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Perilous Power: The Middle East & U.S. Foreign Policy: Dialogues on Terror, Democracy, War, and Justice

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"Periolous Power: The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Power" records a discussion and dialogue between Noam Chomsky and Gilbert Achcar about current events in the Middle East and the U.S. role in the region. Stephen R. Shalom explains in the Preface that the book is the product of several days of live, interactive discussions moderated by Mr. Shalom followed by review and editing of the transcripts by each participant. Consequently, the finished product has both a dynamic feel to it as Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Achcar interact with each other in interesting and sometimes unpredictable ways; and a scholarly dimension as the authors were provided the opportunity to clarify or expand on their comments after the taped sessions had ended. The end result is an exceptionally interesting, informative and timely analysis of U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East.

Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Achcar agree that U.S. interest in the Middle East primarily pertains to oil and control of the world economy; to that end, Israel is a close ally who allows the U.S. to project its power in the region. Mr. Chomsky insists that the threat of terror does not outweigh the imperative of controlling Middle Eastern oil; therefore, he charges that U.S. policy makers are taking an unnecessary calculated risk when choosing to deploy its military assets to the region. Rather, Mr. Chomsky believes that the threat of terror could be greatly reduced simply by withdrawing U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia, for example. Following a similar line of reasoning, the authors conclude elsewhere in the book that U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is a necessary prerequisite to ending the Sunni insurgency and creating a lasting peace.

The book offers many insights. For example, we learn that Middle Eastern democracy was undermined historically by the U.S. in order to prevent politically Left-leaning states from falling under the influence of the USSR. Today, Islamic fundamentalism fills a void as what little Arab nationalism had once existed has waned. However, the authors recognize that the rise of religious fundamentalism is a worldwide phenomenon that is connected with the ascendancy of neoliberal economics, meaning that U.S. and Israeli politics are negatively influenced by fundamentalists, too. Indeed, the increasingly dysfunctional democracies of the U.S. and Great Britain are cause for concern and cast little doubt that the purported mission of bringing democracy to the Middle East has been little more than a ruse.

In perhaps the strongest part of the book, the Israel-Palestine conflict is dealt with at length. Mr. Achcar argues for inclusive peace talks where the Palestinian diaspora is allowed an opportunity to be represented in the discussion and suggests that Jordan should be part of that state as well; for his part, Mr. Chomsky believes that a single state solution is indicated. The authors go on to talk about many complex and contentious issues, including Israeli settlements in Palestine, the separation wall, U.S. military aid to Israel, Palestinian and Israeli politics, anti-Arab racism in the U.S., and more. Throughout the discussion, the reader is impressed with the author's clear-eyed assessment of the situation; moreover, the vision of what they believe might be achieved through peaceful negotiation gives one hope that their ideas are accorded the merit they deserve.

I highly recommend this important book to everyone.

Chomsky does not say that the US should "accept" terrorist attacks as another reviewer suggests. Rather, Chomsky says the US should stop engaging in terrorism. The US has spent hundreds of billions of dollars developing weapons of mass destruction, and training all sorts of killers through our military camps and bases all over the world, places like the "School of the Americas" which has turned out some of Latin America's worst tyrants. We have proxy wars, special forces, and private mercenaries operating all over the world in the interests of corporatism. As General Smedley Butler said, war is a racket, and he was a "high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers."
Ann Coulter, Victor Davis Hansen, Hugh Hewitt and so many others very obediently avoid the fact of US violence against other people. They only speak in terms of the threats (blowback) our military superpower faces, never the actual harm it causes around the world. That's the "thought-crime" that Chomsky commits in book after book, he dares to suggest that the people of the US look themselves in the mirror.

For some more interviews with Chomsky, I'd recommend the website of Z Magazine.

Invade Iraq, control the oil for "critical leverage" over other industrial societies with geopolitical control in the middle east. But you also have the Asian Energy Security Grid forming China, Russia with India in the wings followed by South Korea and maybe even Japan. They would love to get Iran. India has a pipeline to Iran which the U.S.doesn't like. Iraq's Shiite majority has links to Iran's Shiite majority. There is a substantial Shiite population in Saudi Arabia, right across the border where most of the oil is. Will that region come under control of The Grid instead of the U.S.? You have The Shanghi Cooperation Organization running parallel to The Grid turning into a NATO style organization aimed at central asia to confront the U.S. The militalized Israeli economy sells advanced weapons to China. The increasing military cooperation between China & Russia since the eary 1990's. So a military presence of the U.S. is extremely significant in Afghanistan.
These and many more topics are discussed by both Chomsky and Archer. Sometimes disagreeing, as in the question of 9/11 being an inside job; sometimes agreeing, as in Israel telling the Lebanese what it keeps telling the Palastinians: Destroy each other or we shall destroy you all! Very entertaining in their agruements and dis/agreements. One comes away from the read better informed and amazed at the great puzzle the middle east has become.
The book's theme is that one can easily understand why Gandhi, when asked what he thought of western civilization, is alleged to have said that he thought it might be a good idea.

