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  • Subordinate and Non-Subordinate States

    ZNet.org
    May 9 2006

    Subordinate and Non-Subordinate States
    An interview with Noam Chomsky

    Noam Chomsky interviewed by
    Khatchig Mouadian
    May 08, 2006


    Noam Chomsky, whom the New York Times has called `arguably the most
    important intellectual alive,' was voted the leading living public
    intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll conducted by the
    British magazine Prospect. Chomsky, Institute Professor Emeritus at
    the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a world-renowned
    linguist, writer, and political analyst. He is the author of many
    books on US foreign policy and international affairs, the most recent
    of which is `Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on
    Democracy.'

    This interview was conducted by phone from Beirut on May 2, 2006.


    Khatchig Mouradian- In an article entitled `Domestic Constituencies,'
    you say: `It is always enlightening to seek out what is omitted in
    propaganda campaigns.'[1] Can you expand on what is omitted in the US
    propaganda campaign on Lebanon and Syria after the assassination of
    former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in February 2005?

    Noam Chomsky- The only thing being discussed is that there was an
    assassination and Syria was involved in it. How come Syria is in
    Lebanon in the first place? Why did the US welcome Syria in Lebanon
    in 1976? Why did George Bush I support Syrian presence and domination
    and influence in Lebanon in 1991 as part of his campaign against
    Iraq? Why did the US support the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982?
    Why did the US support Israel's 22 year occupation of parts of
    Lebanon, an occupation in violation of Security Council resolutions?
    All these topics, and many others, are missing from the discussion.

    In fact, the general principle is that anything that places US
    actions in a questionable light is omitted, with very rare
    exceptions. So if you blame something on an enemy, then you can
    discuss it, and Syria, right now is the official enemy. That doesn't
    necessarily mean that the charges against Syria are wrong. It just
    means that everything else is omitted.



    K.M. - When speaking about regimes in the Middle East, you often
    quote the expressions `Arab façade' and `local cop on the beat.' What
    is the role of Lebanon in the area?

    N.C. - The phrase `Arab façade' comes from the British Foreign
    secretary Lord Curzon after WWI. At the time, when the British were
    planning the organization of the Middle East, their idea was that
    there should be Arab façades which are apparent governments, behind
    which they would rule[2]. The expression `local cop on the beat'
    comes from the Nixon administration. It was their conception of how
    the Middle East should be run. There should be a peripheral region of
    gendarme states (Turkey, Iran under the Shah, Israel joined after the
    `67 war, Pakistan was there for a while). These states were to be the
    local cops on the beat while the US would be the police headquarters.

    The place of Lebanon was critical. It was primarily of concern
    because of the transition of oil and also because it was a financial
    center. The US was concerned in keeping it under control to ensure
    that the entire Middle East energy system remains controlled.
    Incidentally, for the same reasons, the US has regarded Greece as
    part of the Near East. Greece was actually in the Near East section
    of the State Department until 1974, because its main role in US
    planning was to be part of the system by which the Middle East oil
    gets transported to the west. The same is true with Italy. However,
    Lebanon had a much more crucial role in this respect, because it is
    right in the center of the Middle East. The aforementioned, as well
    as the support for Israel's action- Israel being a local cop on the
    beat- were the motivating factors behind Eisenhower's dispatch of
    military forces to Lebanon in 1958.


    K.M. - And what does the US administration expect from Lebanon today?

    N.C. - The role of Lebanon is to be an obedient, passive state which
    regains its status as a financial center but accommodates to the
    major US policies, which do include control of the energy resources.



    K.M. - What about Lebanon's role within the context of pressuring
    Syria?

    N.C. - The question of Syria is a separate one. Yes, Lebanon is
    expected to play a role for putting pressure on Syria. However, the
    problem for the US is that Syria is not a subordinate state. There
    are a lot of serious criticisms you can make about Syria, but the
    internal problems of that country are of no special concern to the
    US, which supports much more brutal governments. The problem with
    Syria is that it simply does not subordinate itself to the US program
    in the Middle East. Syria and Iran are the two countries in the
    region that have not accepted US economic arrangements. And the
    policies against such countries are similar. Take the bombing of
    Serbia in 1999, for example. Why was Serbia an enemy? Certainly it
    wasn't because of the atrocities it was carrying out. We know that
    the bombing was carried out with the expectation that it would lead
    to a sharp escalation in atrocities. We know the answer from the
    highest level of the Clinton administration, and the answer was that
    Serbia was not adopting the proper social and economic reforms. In
    fact, it was the one corner of Europe which was still rejecting the
    socioeconomic arrangements that the US wanted to dictate for the
    world. The problem with Syria and Iran is more or less the same. Why
    is the US planning or threatening war against Iran? Is it because
    Iran has been aggressive? On the contrary, Iran was the target of US
    backed aggression. Is Iran threatening anybody? No. Is Iran more
    brutal and less democratic than the rest of the Arab world? It's a
    joke. The problem is that Iran is not subordinating.



