeli crimes, atrocities, illegal takeover of occupied territories and so on, 
settlement programs. Those were other issues, which also, to a limited extent, 
existed in ’58, but not like 2001.

In fact, right now, we have direct evidence about attitudes of the Arab 
population (I think I mentioned this on an earlier broadcast) - strikingly not 
reported, but extremely significant. Last August the Brookings Institute 
released a major poll of Arab opinion, done by prestigious and respected polling 
agencies - they do it regularly - and the results were extremely significant. 
They reveal that there is again, still, a campaign of hatred against the United 
States. When asked about threats to the region, the ones that were picked, near 
unanimously, were Israel and the United States—88 percent Israel, about 77 
percent the United States, regarded as the threats to the region. Of course, 
they asked about Iran. Ten percent of the population thought Iran was a threat. 
In the list of respected personalities, Erdogan was first. I think there were 
about 10. Neither Obama or any other Western figure was even mentioned. Saddam 
Hussein had higher respect.

Now, this is quite striking, especially in the light of the WikiLeaks 
revelations. The one that won the headlines and that led to great enthusiasm and 
euphoria was the revelation, whether accurate or not—we don’t know—but the 
claim, at least, by diplomats that the Arab dictators were supporting the U.S. 
in its confrontation with Iran. And, you know, enthusiastic headlines about how 
Arab states support the United States. That’s very revealing. What the 
commentators and the diplomats were saying is the Arab dictators support us, 
even though the population is overwhelming opposed, everything’s fine, 
everything’s under control, it’s quiet, they’re passive, and the dictators 
support us, so what could be a problem? In fact, Arab opinion was so 
antagonistic to the United States as revealed in this poll, that a majority of 
the Arab population, 57 percent, actually thought the region would be better off 
if Iran had nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, the conclusion here, and in England 
and the continent, was it’s all wonderful. The dictators support us. We can 
disregard the population, because they’re quiet. As long as they’re quiet, who 
cares? People don’t matter. Actually, there’s an analog of that internal to the 
United States. And it’s of course the same policy elsewhere in the world. All of 
that reveals a contempt for democracy and for public opinion which is really 
profound. And one has to listen with jaws dropping when Obama, in the clip you 
ran, talks about how, of course, governments depend on the people. Our policy is 
the exact opposite.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, I wanted to read to you what Robert Fisk has written 
from the streets of Cairo today. Robert Fisk, the well-known reporter from The 
Independent of London. He said, "One of the blights of history will now involve 
a U.S. president who held out his hand to the Islamic world and then clenched 
his fist when it fought a dictatorship and demanded democracy." Noam Chomsky, 
your response?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, Fisk’s reporting, as usual, has been inspiring and 
phenomenal. And yeah, he’s exactly right. And it is the old pattern. As I say, 
it goes back 50 years right there in Egypt and the region, and it’s the same 
elsewhere. As long as the population is passive and obedient, it doesn’t matter 
if there’s a campaign of hatred against us. It doesn’t matter if they believe 
that our official enemy can perhaps save them from our attacks. In fact, nothing 
matters, as long as the dictators support us. That’s the view here.

We should remember there’s an analog here. I mean, it’s not the same, of course, 
but the population in the United States is angry, frustrated, full of fear and 
irrational hatreds. And the folks not far from you on Wall Street are just doing 
fine. They’re the ones who created the current crisis. They’re the ones who were 
called upon to deal with it. They’re coming out stronger and richer than ever. 
But everything’s fine, as long as the population is passive. If one-tenth of one 
percent of the population is gaining a preponderant amount of the wealth that’s 
produced, while for the rest there 30 years of stagnation, just fine, as long as 
everyone’s quiet. That’s the scenario that has been unfolding in the Middle 
East, as well, just as it did in Central America and other domains.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam, I wanted to ask you if you think the revelations from 
WikiLeaks, the U.S. diplomatic cables, before that, Iraq and Afghan war logs, 
this massive trove of documents that have been released, Julian Assange talking 
about the critical issue of transparency—have played a key role here. I mean, in 
terms of Tunisia, a young university graduate who ended up, because there were 
no jobs, just selling vegetables in a market, being harassed by police, 
immolates himself—that was the spark. But also, the documents that came out on 
Tunisia confirming the U.S. knowledge, while it supported the Tunisian regime, 
that it was wholly corrupt, and what this means from one country to another, 
Yemen, as well. Do you think there is a direct relationship?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, actually, the fact of the matter is that WikiLeaks are not 
really telling us anything dramatically new. They’re providing confirmation, 
often, of reasonable surmises. Tunisia was a very interesting case. So one of 
the leaks comes from the ambassador, July 2009, and he describes Tunisia. He 
says it’s a police state with little freedom of expression or association, 
serious human rights problems, ruled by a dictator whose family is despised for 
their corruption, robbery of the population and so on. That’s the assessment of 
the ambassador. Not long after that, the U.S. singled out Tunisia for an extra 
shipment of military aid. Not just Tunisia, also two other Arab 
dictatorships—Egypt and Jordan—and of course Israel—it’s routine—and one other 
country, namely Colombia, the country with the worst human rights record in the 
western hemisphere for years and the leading recipient of U.S. military aid for 
years, two elements that correlate quite closely, it’s been shown.

