[Peace-discuss] Obama & Clinton & the Iranian Threat

[Carl G. Estabrook]

The Iranian Threat
Noam Chomsky
chomsky.info, July 2, 2010
The dire threat of Iran is widely recognized to be the most serious  
foreign policy crisis facing the Obama administration. General  
Petraeus informed the Senate Committee on Armed Services in March 2010  
that "the Iranian regime is the primary state-level threat to  
stability" in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, the  
Middle East and Central Asia, the primary region of US global  
concerns. The term "stability" here has its usual technical meaning:  
firmly under US control. In June 2010 Congress strengthened the  
sanctions against Iran, with even more severe penalties against  
foreign companies. The Obama administration has been rapidly expanding  
US offensive capacity in the African island of Diego Garcia, claimed  
by Britain, which had expelled the population so that the US could  
build the massive base it uses for attacks in the Central Command  
area. The Navy reports sending a submarine tender to the island to  
service nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines with Tomahawk  
missiles, which can carry nuclear warheads. Each submarine is reported  
to have the striking power of a typical carrier battle group.  
According to a US Navy cargo manifest obtained by the Sunday Herald  
(Glasgow), the substantial military equipment Obama has dispatched  
includes 387 "bunker busters" used for blasting hardened underground  
structures. Planning for these "massive ordnance penetrators," the  
most powerful bombs in the arsenal short of nuclear weapons, was  
initiated in the Bush administration, but languished. On taking  
office, Obama immediately accelerated the plans, and they are to be  
deployed several years ahead of schedule, aiming specifically at Iran.
"They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran," according  
to Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and  
Diplomacy at the University of London. "US bombers and long range  
missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few  
hours," he said. "The firepower of US forces has quadrupled since  
2003," accelerating under Obama.

The Arab press reports that an American fleet (with an Israeli vessel)  
passed through the Suez Canal on the way to the Persian Gulf, where  
its task is "to implement the sanctions against Iran and supervise the  
ships going to and from Iran." British and Israeli media report that  
Saudi Arabia is providing a corridor for Israeli bombing of Iran  
(denied by Saudi Arabia). On his return from Afghanistan to reassure  
NATO allies that the US will stay the course after the replacement of  
General McChrystal by his superior, General Petraeus, Chairman of the  
Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen visited Israel to meet  
IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and senior military staff along with  
intelligence and planning units, continuing the annual strategic  
dialogue between Israel and the U.S. The meeting focused "on the  
preparation by both Israel and the U.S. for the possibility of a  
nuclear capable Iran," according to Haaretz, which reports further  
that Mullen emphasized that "I always try to see challenges from  
Israeli perspective." Mullen and Ashkenazi are in regular contact on a  
secure line.

The increasing threats of military action against Iran are of course  
in violation of the UN Charter, and in specific violation of Security  
Council resolution 1887 of September 2009 which reaffirmed the call to  
all states to resolve disputes related to nuclear issues peacefully,  
in accordance with the Charter, which bans the use or threat of force.

Some analysts who seem to be taken seriously describe the Iranian  
threat in apocalyptic terms. Amitai Etzioni warns that "The U.S. will  
have to confront Iran or give up the Middle East," no less. If Iran's  
nuclear program proceeds, he asserts, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other  
states will "move toward" the new Iranian "superpower." To rephrase in  
less fevered rhetoric, a regional alliance might take shape  
independent of the US. In the US army journal Military Review, Etzioni  
urges a US attack that targets not only Iran's nuclear facilities but  
also its non-nuclear military assets, including infrastructure --  
meaning, the civilian society. "This kind of military action is akin  
to sanctions - causing 'pain' in order to change behaviour, albeit by  
much more powerful means."

Such inflammatory pronouncements aside, what exactly is the Iranian  
threat? An authoritative answer is provided by military and  
intelligence reports to Congress in April 2010 [Lieutenant General  
Ronald L. Burgess, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, Statement  
before the Committee on Armed Services, US Senate, 14 April 2010;  
Unclassified Report on Military Power of Iran, April 2010; John J.  
Kruzel, American Forces Press Service, "Report to Congress Outlines  
Iranian Threats," April 2010, http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=58833 
.].

