Chomsky’s Guide to Inaction
March 9, 2007
I notice that Guardian’s website has a link to a Chomsky article on its frontpage. Since this doesn’t happen too often, I decided to have a look. I regretted it immediately. The epigraph reads:
Washington’s escalation of threats against Iran is driven by a determination to secure control of the region’s energy resources
This, to put it mildly, is what they call “bollocks” in Britain. Chomsky has been harping on this theme since before the Iraq war, and is now recycling it for Iran. What is absent in his analysis is the sole, and visible, constituency dragging the US government towards this war — the Israel lobby and its neocon vanguard [for more on this, check these excerpts from Scott Ritter's new book].
Whereas in the case of Iraq war, a case could be made for the centrality of oil to the policy, with Iran it is simply not tenable. Chomsky knows this; he wouldn’t have to engage in sophistry of the following kind otherwise:
In the energy-rich Middle East, only two countries have failed to subordinate themselves to Washington’s basic demands: Iran and Syria.
In fact, both countries have been more than keen to accede to American demands and offer themselves as willing surrogates. Syria has been one of the preferred destinations for Extraordinary Rendition (torture) flights. Chomsky’s statement is especially disingenuous since further down in his article, he admits that in 2003, “Iran offered negotiations on all outstanding issues, including nuclear policies and Israel-Palestine relations.” The only thing that has stood in the way of this rapprochement has been the AIPAC sponsored legislation against the two countries.
In the cold war-like mentality in Washington, Tehran is portrayed as the pinnacle in the so-called Shia crescent that stretches from Iran to Hizbullah in Lebanon, through Shia southern Iraq and Syria.
The Cold War reference here is instructive, since two hawkish Cold Warriors — James Baker and Zbigniew Brzezinski — have both vocally opposed Bush’s policy and the Baker-Hamilton Commission recommended opening direct talks with Syria and Iran, and advised Bush to make Israel withdraw from Occupied Golan Heights. Chomsky’s method is to present Washington as a monolith, in order to conceal the fact that the neocons (Israel Lobby) have little support in the rest of the establishment.
For the US, the primary issue in the Middle East has been, and remains, effective control of its unparalleled energy resources.
No doubt about this, and that is why prominent Oil men such as Baker, Bush Sr., Scowcroft etc had warned against the Iraq war as it would jeopardize American interests in this region. This Chomsky confirms himself in the article: “Iranian influence in the ‘crescent’ challenges US control.” So either Chomsky is admitting that he was wrong in the case of Iraq, or he is wrong now. In fact, he was wrong in both cases.
We know exactly what US plans for Iraq were, because the neocon architects of the war put it down in writing. But since the neocons don’t exist in Chomsky’s analysis, we need not diverge from our Ostrich act.
Once the oil is on the seas it goes anywhere. Control is understood to be an instrument of global dominance.
Sure. But how is this control enhanced by bombing a country rather than accepting its offer of fealty?
By an accident of geography, the world’s major oil resources are in largely Shia areas of the Middle East: southern Iraq, adjacent regions of Saudi Arabia and Iran, with some of the major reserves of natural gas as well. Washington’s worst nightmare would be a loose Shia alliance controlling most of the world’s oil and independent of the US.
And Chomsky was the first person to discover this, right? Wrong!
Not only were the neocon planners of the Iraq well aware of its ethnnic and sectarian composition, they had incorporated plans to exploit these differences in order to roll back shia influence in both Iran and Iraq. In his excellent critique of Chomsky’s disingenuous analysis, Jonathan Cutler presents evidence from the 1998 book Tyranny’s Ally, by David Wurmser, Cheney’s chief Middle-East advisor and one of the architects of the war:
“U.S. policy makers have long presumed that the majority Shi’ite population of Iraq would serve as Iran’s fifth column there; but would it?” (TA, p.72). Wurmser thinks not. Instead, he argues that “Iraqi Shi’ites, if liberated from [Saddam's] tyranny, can be expected to present a challenge to Iran’s influence and revolution” (TA, p.74). More specifically, Wurmser claims that “Shi’ite Islam is plagued by fissures, none of which has been carefully examined, let alone exploited, by the opponents of Iran’s Islamic republic” (TA, p.74, emphasis added). The idea of exploiting fissures is entirely consistent with realist theories of power balancing…
For Wurmser, the liberation of Najaf and Karbala would promote and empower potential US allies in Iraq and Iran. Wurmser’s strategy foresees US military intervention against the Sunni minority in Iraq, not primarily as a springboard for further military intervention in Iran, but as the Iraqi detonator for a populist, Shiite-led rebellion against rival clerics in Iran. Neo-conservative support for the political ascendance of Shiite Iraq is not about the principle of democracy. Nor are neo-conservatives blind to the ways in which regime change in Iraq might transform the relationship between Iraq and Iran. Neo-conservatives who favor de-Baathification in Iraq might seem like blundering fools who would unwittingly hand Iraq to Iranian clerics. Wumser’s scheme, however, is to hand Iran to Iraqi clerics, especially the followers of Ayatollah Sayyid ‘Ali Sistani. For Wurmser, the road to Tehran begins in Najaf.