Chomsky dares to argue that while much of the charges the U.S. government makes against its foreign enemies regarding human rights violations, involvement in terrorism, etc. are valid, the United States itself is a leading sponsor of human rights violations and terrorism in the world. If the U.S. has the right to bomb Afghanistan for 911 should Venezuela and Cuba be allowed to bomb the United States because Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Cariles are being harbored in the U.S.? Should Sudan bomb the U.S. because Clinton's 1998 bombing destroyed the factory producing the majority of that country's medicine, an action which probably subsequently led to many thousands of deaths? Chomsky argues that the U.S. perhaps could have gotten Bin Laden from the Taliban if it taken seriously the latter's proposals for extradition processes. As before he continues to cite the New York Times articles after 911 reporting the angst of aid agencies about the drastic reduction of food aid deliveries during the U.S. bombing and the fact that the U.S. forced Musharaff to close his border with Afghanistan through which at least five million Afghanis depended to receive food and medicine. He seems reluctant to delve much deeper into the Afghanistan issue. I wish he would, like Michael Mandel in his recent book, quote from London Guardian and New York Times correspondents who cited such figures as 3000 and 20000 for deaths as a result of the cutoff of food aid in particular small areas of Afghanistan each surveyed.

Chomsky quotes former Reagan State Department official Thomas Carothers as explaining that the U.S. pushes for third world democratic governments when it is sure that a country's rich minority will retain real control. Hugo Chavez is the antithesis of this preference. The government of Turkey which is a military dictatorship with a democratic façade was threatened with sanctions by Colin Powell after its parliament complied with the wishes of 85 percent of Turkey's population and refused to participate in the U.S. war on Iraq. The Turkish military should have stepped in to overrule the parliament Paul Wolfowitz declared and ought to be thinking in the future how it could step up and be a team player for the Americans. Suddenly, Chomsky observes, articles started appearing in the U.S. press outlining Turkey's horrendous human rights violations against its Kurdish population in the 90's though never mentioning that Clinton provided the military aid for Turkey to do so.

Achcar is particularly interesting on the internal situation in key Arab countries, including on the meaningless cosmetic reforms that the U.S. backed dictatorships of Egypt and Saudi Arabia engaged in under U.S. pressure. He discusses how Paul Bremer tried to avoid elections throughout 2003, trying instead to impose a weak system of caucuses whose members he would appoint. But the protests led by Sistani forced him to give way to a significant extent.The U.S. gave massive aid to the former Ba'athist thug Alawi but he only got 15 percent of the vote. Subsequently ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad maneuvered with the Kurds to get Allawi's people some key decision making posts in the government. Allawi has since been snipping at the government and blaming it for the torture centers and death squads that were actually formed with the aid of U.S. advisors when he was interim leader. He notes that the Iraqi politicians who met in Egypt in late 2005 including President Jalal Talabani made sure to declare that there was a legitimate resistance to the U.S. occupation.

Chomsky notes that a look at a map of the 2000 Camp David proposal shows that it was fully consistent with Israeli policies since 1967 of stealing all the best Palestinian land and resources and creating settlement blocks that break up the territorial contiguity of the territories and leave Palestinians in isolated ghettos. He notes that a precedent for the recent destabilization of Hamas govt. has roots as reflected in recent documents released from the Eisenhower and Kennedy administration where officials explain that since the Cuban population is favorable towards Castro they would have to be punished by being starved by embargo in order to be induced to overthrow him.

Chomsky and Achcar note how Israel's kidnapping of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians and detaining them without charge and extracting confessions from them with torture has been ignored. He quotes General Shlomo Gazit's memoirs as lamenting that Israel rebuffed a proposal from Palestinian village leaders in the late 60's for some form of political and cultural autonomy. When Sadat proposed an agreement to Israeli in 1971 on terms no different from the Camp David Accords of 1979 Israel sent Arik Sharon into the Sinai to drive tens of thousands of Egyptians from their homes and into barbed wire camps so the all Jewish town of Yamit could be constructed.

