The US foreign policy regarding Iran is foolish. Noam Chomsky analyzes the situation:
“The most dangerous immediate foreign policy crisis is the conflict with Iran, which has been deemed the official source of all evil. Iran must end its “aggression” and become a “normal country” — like Saudi Arabia, which is making rapid progress in Trump’s fantasy world, even “a great job in Saudi Arabia from the standpoint of women,” he explained at G20.
The charges against Iran resonate through the media echo chamber with little effort to assess the validity of the accusations — which hardly withstand analysis. Whatever one thinks of Iranian international behavior, by the miserable standards of U.S. allies in the region — not to speak of the U.S. itself — it is not much of a competitor in the rogue state derby.
In the real world, the U.S. unilaterally decided to destroy the well-functioning nuclear agreement (JCPOA), with ludicrous charges accepted by virtually no one with the slightest credibility, and to impose extremely harsh sanctions designed to punish the Iranian people and undermine the economy. The [U.S. government] also uses its enormous economic power, including virtual control of the international financial system, to compel others to obey Washington’s dictates. None of this has even minimal legitimacy; the same is true of Cuba and other cases. The world may protest — last November, the UN General Assembly once again condemned the U.S. embargo on Cuba, 189-2 (only the U.S. and Israel voted against the resolution). But in vain. The weird idea of the founders that one might have “decent respect to the opinions of mankind” has long vanished, and the pained bleatings of the world pass in silence. On Iran as well.
This is not the place to pursue the matter, but there is a good deal more to say about the U.S. specialty of resorting to sanctions (with extraterritorial reach) to punish populations — a form of “American exceptionalism” that finds its place within what Nick Turse calls “the American system of suffering” in his harrowing expose of the U.S. assault on the civilian population of South Vietnam. The right to engage in this malicious practice is accepted as normal in the U.S. doctrinal system, with little effort to analyze the actual motives in individual cases, the legitimacy of such policies, or in fact even their legality. Matters of no slight significance.
With regard to Iran, within the government-media doctrinal system, the only question that arises is whether the victim will respond in some way, maybe by “violating” the agreement that the U.S. has demolished, maybe by some other act. And if it does, it obviously will be deemed to deserve brutal punishment.
In commentary made by U.S. officials and media, Iran “violates” agreements. The U.S. merely “withdraws” from them. The stance is reminiscent of a comment by the great anarchist writer and Wobbly activist T-Bone Slim: “Only the poor break laws — the rich evade them.”
5 comments
July 23, 2019 at 10:07 am
makagutu
This is really good
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July 23, 2019 at 4:30 pm
The Arbourist
Chomsky is almost always good food for thought.
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July 25, 2019 at 8:53 pm
tildeb
You will no doubt notice that Chomsky only goes after the US and other Western countries while staying absolutely silent on the abysmal treatment of real people in real life by Communist states. This inability to compare and contrast fairly or honestly creates a false sense of equivalency in the minds of far too many Westerners who read him or hear him speak. Yes, there is much to criticize about Western states. That’s fine. But that’s not what Chomsky does; he vilifies them.
Chomsky’s tactic only serves one master here and it’s not you or me or any other citizen of the world in real danger from totalitarianism. Chomsky intentionally undermines the role of liberal secular values because he favours an idyllic socialism that not only doesn’t exist but will never exist in any world where individuals think they have any rights or freedoms. He has not once retracted his open support for any Communist country regardless of the atrocities they carry out but pretends the excesses are always and magically the fault of Western states. What a surprise… not.
This includes Pol Pot for crying out loud. This the speaker to whom you grant prestige as if his words and thoughts are insightful. They’re not. They are simply useful tools to fool you into believing something that isn’t true.
Consider China recently:
“Today, the Communist Party stifles criticism and dictates policy far beyond Chinese borders,3 controlling NGOs and businesses, silencing dissidents, and filling Western university boards with CCP sympathisers.4 Academic institutions are increasingly reliant on Chinese money—$12.55 billion in student tuition fees in 2016—and so it’s easy to buy their silence. “We don’t talk about Taiwan independence,” says Perry Link, Professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University. “We don’t talk about the occupation of Tibet. We don’t call the June 4 Massacre ‘massacre.’” The same subjects are off-limits for British lecturers, who have been warned by staff from London’s Chinese embassy that they should never talk about “the three Ts” (Tibet, Tiananmen, and Taiwan). Those who do stray into the forbidden areas of discussion are summarily punished. Funding was removed for visiting scholars at the University of California San Diego in response to the Dalai Lama’s appearance at the university. The Communist Party considers him to be an “enemy element,” and it will not tolerate its business associates maintaining any kind of relationship with him.