The brutal clerical regime is doubtless a threat to its own people,  
though it does not rank particularly high in that respect in  
comparison to US allies in the region. But that is not what concerns  
the military and intelligence assessments. Rather, they are concerned  
with the threat Iran poses to the region and the world.

The reports make it clear that the Iranian threat is not military.  
Iran's military spending is "relatively low compared to the rest of  
the region," and of course minuscule as compared to the US. Iranian  
military doctrine is strictly "defensive,É designed to slow an  
invasion and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities." Iran has  
only "a limited capability to project force beyond its borders." With  
regard to the nuclear option, "Iran's nuclear program and its  
willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons  
is a central part of its deterrent strategy."

Though the Iranian threat is not military aggression, that does not  
mean that it might be tolerable to Washington. Iranian deterrent  
capacity is considered an illegitimate exercise of sovereignty that  
interferes with US global designs. Specifically, it threatens US  
control of Middle East energy resources, a high priority of planners  
since World War II. As one influential figure advised, expressing a  
common understanding, control of these resources yields "substantial  
control of the world" (A. A. Berle).

But Iran's threat goes beyond deterrence. It is also seeking to expand  
its influence. Iran's "current five-year plan seeks to expand  
bilateral, regional, and international relations, strengthen Iran's  
ties with friendly states, and enhance its defense and deterrent  
capabilities. Commensurate with that plan, Iran is seeking to increase  
its stature by countering U.S. influence and expanding ties with  
regional actors while advocating Islamic solidarity." In short, Iran  
is seeking to "destabilize" the region, in the technical sense of the  
term used by General Petraeus. US invasion and military occupation of  
Iran's neighbors is "stabilization." Iran's efforts to extend its  
influence in neighboring countries is "destabilization," hence plainly  
illegitimate. It should be noted that such revealing usage is routine.  
Thus the prominent foreign policy analyst James Chace, former editor  
of the main establishment journal Foreign Affairs, was properly using  
the term "stability" in its technical sense when he explained that in  
order to achieve "stability" in Chile it was necessary to  
"destabilize" the country (by overthrowing the elected Allende  
government and installing the Pinochet dictatorship).

Beyond these crimes, Iran is also carrying out and supporting  
terrorism, the reports continue. Its Revolutionary Guards "are behind  
some of the deadliest terrorist attacks of the past three decades,"  
including attacks on US military facilities in the region and "many of  
the insurgent attacks on Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces in Iraq  
since 2003." Furthermore Iran backs Hezbollah and Hamas, the major  
political forces in Lebanon and in Palestine -- if elections matter.  
The Hezbollah-based coalition handily won the popular vote in  
Lebanon's latest (2009) election. Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian  
election, compelling the US and Israel to institute the harsh and  
brutal siege of Gaza to punish the miscreants for voting the wrong way  
in a free election. These have been the only relatively free elections  
in the Arab world. It is normal for elite opinion to fear the threat  
of democracy and to act to deter it, but this is a rather striking  
case, particularly alongside of strong US support for the regional  
dictatorships, emphasized by Obama with his strong praise for the  
brutal Egyptian dictator Mubarak on the way to his famous address to  
the Muslim world in Cairo.

The terrorist acts attributed to Hamas and Hezbollah pale in  
comparison to US-Israeli terrorism in the same region, but they are  
worth a look nevertheless.