Chomsky discusses such matters as -911 conspiracy theories, the nuclear standoff with Iran and the role of Jews in American life. He discusses with Achcar the movement to divest from Israel and expresses reservations about it and suggests how it could be of maximum effectiveness. He argues that the "Jewish" lobby suddenly arose after 1967 and has consisted most importantly of liberals and evangelical Christians who have many purposes, including supporting Israel as a bulwark against Arab nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists who don't follow U.S. orders. He notes that Israel really came up against U.S. imperial interests in 2000 and 2005; Israel wanted to sell advanced military equipment to the Chinese. Israel's weapons industry is a crucial part of its economy but Clinton and Bush said no and the lobby made no protest. In fact in the 05' case Pentagon officials would not meet with Israeli counterparts until the Knesset overturned the sale and the Israelis sent them a letter of abject apology.

I think he gives more than adequate answers in this book to the large number of people on the internet fuming about him being the "left gate-keeper" on 911 and Israel lobby issues.

This fascinating book records Noam Chomsky and Gilbert Achcar's talks in January 2006. They are astoundingly well-informed and full of good ideas for reducing the dangers of war. They discuss terrorism, fundamentalism (especially in Saudi Arabia), the sources of US Middle Eastern policy (particularly oil), the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Achcar points out that the Bush-Blair claim that they must now stay in Iraq because, having invaded, `we have the responsibility', is like the vile rule in some societies that a man who rapes an unmarried woman must marry her. They cite the US military commander in Iraq who admits that the presence of US troops `fuels the insurgency'. They note that most people in Baghdad believe that the USA's chief aim is to `rob Iraq's oil' and they note that most Americans think that the USA should get out of Iraq.

Chomsky and Achcar point out that the EU gives the Israeli state economic privileges and they suggest that the EU should desist until Israel stops building new illegal settlements and the illegal Separation Wall. They agree that an academic boycott of Israel is a bad idea, but worse, it is a divisive diversion from academic unions' main job, to defend their members' wages and conditions.

Chomsky observes that in October 2003, Iran suspended its nuclear enrichment programme in order to reach a general agreement. The EU said that it would provide `firm commitments on security issues', but it reneged when the USA refused to join the talks. In January 2006, Iran offered to suspend its nuclear programme again; the EU rejected this offer too.

Achcar observes, "There's a general trend at the level of the mainstream media to praise those ruling politicians who rule without consulting the polls; that is deemed a great virtue. But behind it is the very elitist idea, also embedded in the very concept of `representative democracy', that, once elected, a representative is free to do whatever he or she wants, even against the unanimous will of his or her constituency." So the Labour government opposes the will of the British people over the attack on Iraq, the EU, the Private Finance Initiative, immigration, breaking up Britain, etc., etc. But are we really surprised that capitalist states do not represent the people?

The authors provide both helpful insight and tortured bias towards Israel in this book. "Perilous Power" begins with efforts to define terrorism - the first (12/87) passed the U.N. 153-2 (the U.S. and Israel were upset that it excluded acts by those occupied), and one immediately gets the sense that the U.S. is way out of the mainstream vs. Israel.

Some of their observations include:

Chomsky et al make the interesting point that Treasury officials in '04 testified they had four employees tracing financial transfers possibly attributable to Bin Laden and/or Hussein, and about 6X that monitoring possible Cuban embargo violations - a bit of mis-emphasis, at best. As for the U.S. troops stationed in Saudi Arabia that provoked Bin Laden, they suggest the troops instead could have been stationed in Kuwait.

The dominant trend in the 1960s Arab world was Arab nationalism (eg. Nasser). The U.S. used Islamic fundamentalism throughout Saudi Arabia to counter communism, secular nationalism, etc. This policy continued in Afghanistan, with us backing the Mujahideen and a similar group in Pakistan. (Talk about blowback!) The U.S. also reacted to the '58 overthrow of the Iraq monarchy, fearing it then would use oil for its own purposes, weakening U.S. control over Japanese and European countries. A U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would end our control/influence over mid-East oil.

In the U.S., Republicans have boosted Christian fundamentalists' concern regarding teaching evolution, gay rights, abortion rights - issues that the wealthy care little about and help build support for their causes (low taxes and wages, etc.). Real wages have gone down, beginning with the Carter administration. Political donations from insurance companies and financial institutions block both parties from addressing health and economic issues, instead resulting in a focus on religious issues.