Among the reasons for the US-Israel invasion is that Hizbullah’s rockets could be a deterrent to a US-Israeli attack on Iran.
Hizbullah’s rockets could be a deterrent to an Israeli attack, not a US attack. That should have given you a hint. The US plans for the airborne assault use bases nowhere near Israel. It would mostly rely on aircraft carriers, mostly based in the Indian Ocean and the Persian gulf.
Despite the sabre-rattling it is, I suspect, unlikely that the Bush administration will attack Iran. Public opinion in the US and around the world is overwhelmingly opposed. It appears that the US military and intelligence community is also opposed.
This is amusing. So now the Bush administration can’t act because it is constrained by Public opinion? How very democratic. I am sorry Noam, it isn’t just the Military and Intelligence community that is opposed; so is the Dept of State and Defence. Before he joined the Bush junta, even the Iran-Contra felon Robert Gates was opposed to this policy, but now he’s a ”team player”, of course. He was part of the ISG, and is on record recommending direct negotiations, remember?
Beyond Chomsky
Chomsky may have important achievements to his name, but in his attempt to give the Israel Lobby a free pass, i’m afraid he does more damage than good. It is important to recognize just how damaging his influence is to the so called “antiwar” movement (as I have described at length here), since most reflexively defer to his authority without challenging his assumptions. Far from empowering the opponents of war, he is ensurig their irrelevance — once again – by erecting a nebulous strawman.
These are dangerous times and those who are not ideologically blinkered cannot overlook the fact that there has been only one constituency actively lobbying for this war — Israel and its powerful lobby in the United States. Deflection attention away from the source of the policy is not only misleadingly, but is in fact criminal. As Scott Ritter put it:
Summon [AIPAC], or any other lobby promoting confrontation with Iran, to the forefront, so that the warnings they offer in whispers from a back room can be articulated before the American public. Hold these conjurers of doom accountable for their positions by demanding they back them up with hard fact. See if the US intelligence community concurs with the dire warnings…and if it doesn’t, ask who, then, is driving US policy toward Iran?
Chomsky is offering nothing, but an excuse for inaction. It is just as important to challenge his propaganda, as it is to challenge the establishment’s.
March 9, 2007 at 3:59 pm
So the Israel lobby is a determining factor in American foreign policy; I still don’t see how that makes it the only factor.
Zionists need the U.S. to do their bidding, to do their bidding the U.S. needs to remain uberpowerful, and to remain uberpowerful the U.S. needs to keep oil tied to the dollar. How does the role of AIPAC etc. make oil politics irrelevant?
And if it is nothing to do with oil, what’s in it for the Zionists? Israel has been happy to accept peace with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, so why not with Syria and Iran?
March 9, 2007 at 4:06 pm
I’ve never said oil is irrelevant. It is a means to an end. Oil may or may not be a factor. Israel lobby most certainly is. Until you can find me a reference to it in Chomsky’s critique, this debate is superfluous.
March 9, 2007 at 4:23 pm
For the sake of argument, then, if in Chomsky’s article we were to replace “the U.S. [administration]” with “the Zionist lobby” and “Washington” with “Tel-Aviv”, then much of it remains accurate and pertinent, no?
Surely, the amended quote “[Tel-Aviv]’s worst nightmare would be a loose Shia alliance controlling most of the world’s oil and independent of the US … Iran could be a lynchpin. If the [Zionist] planners bring that about, they will have seriously undermined the [Zionist] position of power in the world.” sums the current crisis up nicely?
I agree with you on who is behind the current crisis, but I think Chomsky offers a valid (if a little superficial) explanation of why.
