Page 2 of 2 Rulers and the ruled:
Dangerous
disconnect By Noam Chomsky
condition: that the US and Iran
were functioning democratic societies in which
public opinion had a significant impact on public
policy.
As it happens, this solution has
overwhelming support among Iranians and Americans,
who generally are in agreement on nuclear issues.
The Iranian-American consensus includes the
complete elimination of nuclear weapons everywhere
(82% of Americans); if that cannot yet be achieved
because of elite
opposition, then at least a
"nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East that
would include both Islamic countries and Israel"
(71% of Americans). Seventy-five percent of
Americans prefer building better relations with
Iran to threats of force.
In brief, if
public opinion were to have a significant
influence on state policy in the US and Iran,
resolution of the crisis might be at hand, along
with much more far-reaching solutions to the
global nuclear conundrum.
Promoting
democracy - at home These facts suggest a
possible way to prevent the current crisis from
exploding, perhaps even into some version of World
War III. That awesome threat might be averted by
pursuing a familiar proposal: democracy promotion
- this time at home in the United States, where it
is badly needed.
Democracy promotion at
home is certainly feasible and, although we cannot
carry out such a project directly in Iran, we
could act to improve the prospects of the
courageous reformers and oppositionists who are
seeking to achieve just that. Among such figures
who are, or should be, well known would be Saeed
Hajjarian, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, and Akbar
Ganji, as well as those who, as usual, remain
nameless, among them labor activists about whom we
hear very little; those who publish
IranianWorkersBulletin.org may be a case in point.
We can best improve the prospects for
democracy promotion in Iran by sharply reversing
state policy in the US so that it reflects popular
opinion. That would entail ceasing to make the
regular threats that are a gift to Iranian
hardliners. These are bitterly condemned by
Iranians truly concerned with democracy promotion
(unlike those "supporters" who flaunt democracy
slogans in the West and are lauded as grand
"idealists" despite their clear record of visceral
hatred for democracy).
Democracy promotion
in the United States could have far broader
consequences. In Iraq, for instance, a firm
timetable for withdrawal would be initiated at
once, or very soon, in accord with the will of the
overwhelming majority of Iraqis and a significant
majority of Americans. US federal budget
priorities would be virtually reversed. Where
spending is rising, as in military supplemental
bills to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
it would sharply decline. Where spending is steady
or declining (health, education, job training, the
promotion of energy conservation and renewable
energy sources, veterans benefits, funding for the
United Nations and its peacekeeping operations,
and so on), it would sharply increase. Bush's tax
cuts for people with incomes over US$200,000 a
year would be immediately rescinded.
The
US would have adopted a national health-care
system long ago, rejecting the privatized system
that sports twice the per capita costs found in
similar societies and some of the worst outcomes
in the industrial world. It would have rejected
what is widely regarded by those who pay attention
as a "fiscal train wreck" in the making. The US
would have ratified the Kyoto Protocol to reduce
carbon-dioxide emissions and undertaken
still-stronger measures to protect the
environment. It would allow the UN to take the
lead in international crises, including in Iraq.
After all, according to opinion polls, since
shortly after the 2003 invasion, a large majority
of Americans have wanted the UN to take charge of
political transformation, economic reconstruction,
and civil order in that land.
If public
opinion mattered, the US would accept UN Charter
restrictions on the use of force, contrary to a
bipartisan consensus that the United States,
alone, has the right to resort to violence in
response to potential threats, real or imagined,
including threats to US access to markets and
resources. The US (along with others) would
abandon the UN Security Council veto and accept
majority opinion even when in opposition to it.
The UN would be allowed to regulate arms sales,
while the US would cut back on such sales and urge
other countries to do so, which would be a major
contribution to reducing large-scale violence in
the world. Terror would be dealt with through
diplomatic and economic measures, not force, in
accord with the judgment of most specialists on
the topic but again in diametric opposition to
present-day US policy.
Furthermore, if
public opinion influenced policy, the US would
have diplomatic relations with Cuba, benefiting
the people of both countries (and, incidentally,
US agribusiness, energy corporations, and others),
instead of standing virtually alone in the world
in imposing an embargo (joined only by Israel, the
Republic of Palau, and the Marshall Islands).
Washington would join the broad international
consensus on a two-state settlement of the
Israel-Palestine conflict, which (with Israel) it
has blocked for 30 years - with scattered and
temporary exceptions - and which it still blocks
in word, and more importantly in deed, despite
fraudulent claims of its commitment to diplomacy.
The US would also equalize aid to Israel and
Palestine, cutting off aid to either party that
rejected the international consensus.
Evidence on these matters is reviewed in
my book Failed States as well as in The
Foreign Policy Disconnect by Benjamin Page
(with Marshall Bouton), which also provides
extensive evidence that public opinion on foreign
(and probably domestic) policy issues tends to be
coherent and consistent over long periods. Studies
of public opinion have to be regarded with
caution, but they are certainly highly suggestive.
Democracy promotion at home, while no
panacea, would be a useful step toward helping the
United States become a "responsible stakeholder"
in the international order (to adopt the term used
for adversaries), instead of being an object of
fear and dislike throughout much of the world.
Apart from being a value in itself, functioning
democracy at home holds real promise for dealing
constructively with many current problems,
international and domestic, including those that
literally threaten the survival of our species.
Noam Chomsky is the author of
Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the
Assault on Democracy (Metropolitan Books), just
published in paperback, among many other
works.
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