War, organizing around international freedom sounds a bit like organizing around an international system of weights and measures. It’s the kind of thing that people care about if they are part of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders.
There is a loosely affiliated international Left opposed to neoliberalism and austerity. But you’re correct that there is no international movement to combat Islamic fundamentalist groups like ISIS. There isn’t a popular groundswell for human rights around the globe. For the international Left, perhaps it seems like too abstract a goal.
How much of Islamic extremism can be attributed to a genuine grassroots movement, and how much can be attributed to US foreign policy?
I think it’s a mistake to attribute every form of backlash and blowback to US foreign policy, while on the other hand it’s a mistake to pretend that US policy has not had any influence on the contours of resistance movements. Let’s take the example of Iran. As vexed as I was by Jimmy Carter’s presidency (the registration of a peacetime draft, the saber-rattling over Afghanistan, pulling out of the Olympics), I have some degree of retroactive sympathy for whoever was in the White House in 1979-80 because, between Iran, Nicaragua and Afghanistan, they had no idea what was happening. They interpreted all three of those things in Cold War terms, and with Afghanistan and Nicaragua that made sense. I realized that to a lot of people in the State Department and the CIA the most important thing was that they had lost their listening station in Tehran, which allowed them to monitor Soviet Union communications. They didn’t understand that what was happening in Iran couldn’t be seen in terms of the Cold War. This was an Islamic fundamentalist republic that wasn’t going to have any allegiance to the Soviet Union or the United States. This was going to be truly a third force.
The revolution took the shape it did because of the United States’ friendly relations with Shah Pahlavi, all the way back to the CIA-sponsored coup of democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. I think there is no denying that. On the other hand, the fact that the revolution turned into this specific type of fundamentalist movement had a lot to do with the internal politics of Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood, which would have happened regardless of the overthrow of Mossadegh. In other words, while the US certainly played a part in stoking the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the revolution didn’t have to take that form. To take a parallel example with a very different outcome, you could say the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not appropriate in moral or military terms, but those bombings didn’t lead to an anti-Western Japanese fundamentalist movement that spread across the globe.
How should the Left confront claims made by terrorists that their attacks are in retaliation for US invasions in the Middle East, one-sided support for Israel over Palestine and US support for corrupt authoritarian leaders in the Middle East?
I think Osama bin Laden’s criticism of US government policies regarding the Israel-Palestinian conflict was purely opportunistic. I am not convinced he cared very much about the fate of the Palestinians; I think he was more focused on the dream of restoring the Caliphate. Nevertheless, the basis for the complaint is real. The occupation has gone on for nearly 50 years. The mistake is thinking that anyone who makes these critiques of US imperialism does so in the name of democracy or socialism; Islamic fundamentalists make these in the name of something far worse. The terrorists who complain about US imperialism don’t have the same goals as you or me. We have to separate a legitimate critique of US policy from an illegitimate and violent terrorist response. ■
NOAM CHOMSKY
Noam Chomsky is a renowned linguist and arguably the most famous dissident intellectual in the United States. Chomsky has written an abundance of books deeply critical of US foreign and domestic policy, including Manufacturing Dissent, Deterring Democracy and American Power and the New Mandarins. Chomsky is frequently interviewed by mainstream and alternative media outlets the world over.
What do you see as the consequences of Trump’s climate-change denial for future generations? Does effectively combating climate change require international co-operation between nation-states, grassroots projects or a little of both?
It’s not just Trump. It’s the entire Republican leadership. It is an astonishing fact that the most powerful state in human history is standing alone in the world in not just refusing to deal with this truly existential crisis but is in fact dedicated to escalating the race to disaster. And it’s no less shocking that all this passes with little comment. Effective actions require mobilization and serious commitment at every level, from international co-operation to individual choices.
What are your thoughts on Trump’s rhetoric towards North Korea? What do you think would be a wise foreign policy to adopt towards North Korea?
On 27 April 2018, the two Koreas signed a historic declaration in which they ‘affirmed the principle of determining the destiny of the Korean nation on their own accord’. And for the first time they presented a detailed program as to how to proceed and have been taking preliminary steps. The declaration was virtually a plea to outsiders (meaning the US) not to interfere with their efforts. To Trump’s credit, he has not undermined these efforts – and has been bitterly condemned across the spectrum for his sensible stand.
What do you think US foreign policy should be towards Syria? And what do you think of Syrian dissidents who feel like much of the American Left has misinterpreted the origins as well as the complexity of the civil war in that country?
No-one has put forth a meaningful proposal, including Syrian dissidents – among them very admirable people who certainly merit support in any constructive way. Constructive. That is, a way that would mitigate the terrible crimes of the regime and the jihadi elements that quickly took over much of the opposition, rather than exacerbating the disaster that Syria has been suffering. Proposals are easy. Responsible proposals are not.
By now it seems that the murderous Assad regime has pretty much won the war, and might turn on the Kurdish areas that have carried out admirable developments while also defending their territories from the vicious forces on every side. The US should do whatever is possible to protect the Kurds instead of keeping to past policies of regular betrayal.
Why are the war in Iraq and the war in Indochina described by so many liberals and progressives as strategic blunders instead of as outright war crimes?
The same is true generally. Commentary on the Vietnam War ranges from ‘noble cause’ to ‘blundering efforts to do good’ that became too costly to us – Anthony Lewis, at the dissident extreme. And it generalizes far beyond the US. Why? It’s close to tautology. If one doesn’t accept that framework, one is pretty much excluded from the category of ‘respectabililty’.
What do you make of the criticism you received from liberals for comparing the consequences of the missile attack on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan to the terrorist attacks on 9/11?
I wrote that the scale of casualties was probably comparable, which, as it turned out, may have understated the impact on a poor African country, unable to compensate for the effect of destroying its main source of pharmaceuticals. The consequences were radically different. Sudan didn’t launch a ‘global war on terror’. As for the criticism, I have also received criticism from Soviet apologists for accurately describing the crimes of the State they defend. Not quite an accurate analogy: such behavior is much more shameful in free countries where there are no penalties for telling the truth about ourselves.
You rarely use the term genocide in your commentary on foreign conflicts, including in your comments and articles on Bosnia, East Timor and El Salvador. Do you shy away from using this word because you believe it has been politicized?
I think that, if we use the term, we should restrict it to what I regard as its original intended use. Take El Salvador, with some 70,000 killed, overwhelmingly by forces armed