March 9, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Mostly yes. There is another factor at play: the Israel lobby has influece in washington so long as there is a conflict in the middle-east. That allows it to strike hawkish poses by identifying Israeli interests with American interests.
So in the case of Iraq, US could have had total control of the oil, without having to invade. US is never going to find a more pliant surrogate than Saddam, and until the end, he was keen to acquiesce. However that posed a direct threat to the influence of the lobby. If Saddam was at peace with the US as a strategic asset, then that undermines the value of Israel (which, according to the Lobby and Chomsky looks after US interests). That’s why the war was waged, at the risk of jeopardizing American strategic interests (oil) — hence, Bush Sr-Baker’s oppistion to it. The neocon notion of control is different, it means seizing Iraqi oil and flooding the market with it, to break OPEC’s monopoly.
My main bone with Chomsky is he completely ignores the lobby. But there is a strategic flaw and a contradiction in his analysis. Like Gramsci he agrees that it is the sources of power that we must hold to account. In this instance, he choose to focus on the methods, or motivations, rather than the source.
Do we know who is pushing for the war? Yes. Can we isolate and identify them? Yes. Do we know what animates their actions? Yes. Well, then it is of secondary importance what means they employ. It is important to identify, confront and neutralize them. Towards this, Chomsky makes no contribution.
March 9, 2007 at 10:33 pm
One thing i think you should include in your insightful, compact analysis which is why do the Iranians view Israel as an enemy?
From my perconal experience which can only serve as a clue, Iranias hate Arabs more than Israelians! Many indicators refer to the overwhelming unpopuilarity of the Iranian Malalis inside Iran. And that definetly makes perfect sense, as at an ultimate level of analysis,there are no funadamental problems between Israel and Iran.
The Iranians are safe far away from Israel- while they entertain by making childlike threats. They are driven by postmodern new age myths of which the bulk of population are growing weary.
By erecting an illusionary Israeli enemy they tickle the strong nationalistic feelings among the persian barbars. In the mean time, they draw an ace in their game with Imperial powers. For by their pseudo support of Arab causes and palestinians they turn into key players in the middle east after having been spittted out of the region by the real supporters of palestinians Nasser and Sadam.
Non the less to be fair and square i do admit that balanced strong oil rich modern islamic i.e non western by definition country like Iran would severly affect international oil markets. They have a problem with the U.S- no doubt about that. But dont forget that Israel is not a bana republic
Israel destroyed Iraq’s Nuclear reactor in 1981, assassinated el-Mashad killed the German experts working in Egypt in the sixties. the Arab industralisation oragnisation and Egyptian military industries which are far more advanced than the irani’s are subjected to real severe pressure. Remeber the abdel kader helmy case in 1988, the canceled condor 2 project in 1990……….etc.
If Israel had taken najad’s mystical revelations seriously,she wouldnt haver left a single Irani industrial complex intact. And they are capable of doing it. (dont invoke Hisbollah here, because it is totally irrelevent).
I also suggest that you check Mohamed Abtahy’s the deputy of Mohamed Khatemy statments in UAE strategic studies center. He mentioned that invading Bahgdad withgout Iran’s help would have been imposible- while he complained about the American ingratitude.
March 10, 2007 at 1:22 am
m.idrees, do you permit me to use Emr’s comments above as a post in my blog?
Thanks.
Yes Chomsky’s doom and gloom could have used some zionistitis as well. But still, I don’t think zionists are succeeding in making their case against Iran. An unbombed Iran provides Israel a better “threat” and will thus get them more money, less international legal bindings, more oppressive power and etc. Israelis want to make sure Iran doesn’t make peace with the US, but they won’t want Iran totally subordinated to the US either! Iran’s becoming powerful will make the peace making more attractive to Americans, something that some Arabs like the dude above and the Israelis equally detest.
thanks for good work.
Cheers
March 10, 2007 at 10:07 am
I agree with the crux of your argument. I would make a few distinctions, however:
- Chomsky’s perspective has been formed over decades, predating the neo-cons’ contemporary clout. It’s a safe bet that PNAC had little input into the plight of Indochina! Chomsky rightly focuses on the fundamentals which drive such a complex empire. But, his overt omission of the neo-cons’ blatant influence is not readily defendable;
- Cheney! I did bring this up in another post as well as at http://internetdog.org/rah/lettres/DrStrangeLove.html ; Why would Cheney want to do all this for Israel? After all, he is the single most important driver of all this;
- The US bases in Iraq. This prize alone is irresistable to them all, neo-con or not! And this is a point which Chomsky has been making for decades.