    K.M. - In this context, why is Europe increasingly being supportive
    of US policies in the Middle East?

    N.C. - If you look back over the past decades, a major concern of US
    policy -and it's very clear in internal planning - is that Europe might
    strike an independent course. During the cold war period, US was
    afraid Europe might follow what they called `a third way,' and many
    mechanisms were used to inhibit any intention on the part of Europe
    to follow an independent course. That goes right back to the final
    days of World War II and its immediate aftermath, when US and
    Britain intervened, in some cases quite violently, to suppress the
    anti-fascist resistance and restore tradition structures, including
    fascist-Nazi collaborators. Germany was reconstructed pretty much the
    same way. The unwillingness to accept a unified neutral Germany in
    the 1950s was predicated on the same thinking. We don't know if that
    would have been possible, but Stalin did offer a unified Germany
    which would have democratic elections which he was sure to lose, but
    on condition that it would not be part of a hostile military
    alliance. However, the US was not willing to tolerate a unified
    Germany. The establishment of NATO is in large part an effort to
    ensure European discipline and the current attempts to expand NATO
    are further planning of the same sort.

    European elites have been, by and large, pretty satisfied with this
    arrangement. They're not very different from the dominant forces in
    the US. They are somewhat different, but closely interrelated. There
    are mutual investments and business relations. The elite sectors of
    Europe don't particularly object to the US policies. You can see this
    very strikingly in the case of Iran. The US has sought to isolate and
    strangle Iran for years. It had embargos and sanctions, and it has
    repeatedly threatened Europe to eliminate investments in Iran. The
    main European corporations have pretty much agreed to that. China, on
    the other hand, did not. China can't be intimidated, that's why the
    US government is frightened of China. But Europe backs off and pretty
    much follows US will. The same is true on the Israel-Palestine front.
    The US strongly supports Israeli takeover of the valuable parts of
    the occupied territories and pretty much the elimination of the
    possibility of any viable Palestinian state. On paper, the Europeans
    disagree with that and they do join the international consensus on a
    two-state settlement, but they don't do anything about it. They're
    not willing to stand against the US. When the US government decided
    to punish the Palestinians for electing the wrong party in the last
    elections, Europe went along, not totally, but pretty much. By and
    large, European elites do not see it in their interest to confront
    the US. They'd rather integrate with it. The problem the US is having
    with China, and Asia more generally, is that they don't automatically
    accept US orders.



    K.M. - They don't fall in line...

    N.C. - Yes, they won't fall in line, and, especially in the case of
    China, they just won't be intimidated. That's why, if you read the
    latest National Security Strategy, China is identified as the major
    long range threat to the US. This is not because China is going to
    invade or attack anyone. In fact, of all the major nuclear powers,
    they're the one that is the least aggressive, but they simple refuse
    to be intimidated, not just in their policies regarding the Middle
    East, but also in Latin America. While the US is trying to isolate
    and undermine Venezuela, China proceeds to invest in and to import
    from Venezuela without regard to what the US says.

    The international order is in a way rather like the mafia. The
    godfather has to ensure that there is discipline.

    Europe quietly pursues its own economic interests as long as they
    don't fall in direct conflict with the US. Even in the case of Iran,
    although major European corporations did pull out of country, and
    Europe did back down on its bargain with Tehran on uranium
    enrichment, nevertheless, Europe does maintain economic relations
    with Iran. For years, the US has also tried to prevent Europe from
    investing in Cuba and Europe pretty much kept away, but not entirely.
    The US has a mixed attitude towards European investment and resource
    extraction in Latin America. For one thing, the US and European
    corporate systems are very much interlinked. The US relies on
    European support in many parts of the world. For Europe to invest in
    Latin America and import its resources is by no means as threatening
    to US domination as when China does.



    K.M. - In one of his recent speeches, Hasan Nasrallah, the
    secretary-general of Hizbullah, spoke of solidarity with the
    resistance movement in the occupied territories and with `our brother
    Chavez.' Let us speak about the common link that brings people on
    different sides of the Atlantic, and of different ideological
    background, together.

    N.C. - The common thing that brings them together is that they do not
    subordinate themselves to US power. Hizbullah knows perfectly well
    that they're not going to get help from Venezuela, but the fact that
    they are both following a course independently of US power and, in
    fact, in defiance to US orders, links them together.

