[NYTr] Noam Chomsky: Cold War II

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Dave Muller (southnews) - Sep 3, 2007

ZNet - Aug 27, 2007
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=13629&

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  in this case a real hot war.

Cold War II

by Noam Chomsky

These are exciting days in Washington, as the government directs its 
energies to the demanding task of containing Iran in what Washington 
Post correspondent Robin Wright, joining others, calls Cold War II.[1]

During Cold War I, the task was to contain two awesome forces. The 
lesser and more moderate force was an implacable enemy whose avowed 
objective is world domination by whatever means and at whatever cost. 
Hence if the United States is to survive, it will have to adopt a 
repugnant philosophy and reject acceptable norms of human conduct 
and the long-standing American concepts of `fair play that had been 
exhibited with such searing clarity in the conquest of the national 
territory, the Philippines, Haiti and other beneficiaries of the 
idealistic new world bent on ending inhumanity, as the newspaper of 
record describes our noble mission.[2] The judgments about the nature
of the super-Hitler and the necessary response are those of General
Jimmy Doolittle, in a critical assessment of the CIA commissioned by
President Eisenhower in 1954. They are quite consistent with those of
the Truman administration liberals, the wise men who were present at
the creation, notoriously in NSC 68 but in fact quite consistently.

In the face of the Kremlins unbridled aggression in every corner of the 
world, it is perhaps understandable that the US resisted in defense of 
human values with a savage display of torture, terror, subversion and 
violence while doing everything in its power to alter or abolish any 
regime not openly allied with America, as Tim Weiner summarizes the 
doctrine of the Eisenhower administration in his recent history of the 
CIA.[3] And just as the Truman liberals easily matched their successors 
in fevered rhetoric about the implacable enemy and its campaign to rule 
the world, so did John F. Kennedy, who bitterly condemned the 
monolithic and ruthless conspiracy, and dismissed the proposal of its 
leader (Khrushchev) for sharp mutual cuts in offensive weaponry, then 
reacted to his unilateral implementation of these proposals with a huge 
military build-up. The Kennedy brothers also quickly surpassed 
Eisenhower in violence and terror, as they unleashed covert action with 
an unprecedented intensity (Wiener), doubling Eisenhowers annual 
record of major CIA covert operations, with horrendous consequences 
worldwide, even a close brush with terminal nuclear war.[4]

But at least it was possible to deal with Russia, unlike the fiercer 
enemy, China. The more thoughtful scholars recognized that Russia was 
poised uneasily between civilization and barbarism. As Henry Kissinger 
later explained in his academic essays, only the West has undergone the 
Newtonian revolution and is therefore deeply committed to the notion 
that the real world is external to the observer, while the rest still 
believe that the real world is almost completely internal to the 
observer, the basic division that is the deepest problem of the 
contemporary international order. But Russia, unlike third word 
peasants who think that rain and sun are inside their heads, was
perhaps coming to the realization that the world is not just a dream,
Kissinger felt.

Not so the still more savage and bloodthirsty enemy, China, which for 
liberal Democrat intellectuals at various times rampaged as a a Slavic 
Manchukuo, a blind puppet of its Kremlin master, or a monster utterly 
unconstrained as it pursued its crazed campaign to crush the world in 
its tentacles, or whatever else circumstances demanded. The remarkable 
tale of doctrinal fanaticism from the 1940s to the 70s, which makes 
contemporary rhetoric seem rather moderate, is reviewed by James Peck
in his highly revealing study of the national security culture, 
Washingtons China.

In later years, there were attempts to mimic the valiant deeds of the 
defenders of virtue from the two villainous global conquerors and their 
loyal slaves  for example, when the Gipper strapped on his cowboy boots 
and declared a National Emergency because Nicaraguan hordes were only 
two days from Harlingen Texas, though as he courageously informed the 
press, despite the tremendous odds I refuse to give up. I remember a 
man named Winston Churchill who said, `Never give in. Never, never, 
never. So we won't. With consequences that need not be reviewed.

Even with the best of efforts, however, the attempts never were able to 
recapture the glorious days of Cold War I. But now, at last, those 
heights might be within reach, as another implacable enemy bent on
world conquest has arisen, which we must contain before it destroys us
all: Iran.

