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CounterPunch
November
18, 2002
A Modest
Proposal:
Let Iran "Liberate" Iraq
by NOAM CHOMSKY
The dedicated efforts of the Bush administration
to take control of Iraq--by war, military coup or some other
means--have elicited various analyses of the guiding motives.
Offering one interpretation, Anatol Lieven,
senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace in Washington DC, observes that the Bush administration's
efforts conform to "the classic modern strategy of an endangered
right-wing oligarchy, which is to divert mass discontent into
nationalism" through fear of external enemies.
The administration's goal, Lieven says,
is "unilateral world domination through absolute military
superiority", which is why much of the world is so frightened.
But the administration has overlooked
a simple alternative to invading Iraq. Let Iran do it. Before
elaborating on this modest proposal, it's worthwhile to examine
the antecedents of Washington's bellicosity.
Ever since the September 11 attacks,
Republicans have used the terrorist threat as a pretext to push
a right-wing political agenda. For the congressional elections,
the strategy has diverted attention from the economy to war.
When the presidential campaign begins, Republicans surely do
not want people to be asking questions about their pensions,
jobs, healthcare and other matters.
Rather, they should be praising their
heroic leader for rescuing them from imminent destruction by
a foe of colossal power, and marching on to confront the next
powerful force bent on our destruction.
September 11 provided an opportunity
and pretext to implement long-standing plans to take control
of Iraq's immense oil wealth, a central component of the Persian
Gulf resources that the State Department in 1945 described as
a "stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the
greatest material prizes in world history".
Control of energy sources fuels US economic
and military might, and "strategic power" translates
to a lever of world control. A different interpretation is that
the administration believes exactly what it says: Iraq has suddenly
become a threat to our very existence and to its neighbours.
So we must ensure that Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction and the means for producing them are destroyed,
and Saddam Hussein, the monster himself, eliminated. And quickly.
The war must be waged this (northern) winter. Next winter will
be too late. By then the mushroom cloud that National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice predicts may have already consumed us.
Let us assume that this interpretation
is correct. If the powers in the Middle East fear Washington
more than Saddam, as they apparently do, that just reveals their
limited grasp of reality.
It is only an accident that by next winter
the US presidential campaign will be under way. How then can
we achieve the announced goals? One simple plan seems to have
been ignored, perhaps because it would be regarded as insane,
and rightly so. But it is instructive to ask why.
The modest proposal is for the US to
encourage Iran to invade Iraq, providing the Iranians with the
necessary logistical and military support, from a safe distance
(missiles, bombs, bases, etc). As a proxy, one pole of "the
axis of evil" would take on another.
The proposal has many advantages over
the alternatives. First, Saddam will be overthrown--in fact,
torn to shreds along with anyone close to him. His weapons of
mass destruction will also be destroyed, along with the means
to produce them.
Second, there will be no American casualties.
True, many Iraqis and Iranians will die. But that can hardly
be a concern. Those in US President George W. Bush's circle--many
of them recycled Reaganites--strongly supported Saddam after
he attacked Iran in 1980, quite oblivious to the enormous human
cost, either then or under the subsequent sanctions regime.
Saddam is likely to use chemical weapons.
But the current leadership firmly backed the "Beast of Baghdad"
when he used chemical weapons against Iran in the Reagan years,
and when he used gas against "his own people", the
Iraqi Kurds.
The current Washington planners continued
to support the Beast after he had committed by far his worst
crimes, even providing him with means to develop weapons of mass
destruction, nuclear and biological, right up to the Kuwait invasion.
Third, the UN will be no problem. It
will be unnecessary to explain to the world that the UN is relevant
when it follows US orders, but irrelevant when it doesn't.
Fourth, Iran surely has far better credentials
for war-making, and for running a post-Saddam Iraq, than Washington.
Unlike the Bush administration, Iran has no record of support
for the murderous Saddam and his program of weapons of mass destruction.
Fifth, the liberation will be greeted
with enthusiasm by much of the population, far more so than if
Americans invade. People will cheer on the streets of Basra and
Karbala, and we can join Iranian journalists in hailing the nobility
and just cause of the liberators.
Sixth, Iran can move towards instituting
"democracy". The majority of the population is Shi'ite,
and Iran would have fewer problems than the US in granting them
some say in a successor government. There will be no problem
in gaining access to Iraqi oil.
Granted, the modest proposal that Iran
liberate Iraq is insane. Its only merit is that it is far more
reasonable than the plans now being implemented--or it would
be, if the administration's professed goals had any relation
to the real ones.
Yesterday's Features
Edward Said
Europe vs.
America
Todd May
The Ironies of History
Paul de Rooij
US Aid to Israel
Feeding the Cuckoo
Ben Sonnenberg
Vertov's
Man With a Movie Camera
Gadi Algazi and Azmi Bdeir
Transfer's Real Nightmare
Martin van Creveld
Sharon's Last Option
Walter Brasch
Scoring the US/Iraq War
Michael S. Ladah
The Burning Sails of Baghdad
Don Moniak
An Open Letter on the Augusta Golf
Course Campaign
George Fletcher
Is the UN Security Council Vote on Iraq Illegal?
Ralph Nader
A Tribute to Wellstone
Adam Engel
Mannahatta!
(A Tale of Two Cities)
Bernard, Engel, Dailey, St. Clair
Poets' Basement
New
Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- The Shafts of Death: Bush, Coal Mines, and Death
in the Tunnels;
- Speak Memory!: Carter and the Draft;
- Daniel Pipes' World: Smearing Pro-Arab Academics;
- Ashcroft's Gays: the War on Free Speech;
- Saddam's Amnesty: Could It Happen Here?
- Criminalizing Dissent: a history and preview;
- Iraq 1987: When the Going Was Good;
- Egypt in Turmoil: an Anthropologist's Account;
- Green and Grounded: Profiled at the Gate.
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