The U.S.' democratic credentials in the Mid-East are quite poor, via our involvement in overthrows in Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq, along with little pressure on Egypt and Saudi Arabia for improvement.

AIPAC, the liberal intelligentsia, and Christian evangelicals are the main pro-Israel voting blocs in the U.S. - the latter are the strongest, and ironically, seeking the destruction of Israel for their own purposes. Israel's economic strength is in advanced military production using U.S. technology; the main market it is trying to develop is China, sometimes creating conflict with the U.S. Being pushed out of Saudi Arabia has increased the value of Israel to the U.S.

"Perilous Power's" weakest section criticizes the U.S. attack on Afghanistan - its authors believe more negotiation and development of greater evidence against Bin Laden should have taken place first. Regardless, the authors also assert that Afghanistan's people are not better off now, except in Kabul, with those in the countryside now subjugated by warlords instead of the Taliban; meanwhile, heroin production is up sharply.

The U.S. has created several ironies regarding its position on democracy. For example, Spain's P.M. joined Bush and Blair (despite the electorate's only 2% support), while the U.S. criticized Turkey's lack of cooperation with our Iraq invasion, acting with 95% support.

It was also interesting to learn that the Kurds serve as a U.S. proxy.

Finally, the Israel-Palestine issue. They report that the U.S./Israel position has been that unless Palestinians accept the right of Israel to exist, they can't be accepted as negotiating powers - total nonsense. The authors then use various examples from history, including America's treatment of its native American population, to create a patchwork logic in support of Israel's decades' old abuse of the Palestinian people. Basically, their point boils down to "possession is 9/10ths of the law."

Every few years I'll pick up a book by Chomsky to get a clue as to what the far left is thinking. Chomsky is predictable. He will always impute the worst of motives to the United States and the best of motives to any State that is anti-American and embraces collectivist ideals. He is unpredictable in how he reaches some of his conclusions and thus you will find surprising and at times enlightening flights of reason -- and fantasy. I will never forgive him for denying the holocaust in Cambodia -- although he would say in his own defense that he was just questioning the evidence of such a holocaust.

This book is the text of a lengthy conversation between Chomsky and Gilbert Achar on the Middle East. They don't always agree, and that makes the book more interesting. Achar is a European -- born in Lebanon -- and thus his statements reflect the leftist European point of view on anti-Semitism, resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli problem, the war in Iraq, and other Middle Eastern topics. An interesting section of the book is the brief epilog which discusses the summer 2006 war of Israel on Lebanon.

The problem with thinkers like Chomsky and Achar is that, just about the time you get to thinking they are making good sense,out of their mouths comes the most outrageous nonsense. For example, Achar more than hints that the U.S. government welcomed the 9/11 terrorist attack. Now, I'm not a Bush fan -- far to the contrary -- but I decline to give credence to an opinion he and other US leaders are so venal as to welcome the death of 3,000 Americans. On his side, Chomsky's characterization of the US invasion of Afghanistan as an "atrocious crime" is misleading. Chomsky makes much of the fact that the US invasion put 5 million Afghans at risk of starvation. Baloney! He omits to mention that the five million were at risk of starvation long before the war because of the Taliban, and that during the war the US and UN kept a massive caravan of grain-carrying trucks rolling into Afghanistan to prevent starvation. Chomsky finally acknowledges there was no starvation -- after spending two pages describing the "atrocious crime" of attacking the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

So, I recommend the book for its originality, its unconventional thinking, and for the howlers you will find amidst its analyses.

Smallchief

I'd never read any Chomsky before, but I'd seen one of his movies and heard of his reputation. I was worried he was just going to be a knee-jerk, predictable Vietnam-era peacenik.
He discusses the Middle East, particularly Iraq, in a lot of intelligent detail, and then concludes (surprise!) that the US should withdraw all its forces from Iraq immediately and unconditionally, and that if we did that the Sunnis and Shias would just magically quit fighting against each other.
I felt pretty ripped off, because I thought while he was discussing the situation in so much detail he was actually thinking and digesting information that would drive a conclusion, while in fact the policy he was going to recommend was never in question and had no relationship with the facts on the ground being discussed.
When he was discussing Afghanistan, I had the feeling Chomsky doesn't really seem to feel that the US has any right to defend itself against terrorism, rather, he seems to feel that we should accept it as our just fate because we're such an evil country. As Ann Coulter says, "Terrorist don't hate America as much as liberals do - if they had that much energy, they'd have indoor plumbing by now!".