Perhaps it's a lift to the spirits to be able to recover those heady 
Cold War days when at least there was a legitimate force to contain, 
however dubious the pretexts and disgraceful the means. But it is 
instructive to take a closer look at the contours of Cold War II as
they are being designed by the former Kremlinologists now running U.S. 
foreign policy, such as Rice and Gates (Wright).

The task of containment is to establish a bulwark against Irans 
growing influence in the Middle East, Mark Mazzetti and Helene Cooper 
explain in the New York Times (July 31). To contain Irans influence we 
must surround Iran with US and NATO ground forces, along with massive 
naval deployments in the Persian Gulf and of course incomparable air 
power and weapons of mass destruction. And we must provide a huge flow 
of arms to what Condoleezza Rice calls the forces of moderation and 
reform in the region, the brutal tyrannies of Egypt and Saudi Arabia 
and, with particular munificence, Israel, by now virtually an adjunct
of the militarized high-tech US economy. All to contain Irans
influence. A daunting challenge indeed.

And daunting it is. In Iraq, Iranian support is welcomed by much of the 
majority Shiite population. In an August visit to Teheran, Iraqi Prime 
Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, 
President Ahmadinejad and other senior officials, and thanked Tehran
for its positive and constructive role in improving security in Iraq, 
eliciting a sharp reprimand from President Bush, who declares Teheran a 
regional peril and asserts the Iraqi leader must understand, to quote 
the headline of the Los Angeles Times report on al-Malikis intellectual 
deficiencies. A few days before, also greatly to Bushs discomfiture, 
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Washingtons favorite, described Iran as 
a helper and a solution in his country.[5] Similar problems abound 
beyond Irans immediate neighbors. In Lebanon, according to polls, most 
Lebanese see Iranian-backed Hezbollah as a legitimate force defending 
their country from Israel, Wright reports. And in Palestine, 
Iranian-backed Hamas won a free election, eliciting savage punishment
of the Palestinian population by the US and Israel for the crime of
voting the wrong way, another episode in democracy promotion.

But no matter. The aim of US militancy and the arms flow to the 
moderates is to counter what everyone in the region believes is a 
flexing of muscles by a more aggressive Iran, according to an unnamed 
senior U.S. government official  everyone being the technical term 
used to refer to Washington and its more loyal clients.[6] Iran's 
aggression consists in its being welcomed by many within the region,
and allegedly supporting resistance to the US occupation of neighboring
Iraq.

Its likely, though little discussed, that a prime concern about Irans 
influence is to the East, where in mid-August Russia and China today 
host Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a summit of a Central
Asian security club designed to counter U.S. influence in the region,
the business press reports.[7] The security club is the Shanghai 
Cooperation Organization (SCO), which has been slowly taking shape in 
recent years. Its membership includes not only the two giants Russia
and China, but also the energy-rich Central Asian states Kyrgyzstan, 
Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan was
a guest of honor at the August meeting. In another unwelcome
development for the Americans, Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly
Berdymukhammedov also accepted an invitation to attend the summit,
another step its improvement of relations with Russia, particularly in
energy, reversing a long-standing policy of isolation from Russia.
Russia in May secured a deal to build a new pipeline to import more gas
from Turkmenistan, bolstering its dominant hold on supplies to Europe
and heading off a competing U.S.-backed plan that would bypass Russian
territory.[8]

Along with Iran, there are three other official observer states: India, 
Pakistan and Mongolia. Washingtons request for similar status was 
denied. In 2005 the SCO called for a timetable for termination of any
US military presence in Central Asia. The participants at the August 
meeting flew to the Urals to attend the first joint Russia-China 
military exercises on Russian soil.

Association of Iran with the SCO extends its inroads into the Middle 
East, where China has been increasing trade and other relations with
the jewel in the crown, Saudi Arabia. There is an oppressed Shiite 
population in Saudi Arabia that is also susceptible to Irans influence 
 and happens to sit on most of Saudi oil. About 40% of Middle East oil 
is reported to be heading East, not West.[9] As the flow Eastward 
increases, US control declines over this lever of world domination, a 
stupendous source of strategic power, as the State Department 
described Saudi oil 60 years ago.