Well, this tells you what the understanding was about Tunisia—namely, police 
state, a bitterly hated dictator and so on. But we send them more arms 
afterwards, because the population is quiet, so everything’s fine. Actually, 
there was a very succinct account of all of this by a former high Jordanian 
official who’s now director of Middle East research for the Carnegie Endowment, 
Marwan Muasher. He said, "This is the principle." He said, "There is nothing 
wrong. Everything is under control." Meaning, as long as the population is 
quiet, acquiescent—maybe fuming with rage, but doing nothing about 
it—everything’s fine, there’s nothing wrong, it’s all under control. That’s the 
operative principle.

AMY GOODMAN: What about what’s happening now in Jordan, what you think is going 
to happen, and also in Saudi Arabia, how much it drives this and what you feel 
Obama needs to do and what you think he actually is doing?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, Jordan, the prime minister was just replaced. He was 
replaced with an ex-general who is claimed to be moderately popular, at least 
not hated by the population. But essentially nothing changed. There are changes 
of the Jordanian cabinet frequently, and the basic system remains. Whether the 
population will accept that, whether the Muasher principle will work—nothing’s 
wrong, everything’s under control—that, we don’t know.

Saudi Arabia is an interesting case. The king of Saudi Arabia has been, along 
with Israel, the strongest supporter, most outspoken supporter of Mubarak. And 
the Saudi Arabian case should remind us of something about the regular 
commentary on this issue. The standard line and commentary is that, of course, 
we love democracy, but for pragmatic reasons we must sometimes reluctantly 
oppose it, in this case because of the threat of radical Islamists, the Muslim 
Brotherhood. Well, you know, there’s maybe some—whatever one thinks of that. 
Take a look at Saudi Arabia. That’s the leading center of radical Islamist 
ideology. That’s been the source of it for years. It’s also the support of 
Islamic terror, the source for Islamic terror or the ideology that supports it. 
That’s the leading U.S. ally, and has been for a long, long time. U.S. 
relations, close relations, with Israel, incidentally, after the 1967 war, 
escalated because Israel had struck a serious blow against secular Arab 
nationalism, the real enemy, Nasser’s Egypt, and in defense of radical Islam, 
Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and Egypt had been in a proxy war just before that, 
and there was a major conflict. And that’s quite typical.

Going back to WikiLeaks, maybe the most significant revelation has to do with 
Pakistan. In Pakistan, the WikiLeaks cables show that the ambassador, Ambassador 
Patterson, is pretty much on top of what’s going on. The phrase "campaign of 
hatred against the United States" is an understatement. The population is 
passionately anti-American, increasingly so, largely, as she points out, as a 
result of U.S. actions in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the pressure on the 
Pakistani military to invade the tribal zones, the drone attacks and so on. And 
she goes on to say that this may even lead to what is in fact the ultimate 
nightmare, that Pakistan’s enormous nuclear facilities, which incidentally are 
being increased faster than anywhere else in the world, that there might be 
leakage of fissile materials into the hands of the radical Islamists, who are 
growing in strength and gaining popular support in part, as a result of actions 
that we’re taking.