The Party’s iron grip extends to society far beyond academia. Many foreign companies with business interests in China have been forced to apologise for referring to Taiwan or Tibet in the ‘wrong’ terms. The German manufacturer Leica made the mistake of referring to the Tiananmen Square Massacre in one of its adverts, and was forced to issue a full apology. Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz was forced to apologise for quoting the Dalai Lama in an Instagram post. The quote itself was as banal as you might expect: “Look at the situation from all angles, and you will become more open.” But Party stooges quickly registered their displeasure online, and so Mercedes-Benz deleted the offending post, adopted the penitent posture, and issued the ritual confession: “We will promptly take steps to deepen our understanding of Chinese culture and values, our international staff included, to help standardise our actions to ensure this sort of issue doesn’t happen again.”
This craven behaviour is making the Party confident—so confident, in fact, that it has begun arresting the citizens of other countries. A Swedish citizen was abducted in Thailand and flown to China after publishing books critical of the Chinese authorities, and a British citizen from Hull was snatched in Beijing airport and jailed for comments he’d made on Facebook. He was on his way from the Philippines to the UK and only stopping off briefly in the airport, but he ended up spending two weeks in prison for the crime of “not being a friend to China.” The Party’s thugs have physically assaulted journalists in the US for publishing anti-CCP content,5 they have kidnapped and tortured booksellers in Hong Kong, and they have attempted to murder independent journalists in Australia. They locked British businessman Peter Humphrey into an iron chair inside a steel cage and drugged him in order to elicit a confession. They hounded New Zealand academic Anne-Marie Brady, punishing her for researching the CCP’s foreign influence by sending their goons to break into her home in Christchurch, tamper with her car, burgle her office, and send her threatening letters.”
It’s time we stopped paying attention to people like Chomsky who directs us to put our mewling heads into our collective asses and blame ourselves for the world’s woes while ignoring and rationalizing away the rise of the the real threat.
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July 27, 2019 at 12:21 pm
The Arbourist
@tildeb
Hey, welcome back.
Anyhow. Like any public intellectual the person in question will always have some questionable work and decisions out there.
There is a case to be made about his bias and who he chooses to criticize.
And of course, a counter to the criticism, by C.Hitchens no less. More interesting discussion of the leanings of Chomsky’s work from a historical perspective from a thread on reddit.
I disagree. A great deal of his analysis is useful and an important part of what remains of our intellectual culture. Noam Chomsky’s ideas should not be taken as the gospel truth, but rather taken in context with proper attention to nuance, can prove to be a quite a valuable resource.
Conversely, dismissing them [Chomskey’s ideas] outright, seems a bit farther away from most what most accepted models of critical thinking advocate.
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July 27, 2019 at 1:39 pm
tildeb
I wouldn’t mind the contribution if it were made critically and fairly rather than always aimed at being a damning criticism… based not on any honest comparison that accounts for context or even truthful understanding subject to correction but always a highly biased and cherry-picked one preordained not by the context of reality but by a dedicated counter ideology that will never, ever find anything of any positive value whatsoever regarding the West in general and the United States in particular. In other words, Chomsky has demonstrated his criticisms cannot be trusted because he cannot use critical thinking. He only creates its antithesis, doubt and dismay regarding the West and his goal is purely to vilify it and anyone who supports it. He’s not interested in what’s true and refuses to be accountable for his promoted ideology when example after example demonstrate its drawbacks and shortcomings and failures a s a legitimate alternative.
Think of it this way, Arb: Chomsky’s criticisms deserve as much respect about international politics as, say, a Lord Moncton does regarding climate change; both do not consider anything by the ‘opposition’ to have any truth value whatsoever but create a framework of argument aimed solely at presenting targeted criticisms by hook or by crook under the veneer of an honest examination and honest skepticism. Both are lies; there is no honesty to be found.
At some point, listeners have to decide if these kind of deceitful opinions are worth constant attention. As a critical thinker, I can file both safely and with ample evidence under Been There, Done that, just another Merchant of Doubt.
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