In Cold War I, the Kremlin had imposed an iron curtain and built the 
Berlin Wall to contain Western influence. In Cold War II, Wright 
reports, the former Kremlinologists framing policy are imposing a green 
curtain to bar Iranian influence. In short, government-media doctrine 
is that the Iranian threat is rather similar to the Western threat that 
the Kremlin sought to contain, and the US is eagerly taking on the 
Kremlins role in the thrilling new Cold War.

All of this is presented without noticeable concern. Nevertheless, the 
recognition that the US government is modeling itself on Stalin and his 
successors in the new Cold War must be arousing at least some flickers 
of embarrassment. Perhaps that is how we can explain the ferocious 
Washington Post editorial announcing that Iran has escalated its 
aggressiveness to a Hot War: the Revolutionary Guard, a radical state 
within Iran's Islamic state, is waging war against the United States
and trying to kill as many American soldiers as possible. The US must 
therefore fight back, the editors thunder, finding quite 
puzzling...the murmurs of disapproval from European diplomats and 
others who say they favor using diplomacy and economic pressure, rather 
than military action, to rein in Iran, even in the face of its outright 
aggression. The evidence that Iran is waging war against the US is now 
conclusive. After all, it comes from an administration that has never 
deceived the American people, even improving on the famous stellar 
honesty of its predecessors.

Suppose that for once Washingtons charges happen to be true, and Iran 
really is providing Shiite militias with roadside bombs that kill 
American forces, perhaps even making use of the some of the advanced 
weaponry lavishly provided to the Revolutionary Guard by Ronald Reagan 
in order to fund the illegal war against Nicaragua, under the pretext
of arms for hostages (the number of hostages tripled during these 
endeavors).[10] If the charges are true, then Iran could properly be 
charged with a minuscule fraction of the iniquity of the Reagan 
administration, which provided Stinger missiles and other high-tech 
military aid to the insurgents seeking to disrupt Soviet efforts to 
bring stability and justice to Afghanistan, as they saw it. Perhaps
Iran is even guilty of some of the crimes of the Roosevelt
administration, which assisted terrorist partisans attacking peaceful
and sovereign Vichy France in 1940-41, and had thus declared war on
Germany even before Pearl Harbor.

One can pursue these questions further. The CIA station chief in 
Pakistan in 1981, Howard Hart, reports that I was the first chief of 
station ever sent abroad with this wonderful order: `Go kill Soviet 
soldiers. Imagine! I loved it. Of course the mission was not to 
liberate Afghanistan, Tim Wiener writes in his history of the CIA, 
repeating the obvious. But it was a noble goal, he writes. Killing 
Russians with no concern for the fate of Afghans is a noble goal. But 
support for resistance to a US invasion and occupation would be a vile 
act and declaration of war.

Without irony, the Bush administration and the media charge that Iran
is meddling in Iraq, otherwise presumably free from foreign
interference. The evidence 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 Guard. Settling the debate, the White House plans to
brand the Revolutionary Guard as a specially designated global
terrorist force, an unprecedented action against a national military
branch, authorizing Washington to undertake a wide range of punitive
actions. Watching in disbelief, much of the world asks whether the US
military, invading and occupying Irans neighbors, might better merit
this charge -- or its Israeli client, now about to receive a huge
increase in military aid to commemorate 40 years of harsh occupation
and illegal settlement, and its fifth invasion of Lebanon a year ago.

It is instructive that Washingtons propaganda framework is reflexively 
accepted, apparently without notice, in US and other Western commentary 
and reporting, apart from the marginal fringe of what is called the 
loony left. What is considered criticism is skepticism as to whether 
all of Washingtons charges about Iranian aggression in Iraq are true. 
It might be an interesting research project to see how closely the 
propaganda of Russia, Nazi Germany, and other aggressors and occupiers 
matched the standards of todays liberal press and commentators..

The comparisons are of course unfair. Unlike German and Russian 
occupiers, American forces are in Iraq by right, on the principle, too 
obvious even to enunciate, that the US owns the world. Therefore, as a 
matter of elementary logic, the US cannot invade and occupy another 
country. The US can only defend and liberate others. No other category 
exists. Predecessors, including the most monstrous, have commonly sworn 
by the same principle, but again there is an obvious difference: they 
were Wrong, and we are Right. QED.