On May 25 Lebanon celebrated its national holiday Liberation Day,  
commemorating Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon after 22  
years, as a result of Hezbollah resistance -- described by Israeli  
authorities as "Iranian aggression" against Israel in Israeli-occupied  
Lebanon (Ephraim Sneh). That too is normal imperial usage. Thus  
President John F. Kennedy condemned the "the assault from the inside"  
in South Vietnam, "which is manipulated from the North." This criminal  
assault by the South Vietnamese resistance against Kennedy's bombers,  
chemical warfare, programs to drive peasants to virtual concentration  
camps, and other such benign measures was denounced as "internal  
aggression" by Kennedy's UN Ambassador, liberal hero Adlai Stevenson.  
North Vietnamese support for their countrymen in the US-occupied South  
is aggression, intolerable interference with Washington's righteous  
mission. Kennedy advisors Arthur Schlesinger and Theodore Sorenson,  
considered doves, also praised Washington's intervention to reverse  
"aggression" in South Vietnam -- by the indigenous resistance, as they  
knew, at least if they read US intelligence reports. In 1955 the US  
Joint Chiefs of Staff had defined several types of "aggression,"  
including "Aggression other than armed, i.e., political warfare, or  
subversion." For example, an internal uprising against a US-imposed  
police state, or elections that come out the wrong way. The usage is  
also common in scholarship and political commentary, and makes sense  
on the prevailing assumption that We Own the World.

Hamas resists Israel's military occupation and its illegal and violent  
actions in the occupied territories. It is accused of refusing to  
recognize Israel (political parties do not recognize states). In  
contrast, the US and Israel not only do not recognize Palestine, but  
have been acting relentlessly and decisively for decades to ensure  
that it can never come into existence in any meaningful form. The  
governing party in Israel, in its 1999 campaign platform, bars the  
existence of any Palestinian state -- a step towards accommodation  
beyond the official positions of the US and Israel a decade earlier,  
which held that there cannot be "an additional Palestinian state"  
between Israel and Jordan, the latter a "Palestinian state" by US- 
Israeli fiat whatever its benighted inhabitants and government might  
believe.

Hamas is charged with rocketing Israeli settlements on the border,  
criminal acts no doubt, though a fraction of Israel's violence in  
Gaza, let alone elsewhere. It is important to bear in mind, in this  
connection, that the US and Israel know exactly how to terminate the  
terror that they deplore with such passion. Israel officially concedes  
that there were no Hamas rockets as long as Israel partially observed  
a truce with Hamas in 2008. Israel rejected Hamas's offer to renew the  
truce, preferring to launch the murderous and destructive Operation  
Cast Lead against Gaza in December 2008, with full US backing, an  
exploit of murderous aggression without the slightest credible pretext  
on either legal or moral grounds.

The model for democracy in the Muslim world, despite serious flaws, is  
Turkey, which has relatively free elections, and has also been subject  
to harsh criticism in the US. The most extreme case was when the  
government followed the position of 95% of the population and refused  
to join in the invasion of Iraq, eliciting harsh condemnation from  
Washington for its failure to comprehend how a democratic government  
should behave: under our concept of democracy, the voice of the Master  
determines policy, not the near-unanimous voice of the population.

The Obama administration was once again incensed when Turkey joined  
with Brazil in arranging a deal with Iran to restrict its enrichment  
of uranium. Obama had praised the initiative in a letter to Brazil's  
president Lula da Silva, apparently on the assumption that it would  
fail and provide a propaganda weapon against Iran. When it succeeded,  
the US was furious, and quickly undermined it by ramming through a  
Security Council resolution with new sanctions against Iran that were  
so meaningless that China cheerfully joined at once -- recognizing  
that at most the sanctions would impede Western interests in competing  
with China for Iran's resources. Once again, Washington acted  
forthrightly to ensure that others would not interfere with US control  
of the region.

Not surprisingly, Turkey (along with Brazil) voted against the US  
sanctions motion in the Security Council. The other regional member,  
Lebanon, abstained. These actions aroused further consternation in  
Washington. Philip Gordon, the Obama administration's top diplomat on  
European affairs, warned Turkey that its actions are not understood in  
the US and that it must "demonstrate its commitment to partnership  
with the West," AP reported, "a rare admonishment of a crucial NATO  
ally."