Well, this didn’t happen overnight. The major factor behind this is the rule of 
the dictator Zia-ul-Haq back in the 1980s. He was the one who carried out 
radical Islamization of Pakistan, with Saudi funding. He set up these extremist 
madrassas. The young lawyers who were in the streets recently shouting their 
support for the assassin of the political figure who opposed the blasphemy laws, 
they’re a product of those madrassas. Who supported him? Ronald Reagan. He was 
Reagan’s favorite dictator in the region. Well, you know, events have 
consequences. You support radical Islamization, and there are consequences. But 
the talk about concern about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, whatever its 
reality, is a little bit ironic, when you observe that the U.S. and, I should 
say, Britain, as well, have traditionally supported radical Islam, in part, 
sometimes as a barrier to secular nationalism.

What’s the real concern is not Islam or radicalism; it’s independence. If the 
radical Islamists are independent, well, they’re an enemy. If secular 
nationalists are independent, they are an enemy. In Latin America, for decades, 
when the Catholic Church, elements of the Catholic Church, were becoming 
independent, the liberation theology movement, they were an enemy. We carried 
out a major war against the church. Independence is what’s intolerable, and 
pretty much for the reasons that the National Security Council described in the 
case of the Arab world 50 years ago.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, I wanted to read to you what two people are writing. 
One is Ethan Bronner in the New York Times, saying, "Despite [Mr.] Mubarak’s 
supportive relations with Israel, many Israelis on both the left and right are 
sympathetic [to] the Egyptians’ desire to rid themselves of his autocracy and 
build a democracy. But they fear what will follow if things move too quickly." 
He quotes a top Israeli official saying, "We know this has to do with the desire 
for freedom, prosperity and opportunity, and we support people who don’t want to 
live under tyranny, but who will take advantage of what is happening in its 
wake?" The official goes on to say, "The prevailing sense here is that you need 
a certain stability followed by reform. Snap elections are likely to bring a 
very different outcome," the official said.

And then there’s Richard Cohen, who’s writing in the Washington Post: "Things 
are about to go from bad to worse in the Middle East. An Israeli-Palestinian 
peace agreement is nowhere in sight."

Noam Chomsky, your response?

NOAM CHOMSKY: The comment of the Israeli official is standard boilerplate. 
Stalin could have said it. Yes, of course, the people want peace and freedom, 
democracy; we’re all in favor of that. But not now, please. Because we don’t 
like what the outcome will be. In fact, it’s the same with Obama. It’s more or 
less the same comment. On the other hand, the Israeli officials have been 
vociferous and outspoken in support of Mubarak and [in] denunciation of the 
popular movement and the demonstrations. Perhaps only Saudi Arabia has been so 
outspoken in this regard. And the reason is the same. They very much fear what 
democracy would bring in Egypt.

After all, they’ve just seen it in Palestine. There has been one free election 
in the Arab world, exactly one really free election—namely, in Palestine, 
January 2006, carefully monitored, recognized to be free, fair, open and so on. 
And right after the election, within days, the United States and Israel 
announced publicly and implemented policies of harsh attack against the 
Palestinian people to punish them for running a free election. Why? The wrong 
people won. Elections are just fine, if they come out the way we want them to.

So, if in, say, Poland under Russian rule, popular movements were calling for 
freedom, we cheer. On the other hand, if popular movements in Central America 
are trying to get rid of brutal dictatorships, we arm the military and carry out 
massive terrorist wars to crush it. We will cheer Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia 
standing up against the enemy, and at the very same moment, elite forces, fresh 
from renewed training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, under command of the 
military, blow the brains out of six leading Latin American intellectuals, 
Jesuit priests, in El Salvador. That passes in silence. But that’s exactly the 
pattern that we see replicated over and over again.

And it’s even recognized by conservative scholarship. The leading scholarly 
studies of what’s called "democracy promotion" happen to be by a good, careful 
scholar, Thomas Carruthers, who’s a neo-Reaganite. He was in Reagan’s State 
Department working on programs of democracy promotion, and he thinks it’s a 
wonderful thing. But he concludes from his studies, ruefully, that the U.S. 
supports democracy, if and only if it accords with strategic and economic 
objectives. Now, he regards this as a paradox. And it is a paradox if you 
believe the rhetoric of leaders. He even says that all American leaders are 
somehow schizophrenic. But there’s a much simpler analysis: people with power 
want to retain and maximize their power. So, democracy is fine if it accords 
with that, and it’s unacceptable if it doesn’t.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam, there’s a sign, a big banner that people are holding in the 
square, in Tahrir, that says, "Yes, we can, too."

NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah. You know where they got that from. Well, except that they 
mean it. Whether they can or not, no one knows. I mean, the situation - we 
should recognize - has ominous aspects. The dispatch of pro-Mubarak thugs to the 
square is dangerous and frightening. Mubarak, presumably with U.S. backing, 
clearly feels that he can reestablish control. They’ve opened the internet 
again. The army is sitting by. We don’t know what they’ll do. But they might 
very well use the conflicts in the streets, caused by the pro-Mubarak gangs that 
have been sent in, to say, "Well, we have to establish military control," and 
they’ll be another form of the military dictatorships that have been the 
effective power in Egypt for a long time.

Another crucial [thing] is how long the demonstrators can sustain themselves, 
not only against terror and violence, but also just against economic crisis. 
Within a short time, maybe beginning already, there isn’t going to be bread, 
water. The economy is collapsing. They have shown absolutely incredible courage 
and determination, but, you know, there’s a limit to what human flesh can bear. 
So, amazing as all this is, there’s no guarantee of success.

If - [from] the United States, the population of the United States, [and] Europe 
- if there is substantial vocal, outspoken support, that could make a 
difference. Now, remember the Muasher principle: as long as everyone’s quiet, 
everything’s under control, it’s all fine. But when they break those bonds, it’s 
not fine. You have to do something.

AMY GOODMAN: If you were president today, what would you do right now, president 
of the United States?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, if I had made it to the presidency, meaning with the kind of 
constituency and support that’s required to be a president in the United States, 
I’d probably do what Obama’s doing. But what ought to be done is what Erdogan is 
doing. Turkey is becoming the most significant country in the region, and it’s 
recognized. Erdogan is far and away the most popular figure. And they’ve taken a 
pretty constructive role on many issues. And in this case, he is the one leading 
public figure, leader, who has been frank, outspoken, clear, and says Mubarak 
must go now. Now is when we must have change. That’s the right stand. Nothing 
like that in Europe, and nothing like that here.

AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think of the role of the U.S. corporations? We 
spoke to Bill Hartung, who wrote this book, "Prophets of Power," about Lockheed 
Martin. The overwhelming amount of money, the billions, that have gone to Egypt, 
haven’t really gone to Egypt; they’ve gone to U.S. weapons manufacturers, like 
General Dynamics, like Lockheed Martin, like Boeing, etc. In fact, Boeing owns 
Narus, which is the digital technology that’s involved with surveillance of the 
cell phone, of the internet system there, where they can find dissident voices 
for the Egyptian regime. And who knows what they will do with those voices, just 
among others? But these corporations that have made such a killing off the 
repression, where are they standing right now in terms of U.S. policy?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, they don’t issue press releases, so we have to speculate. 
But it’s pretty obvious that they have a major stake in the dictatorships, not 
just Egypt. So, for example, a couple of months ago, Obama announced the biggest 
military sale in history to Saudi Arabia, $60 billion worth of jet planes, 
helicopters, armored vehicles and so on and so forth. The pretext is that we 
have to defend Saudi Arabia against Iran. Remember that among the population, if 
anyone cares about them, 10 percent regard Iran as a threat, and a majority 
think the region would be better off if Iran had nuclear weapons. But we have to 
defend them against Iran by sending them military equipment, which would do them 
absolutely no good in any confrontation with Iran. But it does a lot of good for 
the American military-industrial complex that Eisenhower was referring to in 
that clip you ran a while back. So, yes, William Hartung was quite right about this.

In fact, a part of the reason why there is such strong support for Israel in the 
military lobby, in the military-industrial lobby in the United States, is that 
the massive arms transfers to Israel, which, whatever they’re called, end up 
essentially being gifts, they go from the pocket of the U.S. taxpayer into the 
pocket of military industry. But there’s also a secondary effect, which is well 
understood. They’re a kind of a teaser. When the U.S. sends the most advanced 
jet aircraft, F-35s, to Israel, then Saudi Arabia says, "Well, we want a hundred 
times as much second-rate equipment," which is a huge bonanza for military 
industry, and it also recycles petrodollars, which is a necessity for the U.S. 
economy. So these things are quite closely tied together.

