Subordinate and Non-Subordinate States
An interview with Noam Chomsky
ZNet.com & Reproduced at Truthout.org
Monday 08 May 2006
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.
Khatchig Mouradian: 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?
Noam Chomsky: 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.
Khatchig Mouradian: And what does the US administration expect from Lebanon today?
Noam Chomsky: 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.
Khatchig Mouradian: What about Lebanon's role within the context of pressuring Syria?
Noam Chomsky: 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.
Khatchig Mouradian: In this context, why is Europe increasingly being supportive of US policies in the Middle East?
Noam Chomsky: 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.
Khatchig Mouradian: They don't fall in line…
Noam Chomsky: 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.
Khatchig Mouradian: 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.
Noam Chomsky: 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.
Khatchig Mouradian: 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?
Noam Chomsky: 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.
Khatchig Mouradian: 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?
Noam Chomsky: 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.
Khatchig Mouradian: 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?
Noam Chomsky: 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.
(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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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 khatchigm@gmail.com.
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.