Noam Chomsky on Obama's Foreign Policy

<snip>
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?