But, as I hinted in a response to a Gary Leupp article, http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/1469, when the inevitable failure of this venture becomes manifest, its most visible proponet would stand accused. Dispassionate analysis may lead to more complex answers, but, as was the case with 9/11, the great unwashed seek simple culprits … and AIPAC has provided them with one.
March 10, 2007 at 2:34 pm
What has Indochina got to do with this? Does this mean the Cuban lobby doesn’t exist, because, like the Israel lobby, it didn’t have any role in the Vietnam conflict?
Washington, like any centre of power, has many forces trying to instrumentalize this power in their own respective interests. In order to challenge a given policy, you challenge its source, not abstract ideas.
Re: Cheney, it is not so much what Cheney thinks that is of relevance as what he is being advised. For that the works of his chief Middle-East advisor, David Wurmser, are instructive. If you want to know what Iraq war is all about, read his book. He wrote it in ‘98, and it still remains a blueprint for developments in Iraq.
Yes, the bases would sure be an incentive. Chalmers Johnson has written magnificent books on american empire of bases. In fact, US already had many bases in the Middle East, some of which it has had to vacate in the wake of the disaster in Iraq. But those who trot this argument out rarely mention who is it that lobbies for these bases. We know very well it wasn’t James Baker, Bush Sr. or Scowcroft, who had an opportunity, more than anyone else, to establish them without facing the same level of adverse reaction. Why didn’t they? We also know that the military brass wasn’t too keen on the Iraq war; neither was Dept of State. In the Pentagon, the only support for the war came from Rumsfeld and his handful of political appointees. All neocons, incidentally.
The military industrial complex always has an interest in war, but not in occupations. Its model of a profitable war is Gufl ‘91, not the present occupation. It doesn’t make its profits from rifles and body armour. Its profits come from hitec weapons, and programs like the SDI (star wars), missile defense etc.
Dispassionate analysis may lead to more complex answers, but, as was the case with 9/11, the great unwashed seek simple culprits … and AIPAC has provided them with one.
No historical event — not least a war — is monocausal; but that does not mean all causes are of equal salience. When the most significant among them is consistently overlooked, then that is as good as enabling the war.
Israel lobby is not synonmyous with AIPAC. AIPAC is merely one component of lobby that includes AJC, its foreign policy arm, ADL, spying and smearing operation, WINEP, Saban Center (brookings institution), American Enterprise Institute, JINSA, CSP, FDD, etc that formulate foreign policy, CPMJAO which lobbies the executive, CAMERA, MEMRI etc the propaganda organizations, key columnists in major publication. Campus organizations (Hillel, ICC etc), State federations, pressure groups etc.
I agree that when the backlash comes, people will be unable to make the distinction between those gunning for the war, and the larger jewish population which remains opposed to such aggression. And in this respect, I don’t think the Israel Lobby denail of prominent intellectuals helps.
March 10, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Interesting analysis and a fascinating read. I would agree that the influence of AIPAC is oft overlooked, rationalized away, or ignored in analysis of the current administrations foreign policy. My only remark would be that trying to parse the logic behind Bush’s foreign policy may be a fools errand, there may not be one. Bush and his crew appear to be an ideologically driven bunch with an extremely limited world view that may have little or no bearing on reality. Why the USA invaded Iraq may never be known, because their simply weren’t any good reasons for doing so, and since then their contact with reality has grown ever more tenuous as events on the ground in Iraq slip ever further from their imperial fantasy. I don’t know if Bush is going to attack Iran, but strongly suspect at this point that a coin flip is as good a ways to guess as anything. And if he does attack, it’s unlikely we will ever know the real reasoning behind it, assuming there is any.
JMO —Doug
March 11, 2007 at 1:57 am
By “Indochina” I meant that the fundamentals of this empire’s behaviour stay the same, and that is what forms Chomsky’s perspective. PNAC came _after_ the US war on Vietnam.
But, again, we are agreed on your general point wrt Chomsky.
As for Cheney, however, I do not view him as an impressionable recipient of Wurmsers’/Ledeen’s/etc advice. Jonathan Cutler’s outstanding article provides a new peek into this, in its quoting of Richard Clarke’s book: Cheney is partly motivated by a negative view of the Saudis’ prospects.