And it’s not just military industry. Construction projects, development, 
telecommunications—in the case of Israel, high-tech industry. So, Intel 
Corporation, the world’s major chip producer, has announced a new generation of 
chips, which they hope will be the next generation of chips, and they’re 
building their main factory in Israel. Just announced an expansion of it. The 
relations are very close and intimate all the way through—again, in the Arab 
world, certainly not among the people, but we have the Muasher principle. As 
long as they’re quiet, who cares? We can disregard them.

AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of Mubarak in the Israel-Palestine-Egypt axis? 
I mean, going back to 1979, if you could briefly remind people why he’s so 
important, as the media keeps saying he has meant peace and stability with 
Israel, he gives the U.S. access to their air space, he guarantees access to the 
Suez Canal. Talk about that and what the change would mean.

NOAM CHOMSKY: We should actually go back a little further. In 1971, President 
Sadat of Egypt offered Israel a full peace treaty in return for withdrawal from 
the Occupied Territories. He cared about the Sinai, not [the West Bank and 
Gaza]—but Israel considered it, rejected it. Henry Kissinger, national security 
adviser, supported the rejection. (The State Department then supported Sadat.) 
It was a fateful decision. That’s the point at which Israel quite explicitly 
chose expansion over security. They were then expanding into the Sinai, planning 
to build a city of a million people, Egyptian Sinai, settlements driving farmers 
out into the desert and so on. Well, that was the background for the 1973 war, 
which made it clear that Egypt can’t simply be dismissed. Then we move on to the 
negotiations which led, in 1979, to the U.S. and Israel pretty much accepting 
Sadat’s offer of 1971: withdrawal from the Sinai in return for a peace treaty. 
That’s called a great diplomatic triumph. In fact, it was a diplomatic 
catastrophe. The failure to accept it in 1971 led to a very dangerous war, 
suffering, brutality and so on. And finally, the U.S. and Israel essentially, 
more or less, accepted it.

Now, as soon as that settlement was made, [in] 1979, Israeli strategic 
analysts—the main one was Avner Yaniv, but others, too—recognized right away 
that now that Egypt is excluded from the confrontation, Israel is free to use 
force in other areas. And indeed, it very soon after that attacked Lebanon,  
[and] didn’t have to worry about an Egyptian deterrent. Now, that was gone, so 
we can attack Lebanon. And that was a brutal, vicious attack, killed 15,000 [to] 
20,000 people, led finally to the Sabra-Shatila massacre, destroyed most of 
southern Lebanon. And no defensive rationale. In fact, it wasn’t even pretended. 
As it was said, it was a war for the West Bank. It was an effort to block 
embarrassing Palestinian negotiation, diplomatic offers, and [to] move forward 
on integrating the Occupied Territories. Well, they were free to do that once 
the Egyptian deterrent was gone. And that continues. Egypt is the major Arab 
state, the biggest military force by far, and neutralizing Egypt does free 
Israel—and when I say Israel, I mean the United States and Israel, because they 
work in tandem—it frees them to carry out the crimes of the occupation, attacks 
on Lebanon—there have been five invasions already, there might be another 
one—and Egypt does not interfere.

Furthermore, Egypt cooperates in the crushing of Gaza. That terrible free 
election in January 2006 not only frightened the U.S. and Israel—they didn’t 
like the outcome, so turned instantly to punishing the Palestinians—but the same 
in Egypt. The victor in the election was Hamas, which is an offshoot of the 
Muslim Brotherhood. That was very much feared by the Egyptian dictatorship, 
because if they ever allowed anything like a free election, the Muslim 
Brotherhood would no doubt make out quite well, maybe not a majority, but it 
would be a substantial political force. And they don’t want that, so therefore 
they cooperate. Egypt, under Mubarak, cooperates with Israel in crushing [Gaza], 
built a huge fence on the Egyptian border, with U.S. engineering help, and it 
sort of monitors the flow of goods in and out of Gaza on the Egyptian side. It 
essentially completes the siege that the U.S. and Israel have imposed. Well, all 
of that could erode if there was a democratic movement that gained influence in 
Egypt, just as it did in Palestine.