The political class understands as well. Steven A. Cook, a scholar  
with the Council on Foreign Relations, observed that the critical  
question now is "How do we keep the Turks in their lane?" -- following  
orders like good democrats. A New York Times headline captured the  
general mood: "Iran Deal Seen as Spot on Brazilian Leader's Legacy."  
In brief, do what we say, or else.

There is no indication that other countries in the region favor US  
sanctions any more than Turkey does. On Iran's opposite border, for  
example, Pakistan and Iran, meeting in Turkey, recently signed an  
agreement for a new pipeline. Even more worrisome for the US is that  
the pipeline might extend to India. The 2008 US treaty with India  
supporting its nuclear programs -- and indirectly its nuclear weapons  
programs -- was intended to stop India from joining the pipeline,  
according to Moeed Yusuf, a South Asia adviser to the United States  
Institute of Peace, expressing a common interpretation. India and  
Pakistan are two of the three nuclear powers that have refused to sign  
the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), the third being Israel. All have  
developed nuclear weapons with US support, and still do.

No sane person wants Iran to develop nuclear weapons; or anyone. One  
obvious way to mitigate or eliminate this threat is to establish a  
nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East. The issue arose  
(again) at the NPT conference at United Nations headquarters in early  
May 2010. Egypt, as chair of the 118 nations of the Non-Aligned  
Movement, proposed that the conference back a plan calling for the  
start of negotiations in 2011 on a Middle East NWFZ, as had been  
agreed by the West, including the US, at the 1995 review conference on  
the NPT.

Washington still formally agrees, but insists that Israel be exempted  
-- and has given no hint of allowing such provisions to apply to  
itself. The time is not yet ripe for creating the zone, Secretary of  
State Hillary Clinton stated at the NPT conference, while Washington  
insisted that no proposal can be accepted that calls for Israel's  
nuclear program to be placed under the auspices of the IAEA or that  
calls on signers of the NPT, specifically Washington, to release  
information about "Israeli nuclear facilities and activities,  
including information pertaining to previous nuclear transfers to  
Israel." Obama's technique of evasion is to adopt Israel's position  
that any such proposal must be conditional on a comprehensive peace  
settlement, which the US can delay indefinitely, as it has been doing  
for 35 years, with rare and temporary exceptions.

At the same time, Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic  
Energy Agency, asked foreign ministers of its 151 member states to  
share views on how to implement a resolution demanding that Israel  
"accede to" the NPT and throw its nuclear facilities open to IAEA  
oversight, AP reported.

It is rarely noted that the US and UK have a special responsibility to  
work to establish a Middle East NWFZ. In attempting to provide a thin  
legal cover for their invasion of the Iraq in 2003, they appealed to  
Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), which called on Iraq to  
terminate its development of weapons of mass destruction. The US and  
UK claimed that they had not done so. We need not tarry on the excuse,  
but that Resolution commits its signers to move to establish a NWFZ in  
the Middle East.

Parenthetically, we may add that US insistence on maintaining nuclear  
facilities in Diego Garcia undermines the NWFZ) established by the  
African Union, just as Washington continues to block a Pacific NWFZ by  
excluding its Pacific dependencies.

Obama's rhetorical commitment to non-proliferation has received much  
praise, even a Nobel peace prize. One practical step in this direction  
is establishment of NWFZs. Another is to withdraw support for the  
nuclear programs of the three non-signers of the NPT. As often,  
rhetoric and actions are hardly aligned, in fact are in direct  
contradiction in this case, facts that pass with as little attention  
as most of what has just been briefly reviewed.

Instead of taking practical steps towards reducing the truly dire  
threat of nuclear weapons proliferation, the US is taking major steps  
towards reinforcing US control of the vital Middle East oil-producing  
regions, by violence if other means do not suffice. That is  
understandable and even reasonable, under prevailing imperial  
doctrine, however grim the consequences, yet another illustration of  
"the savage injustice of the Europeans" that Adam Smith deplored in  
1776, with the command center since shifted to their imperial  
settlement across the seas.



http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20100702.htm


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