Another comparison comes to mind, which is studiously ignored when we 
are sternly admonished of the ominous consequences that might follow 
withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. The preferred analogy is Indochina, 
highlighted in a shameful speech by the President on August 22. That 
analogy can perhaps pass muster among those who have succeeded in 
effacing from their minds the record of US actions in Indochina, 
including the destruction of much of Vietnam and the murderous bombing 
of Laos and Cambodia as the US began its withdrawal from the wreckage
of South Vietnam. In Cambodia, the bombing was in accord with
Kissingers genocidal orders: anything that flies on anything that
moves  actions that drove an enraged populace into the arms of an
insurgency [the Khmer Rouge] that had enjoyed relatively little support
before the Kissinger-Nixon bombing was inaugurated, as Cambodia
specialists Owen Taylor and Ben Kiernan observe in a highly important
study that passed virtually without notice, in which they reveal that
the bombing was five times the incredible level reported earlier,
greater than all allied bombing in World War II. Completely suppressing
all relevant facts, it is then possible for the President and many
commentators to present Khmer Rouge crimes as a justification for
continuing to devastate Iraq.

But although the grotesque Indochina analogy receives much attention, 
the obvious analogy is ignored: the Russian withdrawal from
Afghanistan, which, as Soviet analysts predicted, led to shocking
violence and destruction as the country was taken over by Reagan's
favorites, who amused themselves by such acts as throwing acid in the
faces of women in Kabul they regarded as too liberated, and then
virtually destroyed the city and much else, creating such havoc and
terror that the population actually welcomed the Taliban. That analogy
could indeed be invoked without utter absurdity by advocates of staying
the course, but evidently it is best forgotten.

Under the heading Secretary Rices Mideast mission: contain Iran, the 
press reports Rices warning that Iran is the single most important 
single-country challenge to...US interests in the Middle East. That is 
a reasonable judgment. Given the long-standing principle that
Washington must do everything in its power to alter or abolish any
regime not openly allied with America, Iran does pose a unique
challenge, and it is natural that the task of containing Iranian
influence should be a high priority.

As elsewhere, Bush administration rhetoric is relatively mild in this 
case. For the Kennedy administration, Latin America was the most 
dangerous area in the world when there was a threat that the 
progressive Cheddi Jagan might win a free election in British Guiana, 
overturned by CIA shenanigans that handed the country over to the 
thuggish racist Forbes Burnham.[11] A few years earlier, Iraq was the 
most dangerous place in the world (CIA director Allen Dulles) after 
General Abdel Karim Qassim broke the Anglo-American condominium over 
Middle East oil, overthrowing the pro-US monarchy, which had been 
heavily infiltrated by the CIA.[12] A primary concern was that Qassim 
might join Nasser, then the supreme Middle East devil, in using the 
incomparable energy resources of the Middle East for the domestic. The 
issue for Washington was not so much access as control. At the time and 
for many years after, Washington was purposely exhausting domestic oil 
resources in the interests of national security, meaning security for 
the profits of Texas oil men, like the failed entrepreneur who now sits 
in the Oval Office. But as high-level planner George Kennan had 
explained well before, we cannot relax our guard when there is any 
interference with protection of our resources (which accidentally 
happen to be somewhere else)

Unquestionably, Iran's government merits harsh condemnation, though it 
has not engaged in worldwide terror, subversion, and aggression, 
following the US model  which extends to todays Iran as well, if ABC 
news is correct in reporting that the US is supporting Pakistan-based 
Jundullah, which is carrying out terrorist acts inside Iran.[13] The 
sole act of aggression attributed to Iran is the conquest of two small 
islands in the Gulf  under Washingtons close ally the Shah. In 
addition to internal repression  heightened, as Iranian dissidents 
regularly protest, by US militancy -- the prospect that Iran might 
develop nuclear weapons also 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 
threat to survival posed much more seriously by its near neighbors 
Pakistan, India, and Israel, all nuclear armed with the blessing of the 
US, which most of the world regards as the leading threat to world 
peace, for evident reasons.

Iran rejects US control of the Middle East, challenging fundamental 
policy doctrine, but it hardly poses a military threat. On the
contrary, it has been the victim of outside powers for years: in recent
memory, when the US and Britain overthrew its parliamentary government
and installed a brutal tyrant in 1953, and when the US supported Saddam 
Husseins murderous invasion, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of 
Iranians, many with chemical weapons, without the international 
community lifting a finger  something that Iranians do not forget as 
easily as the perpetrators. And then under severe sanctions as a 
punishment for disobedience.