I should mention that there’s one other semi-democratic election in the Arab 
world, regularly. Now that’s in Lebanon. Lebanon is a complex story. It’s a 
confessional democracy, so the Shiite population, which is the largest of the 
sects, is significantly underrepresented under the confessional system. But 
nevertheless the elections are not just state elections under dictatorships. And 
they have outcomes, too, which are suppressed here. So, for example, in the last 
election, the majority, a popular majority, was the Hezbollah-led coalition. 
They were the popular majority in the last election. I think about 53 percent. 
Well, that’s not the way it was described here. If you read, say, Thomas 
Friedman, he wrote an ode about the election—he was practically shedding tears 
of joy at free elections, in which Obama won over Ahmadinejad. Well, you know, 
what he meant is that in the representation under the confessional system, which 
seriously underrepresents the Shiite population, the pro-U.S. coalition won the 
most seats. That again reflects the standard contempt for democracy. All we 
care—we don’t care that the majority of the population went the other way, as 
long as they’re quiet and passive. And interestingly, Hezbollah quietly accepted 
the outcome, didn’t protest about it at the time. But since then, their power 
has increased, and now there’s a serious threat in Lebanon, which we should not 
overlook.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam, finally, as we wrap up, I’ve asked you a lot about what this 
means for the Middle East, this rolling revolution, from Tunisia to Egypt, what 
we’re seeing in Jordan, in Yemen and beyond. But what about what these mass 
protests mean for people in the United States?

NOAM CHOMSKY: I think they mean a lot, and I’ve been trying to hint about that. 
The doctrine that everything is fine as long as the population is quiet, that 
applies in the Middle East, applies in Central America, it applies in the United 
States. For the last 30 years, we have had state-corporate policies specifically 
designed—specifically designed, not accidentally—to enrich and empower a tiny 
sector of the population, one percent—in fact, one-tenth of one percent. That’s 
the basic source of the extreme inequality. Tax policies, rules of corporate 
governance, a whole mass of policies, have been very explicitly designed to 
achieve this end—deregulation and so on. Well, for most of the population, 
that’s meant pretty much stagnation over a long period. Now, people have been 
getting by, by sharply increasing the number of work hours, far beyond Europe, 
by debt, by asset inflation like the recent housing bubble. But those things 
can’t last.

And as soon as Obama came into office, he came in in the midst of the worst 
crisis since the Depression. In fact, Ben Bernanke, we know from recent 
testimony that was released, head of the Fed, said it was even worse than the 
banking crisis in 1929. So there was a real crisis. Who did he pick to patch up 
the crisis? The people who had created it, the Robert Rubin gang, Larry Summers, 
Timothy Geithner, basically the people who were responsible for the policies 
that led to the crisis. And it’s not surprising. I mean, Obama’s primary 
constituency was financial institutions. They were the core of the funding for 
his campaign. They expect to be paid back. And they were. They were paid back by 
coming out richer and more powerful than they were before the crisis that they 
created.

Meanwhile, the population, much of the population, is literally in depression. 
If you look at the unemployment figures, among the top few percent, maybe 10, 20 
percent, unemployment is not particularly high. In fact, it’s rather low. When 
you go down to the bottom of the income ladder, you know, the lower quintiles, 
unemployment is at Depression levels. In manufacturing industry, it is at 
Depression levels.

And it’s different from the Depression. In the Depression, which I’m old enough 
to remember, it was very severe. My own family was mostly unemployed working 
class. But there was a sense of hopefulness—we can do something. There’s CIO 
organizing. There’s sitdown strikes, that compelled New Deal measures, which 
were helpful and hopeful. And there was a sense that somehow we’ll get out of 
this, that we’re in it together, we can work together, we can get out of it. 
That’s not true now. Now there’s a general atmosphere of hopelessness, despair, 
anger and deep irrationality. That’s a very dangerous mix. Hatred of foreigners, 
you know, a mix of attitudes which is volatile and dangerous, quite different 
from the mood in the Depression.

But the same governing principle applies: as long as the population accepts 
what’s going on, is directing their anger against teachers, firemen, policemen, 
pensions and so on, as long as they’re directing their anger there, and not 
against us, the rulers, everything’s under control, everything’s fine. Until it 
erupts. Well, it hasn’t erupted here yet, and if it does erupt, it might not be 
at a constructive direction, given the nature of what’s happening in the country 
now. But yes, those Egyptian lessons should be taken to heart. We can see 
clearly what people can do under conditions of serious duress and repression far 
beyond anything that we face, but they’re doing it. If we don’t do it, the 
outcome could be quite ugly.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, I want to thank you very much for being with us. 
Noam, author, Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT, and most recent book, Hopes 
and Prospects, has written more than a hundred books.

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