[NYTr] Chomsky on Attacking Iran: "Options on the Table"

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Khaleej Times via Info Clearing House - Aug 27, 2007
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18263.htm


Options on the table

By Noam Chomsky

08/27/07 "Khaleej Times"--In Washington a remarkable and ominous
campaign is under way to "contain Iran," which turns out to mean
"containing Iranian influence," in a confrontation that Washington Post
correspondent Robin Wright calls "Cold War II."

The sequel bears close scrutiny as it unfolds under the direction of
former Kremlinologists Condoleezza Rice and Robert M Gates, according
to Wright. Stalin had imposed an Iron Curtain to bar Western influence;
Bush-Rice-Gates are imposing a Green Curtain to bar Iranian influence.

Washington's concerns are understandable. In Iraq, Iranian support is
welcomed by much of the majority Shia population. In Afghanistan,
President Karzai describes Iran as "a helper and a solution." In
Palestine, Iranian-backed Hamas won a free election, eliciting savage
punishment of the Palestinian population by the United States and
Israel for voting "the wrong way." In Lebanon, most Lebanese see
Iranian-backed Hezbollah "as a legitimate force defending their country
from Israel," Wright reports. And the Bush administration, without
irony, charges that Iran is "meddling" in Iraq, otherwise presumably
free from foreign interference.

The ensuing debate is partly technical. Do the serial numbers on the
Improvised Explosive Devices really trace back to Iran? If so, does the
leadership of Iran know about the IEDs, or only the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards? Settling the debate, the White House plans to
brand the Revolutionary Guards as a "specially designated global
terrorist" force, an unprecedented action against a national military
branch, authorising Washington to undertake a wide range of punitive
actions.

The sabre-rattling rhetoric about "containing Iran" has escalated to
the point where both political parties and practically the whole US
Press corps accept it as legitimate and, in fact, honourable, that "all
options are on the table," to quote the leading presidential candidates
— possibly even nuclear weapons. "All options on the table" means that
Washington is threatening war. The UN Charter outlaws "the threat or
use of force." The United States, which has chosen to become an outlaw
state, disregards international laws and norms. We're allowed to
threaten anybody we want — and to attack anybody we want.

Cold War II also entails an arms race. The United States is proposing a
$ 20 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, while
increasing annual military aid to Israel by 30 per cent, to $ 30
billion over 10 years. Egypt is down for a $ 14 billion, 10-year deal.
The aim is to counter "what everyone in the region believes is a
flexing of muscles by a more aggressive Iran," says an unnamed senior
US government official. Iran's "aggression" consists in its being
welcomed within the region, and allegedly supporting resistance to US
forces in neighbouring Iraq. Unquestionably, Iran's government is
reprehensible. The prospect that Iran might develop nuclear weapons is
deeply troubling. Though Iran has every right to develop nuclear
energy, no one — including the majority of Iranians — wants it to have
nuclear weapons. That would add to the much more serious dangers
presented by its near neighbours Pakistan, India and Israel, all
nuclear-armed with the blessing of the United States.

Iran resists US or Israeli domination of the Middle East but scarcely
poses a military threat. Any potential threat to Israel might be
overcome if the United States would accept the view of the great
majority of its own citizens and of Iranians and permit the Middle East
to become a nuclear-weapons free zone, including Iran and Israel, and
US forces deployed there. One may also remember that UN Security
Council Resolution 687, of 1991, to which Washington appeals when
convenient, calls for "establishing in the Middle East a zone free from
weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery."

Washington's feverish new Cold War "containment" policy has spread even
to Europe. The United States wants to install a "missile defence
system" in the Czech Republic and Poland that is being marketed to
Europe as a shield against Iranian missiles. Even if Iran had nuclear
weapons and long-range missiles, the chances of its using them to
attack Europe are perhaps on a par with the chances of Europe's being
hit by an asteroid. In any case, if Iran were to indicate the slightest
intention of aiming a missile at Europe or Israel, the country would be
vaporised.

Of course Vladimir Putin is deeply upset by the shield proposal. We can
imagine how the United States would respond if a Russian anti-missile
system were erected in Canada. The Russians have every reason to regard
an anti-missile system as part of a first-strike weapon against them.
As is well known, such a system could never impede a first strike, but
it could conceivably impede a retaliatory strike. On all sides,
"missile defense" is therefore understood to be a first-strike weapon,
eliminating a deterrent to attack.

Even more obviously, the only military function of such a system with
regard to Iran, the declared aim, would be to bar an Iranian deterrent
to US or Israel aggression. The shield, then, ratchets the threat of
war a few notches higher, in the Middle East and elsewhere, with
incalculable consequences, and the potential for a terminal nuclear
war. The immediate fear is that by accident or design, Washington's war
planners or their Israeli surrogate might decide to escalate their Cold
War II into a hot one.

There are many nonmilitary measures to "contain" Iran, including a
de-escalation of rhetoric and hysteria all around, and agreeing to
negotiations in earnest for the first time — if indeed all options are
on the table.

Copyright © 2007 Khaleej Times