Israel regards Iran as a threat. Israel seeks to dominate the region 
with no interference, and Iran might be some slight counterbalance, 
while also supporting domestic forces that do not bend to Israels will. 
It may, however, be useful to bear in mind that Hamas has accepted the 
international consensus on a two-state settlement on the international 
border, and Hezbollah, along with Iran, has made clear that it would 
accept any outcome approved by Palestinians, leaving the US and Israel 
isolated in their traditional rejectionism.[14]

But Iran is hardly a military threat to Israel. And whatever threat 
there might be could be overcome if the US 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 recall that UN
Security Council Resolution 687 of 3 April 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.

It is widely recognized that use of military force in Iran would risk 
blowing up the entire region, with untold consequences beyond. We know 
from polls that in the surrounding countries, where the Iranian 
government is hardly popular -- Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan -- 
nevertheless large majorities prefer even a nuclear-armed Iran to any 
form of military action against it.

The rhetoric about Iran has escalated to the point where both political 
parties and practically the whole US press accept it as legitimate and, 
in fact, honorable, that all options are on the table, to quote 
Hillary Clinton and everybody else, possibly even nuclear weapons. All 
options on the table means that Washington threatens 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 anyone we choose.

Washington's feverish new Cold War "containment" policy has spread to 
Europe. Washington intends to install a missile defense system in the 
Czech Republic and Poland, 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, so perhaps 
Europe would do as well to invest in an asteroid defense system. 
Furthermore, if Iran were to indicate the slightest intention of aiming 
a missile at Europe or Israel, the country would be vaporized.

Of course, Russian planners are gravely upset by the shield proposal.
We can imagine how the US would respond if a Russian anti-missile
system were erected in Canada. The Russians have good reason to regard
an anti-missile system as part of a first-strike weapon against them.
It is generally understood that such a system could never block 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. And a small initial 
installation in Eastern Europe could easily be a base for later 
expansion. 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.

Not surprisingly, in reaction to the missile defense plans, Russia has 
resorted to its own dangerous gestures, including the recent decision
to renew long-range patrols by nuclear-capable bombers after a 15-year 
hiatus, in one recent case near the US military base on Guam. These 
actions reflect Russias anger over what it has called American and 
NATO aggressiveness, including plans for a missile-defense system in
the Czech Republic and Poland, analysts said (Andrew Kramer, NYT).[15]

The shield 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  in
this case a real hot war.

[1] Wright, WP, July 29 07

[2] Correspondent Michael Wines, NYT, June 13, 1999. Doolittle report, 
Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: the History of the CIA, Doubleday 2007

[3] Ibid., 77.

[4] Ibid., 180.

[5] Paul Richter, LAT, Aug. 10, 2007. Karzai, CNN, Aug. 5, 2007.

[6] Robin Wright, U.S. Plans New Arms Sales to Gulf Allies, WP, July 
28, 2007.

[7] Henry Meyer, Bloomberg, Aug. 16, 2007.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Hiro

[10] Weiner

[11] Schmitz, Weiner.

[12] Weiner. Failed States.

[13] Brian Ross and Christopher Isham, ABC News Exclusive: The Secret 
War Against Iran, April 3, 2007; Ross and Richard Esposito, ABC, Bush 
Authorizes New Covert Action Against Iran, May 22, 2007.

[14] On Iran, see Gilbert Achcar, Noam Chomsky, and Stephen Shalom, 
Perilous Power (Paradigm, 2007), and Ervand Abrahamian, in David 
Barsamian, ed., Targeting Iran (City Lights, 2007). On Hamas, among
many similar statements see the article by Hamass most militant leader, 
Khalid Mish'al, "Our unity can now pave the way for peace and justice," 
Guardian, February 13, 2007. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has 
repeatedly taken the same position. See among others Irene Gendzier, 
Assaf Kfoury, and Fawwaz Traboulsi, eds., Inside Lebanon (Monthly 
Review, 2007).

[15] Kramer, Recalling Cold War, Russia Resumes Long-Range Sorties, 
Aug. 18, 2007.