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Noam Chomsky on Obama’s Foreign Policy, His Own History of Activism, and the Importance of Speaking Out

We spend the hour with world-renowned linguist and dissident, Noam Chomsky. In a wide-ranging public conversation at the Harvard Memorial Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Chomsky talks about President Obama’s foreign and national security policies, the lessons of Vietnam, and his own activism. “You just can’t become involved part-time in these things,” Chomsky says. “It’s either serious and you’re seriously involved, or you go to a demonstration and go home and forget about it and go back to work, and nothing happens. Things only happen by really dedicated, diligent work.”

AMY GOODMAN: Defense Secretary Robert Gates met with leaders of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia last week to increase support for a new round of United Nations-imposed sanctions on Iran over its uranium enrichment program. While the Obama administration intensifies its efforts to win Chinese and Russian backing for tougher sanctions, France and Finland have indicated the European Union could consider unilateral measures against Iran if a UN resolution fails to materialize.

Well, as the United States, the EU and Israel step up the pressure on Iran, we spend the hour with the world-renowned linguist and dissident, Noam Chomsky, whose latest speech begins with a critical look at US policy towards Iran. An internationally celebrated professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chomsky is the author of over a hundred books on linguistics, mass media, American imperialism, and US foreign policy. The New York Times called him perhaps “the most important intellectual alive today,” but his opinions are rarely heard in the mainstream media.

Well, I had a wide-ranging conversation with Professor Chomsky at Harvard Memorial Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts just a week ago. He talked about antiwar activism, the lessons of Vietnam, President Obama’s foreign and national security policies, and also the risks that Noam Chomsky himself took as an activist and someone who has consistently spoken truth to power.

We begin with an excerpt of Chomsky’s speech, a critique of the Obama administration’s push for tighter sanctions against Iran.

NOAM CHOMSKY: My favorite newspaper, the London Financial Times, a couple of days ago identified Obama’s major foreign policy problem today as Iran. The occasion for the article was Hillary Clinton’s failure to convince Brazil to go along with the United States on calling for harsher sanctions and President Lula’s insistence that there should be engagement with Iran, commercial relations, and so on, and that it has a right to enrich uranium for producing nuclear energy, as do all signers of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Well, it was reported here, too, of course, and Lula’s position was considered sort of paradoxical. Why is he not going along with the international community, with the world? It’s an interesting usage, which is a very striking reflection of the depth of the culture of imperialism. Who is the international community? Well, it turns out, if you look, that the international community is Washington and whoever happens to agree with it at the moment. The rest are not part of the world. They’re kind of in opposition.

Well, in this case, Lula’s position happens to be that of most of the world. You can think it’s right or wrong or whatever, but just as a matter of fact, for example, it’s the position of the former non-aligned countries, the majority of countries of the world and the large majority of their populations. They have repeatedly and vigorously supported Iran’s right to enriched uranium for peaceful purposes, reiterating that it’s a signer of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which does grant that right. So they’re not part of the world.

Another group that’s not part of the world is the population of the United States. The last polls that I’ve seen, a couple of years ago, in those polls a considerable majority of Americans agreed that Iran has a right to develop nuclear energy, but of course not nuclear weapons. And in fact, as the poll demonstrated, the opinions of Americans on this issue were almost identical with opinions of Iranians on a whole range of issues. And, in fact, when the poll was presented in Washington at a press conference, the presenter pointed out that if people were able to make policy, could be that these tensions and conflicts would be resolved.

Well, that was a few years ago. Since then, there’s been a huge mass of propaganda about the threat of Iran and so on. And it’s very likely, I would guess, that if the poll were taken today, those figures for the American population would be different. But that was 2007, three years ago. So, at that point, Americans were not part of the world. Most of the majority of people of the world were not part of the world. And Lula, by repeating their view, is also not part of the world. Could be added that he’s almost surely the most popular political figure in the world, but that doesn’t mean anything, either.

So, what about the conflict with Iran and the threat of Iran? Nobody in their right mind wants Iran to develop nuclear weapons, or anyone, for that matter. So, on that, there’s complete agreement. And in fact, there are significant problems about proliferation of nuclear weapons. It’s not a joke. And Obama’s vision forcibly includes, stresses the need to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and to reduce or maybe remove nuclear weapons. Well, that’s the vision. What’s the practice?

Well, the practice became clear a couple of months ago. Once again, the Security Council passed a resolution, 1887—I think it was October—calling on—with criticism of Iran for not living up to commitments that were demanded by the Security Council and also calling on all states to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty and to solve all their conflicts within the framework of the Non-Proliferation Treaty without any threats of force. Well, that particular part of the resolution was not exactly headlined here, for a simple reason: it was directed at two countries, the two countries that are regularly threatening the use of force, the United States and Israel. The threat of force is in violation of the UN Charter, if anybody cares about that stale old stuff, even older than the ’60s. But that’s never mentioned. But every—just across the spectrum here, almost everyone insists that—the usual phrase is “we must keep all options open.” That’s a threat of force.

And the threat of force is not just idle. So, for example, Israel is sending its nuclear submarines into the Gulf, firing distance—they’re undetectable, basically—into areas where they could fire nuclear missiles—of course, Israel has plenty of nuclear weapons—fire them at Iran. The US and others are—its allies are carrying out field operations, you know, the exercises, plainly aimed at Iran. And there’s a little hitch, because Turkey is refusing to go along, but that’s what they’ve been trying to do. So there are regular threats, verbal and in policy. Israel actually is sending the nuclear submarines and other warships through the Suez Canal, with the tacit agreement of Egypt, the Egyptian dictatorship, another US client in the region. Well, those are all threats—constant, verbal, actual.

And the threats do have the effect of inducing Iran to develop a deterrent. Whether they’re doing it or not, I don’t know. Maybe they are. But if they are, the reason, as I think almost all serious analysts would agree, is not because they intend to use nuclear weapons and missiles with nuclear weapons. If they even loaded a missile was nuclear weapons, assuming they had them, the country would be vaporized in five minutes. And nobody believes that the ruling clerics, whatever one thinks about them, have a kind of a death wish and want to see the entire country and society and everything they own destroyed. In fact, US intelligence figures pretty high, who have talked about it, estimate the possibility of Iran ever actually using a nuclear weapon is maybe one percent, you know, so low that you can’t estimate it. But it’s possible that they develop them as a deterrent.

One of Israel’s leading military historians, Martin van Creveld, a couple of years ago, after the invasion of Iraq, wrote in the international press that of course he doesn’t want to see Iran have nuclear weapons, he said, but if they’re not developing them, they’re crazy. The US had just invaded Iraq, knowing that it was totally defenseless. It was part of the reason why they felt free to invade. Everybody can understand that. The Iranian leaders could certainly understand it. So, therefore, to quote van Creveld again, “if they’re not developing a nuclear deterrent, they’re crazy.”

Well, whether they are or not is another question. But there’s no doubt that the hostile and aggressive stance taken by the United States and its Israeli client are a factor in whatever planning that’s going on in top Iranian circles as to whether to develop a nuclear deterrent or not.

AMY GOODMAN: MIT Professor Noam Chomsky, speaking recently at Harvard University. When we come back from our break, I interview him about President Obama’s foreign policy. Stay with us.