Though we’re disagreed on this point, I thank you for bringing Cutler’s article to our attention. It is superb.
As for the military bases, that’s a whole discussion by itself.
March 17, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Maybe a analogy with phisics will put things into a better terms.
An object moves in the direction of the resultant of all the forces that act upon this object. The object being US foreign policies towards the middle east and big oil, israeli lobbiests the vectors which act upon this object. Nevertheless, one must recognize that there’re many other vectors acting upon this object. Israeli lobby and big oil as being the only vectors to drive this object is a very grotesque simplification.
Consequently the fact that big oil did not support the invasion of Iraq or a possible invasion of Iran, does not necessarely leaves the “neo-cons” as the hands pulling the strings.
A much more complex system of forces is acting upon this object. A system that way before any attempt of invasion was being especulated already stablished objectives to be conquered. This system is the link between Iraq and Indochina. The link between neocons and you. The inercia of this object was characterized at the founding days of the “western democracies” and it has since then kept course.
In that sense, the atribution of the war in Iraq as a conquest of Israeli lobby is ignoring the very system or object that allowed Israel to exist in the first place.
As Chomsky being a person that called upon the rationalization of this object or system, am I sure he is well aware of the influencial power of the lobby. Nevertheless, giving it this much relevance would undermine his efforts to comprehend the big picture.
March 18, 2007 at 12:41 pm
As I have pointed out before, historical events are never monocausal. There is no single force driving US policy — there is a confluence of interests. That doesn’t mean, however, that all causes are of equal salience. Mearsheimer & Walt are absolutely on the mark when they point out that the Iraq war was driven by many factors, but absent the Israel lobby, it would not have happened. Re Iran, all other forces, except the Israel Lobby and its Christian Evangelical allies, are positioned against the war, for a simple practical reason — it jeopardizes their interests.
March 19, 2007 at 12:21 pm
In the spectrum of common interest that drives the US foreign policies, one could never really segregate one interest from the other. As you well put it, it is confluence of intersts that never so clearly distinguishes one from another.
For instance. Big Oil. Even though big oil does “not support the war”, this according to their statements and conviently leaked reports, they are in the very soul of the American Establishment. They are the bases that enabled Bush and the Gang (or should I say Cheney and Gang) to take matters into their terms. I would even go so far as to say that if it wasn’t for the Big Oil, there would be no war in Iraq.
The logic for my last statement is based upon your remark that “historical events are never monocausal”. A truth of science.
Without Big Oil Bush and the Gang would never made the great. One might argue that the course of the events might of been the same if Democrats would be in power. However the speculative nature of this arguement does not make it worthy of greater elaboration. The fact is that Bush was sitting at the White House after he lost the election but even so became president when the planes crashed into the WTC. At that point in time the Iraeli lobby was persuing another passions. In fact, was prosecuting Bush’s terrible administration. Israel and the American Jews normally supports of democrats. The old religion conflict. Republicans tend to be too Christian for the Jewish tastes.
In that sense, one could argue that Big Oil had even greater influence in the war in Iraq as the “neocons”. The “neocons” are like rats feeding on the crumbles that falls from the table of American Establishment.
Where the war in Iraq stopped becoming big oil influence and started becoming the Israeli dish is irrelevant. The meal was served.
March 19, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Actually, Fromsouth, the Evangelical Christians that provide such scary support to the Israel lobby are also firmly in bed with the neocons. See the
Jesus Camp film, in which we see children indoctrinated not only to love Jesus by hating everyone who things differently, but also to revere Bush and to pray for Israel.
It’s all to do with “the Rapture”, the idea that chaos in the Middle East followed by the Jewish reconquest of the Holy Lands (and subsequent conversion to Christianity) will fulfill prophecies and set into motion the Second Coming. If, as m.idrees suggests, one of the Israel lobby’s goals is to ensure permanent war in the Middle East, then the Christian fundamentalist lobby is its natural ally.
Also, while I agree that oil politics are as fundamental to understanding conflicts in the Middle East as the Zionist agenda, it’s misleading to talk about a monolithic Big Oil interest group. Pretty much everyone has an oil agenda, and many of the voices we associate most closely with Big Oil are dead against the war in Iraq; stability under Saddam would have been better for business than the current chaos.