    The US has been trying, unsuccessfully, to topple the Cuban
    government for more than 45 years now and it remains. The rise of
    Chavez to power was very frightening to US elites. He has an enormous
    popular support. The level of support for the elected government in
    Venezuela has risen very sharply and it is now at the highest in
    Latin America. And Chavez is following an independent course. He's
    doing a lot of things that the US doesn't like a bit. For example,
    Argentina, which was driven to total ruin by following IMF orders,
    has slowly been reconstructing itself by rejecting IMF rules, and has
    wanted to pay off its debt to rid itself of the IMF. Chavez helped
    them, and he bought a substantial part of the Argentine debt. To rid
    oneself from the IMF means to rid oneself from one of the two
    modalities of control employed by the US: violence and economic
    force. Yesterday, Bolivia nationalized its gas reserves; the US is
    only (only??) opposed to that. And Bolivia was able to do that partly
    because of Venezuelan support.

    If countries move in a direction of independent nationalism, that is
    regarded as unacceptable. Why did the US want to destroy Nasser? Was
    it because he was more violent and tyrannical than other leaders? The
    problem was that it was an independent secular nationalism. That just
    can't be accepted.



    K.M. - You talked about the Chavez government's popularity at home.
    The polls show that the same is not true about the Bush
    Administration and its policies, both at home and abroad. Despite the
    discontent on a wide range of issues, little has changed in terms of
    US policy. How do you explain that?

    N.C. - In a book that just came out, I talk about this at some
    length. The US has a growing and by now enormous democratic deficit
    at home; there's an enormous divide between public opinion and public
    policy on a whole range of issues, from the health system to Iraq.
    The Bush administration has a very narrow grip on power- remember in
    the last election Bush got about 31 percent of the electorate, Kerry
    got 29 percent. A few changes in the votes in Ohio and it could have
    gone the other way- they're using that narrow grip desperately to try
    to institutionalize very radical and far reaching changes in the US.
    They can get away with it because there's no opposition party. If
    there were an opposition party, it would have totally overwhelmed the
    Bush administration. Every week, the Bush administration does
    something to shoot itself in the foot, whether it's Hurricane
    Katrina, corruption scandals, or other issues, but the formal
    opposition party can't make any gains. One of the most interesting
    things about US politics in the past years is that while support for
    the Bush administration, which was always very thin, has declined
    very sharply because of one catastrophe after the other, support for
    the Democrats hasn't increased. It is increasing only as a reaction
    to the lack of support to the Republicans. This is because the
    Democrats are not presenting an alternative.



    K.M. - You mentioned your recent book, Failed States. In the
    Afterword of that book, you say, `No one familiar with history should
    be surprised that the growing democratic deficit at home is
    accompanied by declaration of messianic missions to bring democracy
    to a suffering world.' How much are these `messianic missions'
    helping the Bush Administration?

    N.C. - They're helping the administration among the educated classes.
    I discuss this in some length in the book. The messianic missions
    came along right after the failure to discover weapons of mass
    destruction in Iraq. The invasion was only on the ground that Iraq
    was just about to attack the US with nuclear weapons. Well, after a
    few months, they discovered that there were no weapons of mass
    destruction, so they had to find a new pretext for invading and that
    became the messianic mission. The intellectual classes, in Europe as
    well, and even in the Arab world, picked this up: the leader said it
    therefore we have to believe it.

    Among the general population, however, I don't think these messianic
    missions have much influence, except indirectly. This whole rhetoric
    is a weak effort, and in fact by now it's pretty desperate.



    K.M. - My final question is about Turkey, one of the local cops on
    the beat. I was quite disturbed by the recent developments in the
    Southeast of the country. You have been to Turkey a number of times,
    and you have also visited the Kurdish regions. What is your take on
    the current status of freedoms in Turkey?

    N.C. - As you most probably know, the leading Human Rights Watch
    investigator in Turkey, who is an extremely fine person, Jonathan
    Sugden, was just expelled from the country because he was
    investigating human rights violations in the Southeastern zone.

    In 2002, the situation in Turkey and especially the Kurdish zone was
    pretty bad, but in the next few years it improved and now it's
    regressing again. Let me just give you a personal example. I was
    there in 2002 to participate in the trial of a publisher who was
    being tried for publishing some remarks of mine about Turkey. Now he
    is again on trial for a different book.

    There are many reasons for the regression. The military is exerting a
    much heavier hand; the reforms that were slowly taking place are
    reduced. My own feeling is that one of the reasons for these
    developments is the hostility of Europe towards allowing Turkey into
    the EU. There's a pretty strong element of racism in that, which
    Turks are not unaware of.

    Khatchig Mouradian is a Lebanese-Armenian writer, translator, and
    journalist. He is an editor of the daily newspaper Aztag, published
    in Beirut. He can be contacted at [email protected]


    [1] Noam Chomsky, `Domestic Constituencies,' Z Magazine, 11:5, p. 18.

    [2] Lord Curzon once said that Britain wanted an `Arab facade ruled
    and administered under British guidance and controlled by a native
    Mohammedan and, as far as possible, by an Arab staff."
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