Noam Chomsky: U.S. Has Been "Torturing" Iran for 60 Years, Since 1953 CIA-L

[Sam1980]

In this web-only exclusive, MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky talks about the past 60 years of U.S.-Iranian relations since the 1953 coup organized by the CIA. "The crucial fact about Iran, which we should begin with, is that for the past 60 years not a day has passed in which the U.S. has not been torturing Iranians," Chomsky says. "It began with a military coup which overthrew the parliamentary regime in 1953."

See the full interview with Chomsky today:

Chomsky: Instead of 'Illegal' Threat to Syria, U.S. Should Back Chemical Weapons Ban in All Nations

Chomsky on 9/11, Syria’s 'Bloody Partition' and Why U.S. Role Ensures Failure of Mideast Talks

AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Our guest is Noam Chomsky. Noam, if you could talk about Iran now and what the conflict in Syria means for Iran and what the U.S. could do to, overall, change the dynamics of the Middle East?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, what’s the crucial fact about Iran, which we should begin with, is that for the past 60 years, not a day has passed in which the U.S. has not been torturing Iranians. That’s 60 years, right now. Began with a military coup, which overthrew the parliamentary regime in 1953, installed the Shah, a brutal dictator. Amnesty International described him as one of the worst, most extreme torturers in the world, year after year. When he was overthrown in 1979, the U.S. almost immediately turned to supporting Saddam Hussein in an assault against Iran, which killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians, used extensive use of chemical weapons. Of course, at the same time, Saddam attacked his Kurdish population with horrible chemical weapons attacks. The U.S. supported all of that. The Reagan administration even tried to—succeeded in preventing a censure of Iraq. The United States essentially won the war against Iran by its support for Iraq. It immediately—Saddam Hussein was a favorite of the Reagan and first Bush administration, to such an extent that George H.W. Bush, the first Bush, right after the war, 1989, invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the United States for advanced training in nuclear weapons production. That’s the country that had devastated Iran, horrifying attack and war. Right after that, Iran was subjected to harsh sanctions. And it continues right until the moment. So we now have a 60-year record of torturing Iranians. We don’t pay attention to it, but you can be sure that they do, with good reason. That’s point number one.

Why the assault against Iran? We’re back to the Mafia principle. In 1979, Iranians carried out an illegitimate act: They overthrew a tyrant that the United States had imposed and supported, and moved on an independent path, not following U.S. orders. That conflicts with the Mafia doctrine, by which the world is pretty much ruled. Credibility must be maintained. The godfather cannot permit independence and successful defiances, in the case of Cuba. So, Iran has to be punished for that.

The current pretext is that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Well, as The New York Times reports that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, U.S. intelligence, on the other hand, doesn’t know. They say maybe they are. If—and according to U.S. intelligence, its regular reports to Congress, if Iran is developing nuclear weapons, it would be part of their deterrence strategy—that is, part of their strategy to defend themselves from external attack. As U.S. intelligence points out, Iran has very little ability to deploy force. It’s low military expenditures even by regional standards, but it does have a deterrence strategy—and with good reason. It’s surrounded by nuclear powers, which are backed by the United States and have refused to sign the Nonproliferation Treaty, the three of them. Israel, India and Pakistan all developed nuclear weapons with U.S. assistance. India and Israel continue to maintain—have a substantial U.S. support for their nuclear weapons programs and other programs, such as the occupation of part of Syria in violation of Security Council orders. And Iran is constantly threatened. The United States and Israel, two major nuclear powers—I mean, one a superpower, the other a regional superpower—are constantly threatening Iran with attack, threatening Iran with attack every day. Again, that’s a violation of the U.N. Charter, which bans the threat or use of force, but the U.S. is self-immunized from international law, and its clients inherit that right. So Iran is under constant threat. It’s surrounded by hostile nuclear states. It—and maybe is developing a deterrent capacity. We don’t know. New York Times knows, but intelligence doesn’t. That’s the pretext.

Is there anything you can do? And we might ask ourselves who—the United States regards Iran as what’s called "the gravest threat to world peace." That was the press report after the presidential debate, the final presidential debate on foreign policy, and pretty accurately describing the consensus, the agreement between Obama and Romney on the threats in the Middle East: Iran’s is the greatest threat to world peace, greatest threat in the region, because of its nuclear programs. That’s the U.S. position. What is the position of the world? Well, it’s easy to find out. Most of the countries of the world belong to the Non-Aligned Movement, which had in fact just had its regular meeting in Tehran, in Iran. And once again, it vigorously supported—vigorously supported—Iran’s right to enrich uranium as a signer of the Nonproliferation Treaty, unlike Israel and India. That’s the Non-Aligned Movement.

Now, what about the Arab world? Well, in the Arab world, Iran is disliked, very severely disliked. Tensions go back many centuries. But it’s not regarded as a threat. They don’t like it, but they don’t regard it as a threat. A very small percentage in the Arab world regard Iran as a threat, let alone the gravest threat to world peace. In the Arab world, they do recognize threats, serious threats: the United States and Israel. That’s shown by poll after poll, polls taken by the leading Western polling agencies. Here, the reporting is that the Arabs support the United States on Iran. But the reference is not to the Arab populations, which are considered irrelevant, but to the dictators. One of the most extreme dictatorships, and the most important one from the U.S. point of view, is Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the most extreme fundamentalist state in the world. It’s also a missionary state. It’s expending huge efforts—has been for many years—to disseminate its extremist Wahhabi-Salafi version of Islam, all with U.S. backing. It’s a dictatorship, no Arab Spring there. And the dictators, there and in other Arab emirates, probably do support U.S. policy on Iran. And for the U.S. and U.S. media and U.S. commentary, it’s enough for the dictators to support us. It doesn’t matter what the population thinks. Well, that’s the Arab world. And the same is true in the rest of the world. The obsession with Iran is a U.S. obsession, maybe draws in some of its allies.

Final question about Iran is: What can you do about the alleged threat? Well, there are things that can be done. So, for example, in 2010, there was a solution reached to the problem of Iranian nuclear programs. There was an agreement between Iran, Turkey and Brazil for Iran to ship its—all of its uranium resources to another country, to Turkey, for storage. It wouldn’t develop—enrich uranium further. And in return, the West would provide Iran with the isotopes it needs for its nuclear—for its medical reactors. OK, that was the deal. As soon as that deal was announced, it was bitterly condemned by President Obama, by the press, by Congress—harsh condemnations of Brazil, particularly, and Turkey for agreeing to this. And Obama quickly rushed through harsher sanctions. The Brazilian foreign minister was rather irritated by this, and he released to the press a letter from President Obama in which Obama had suggested exactly this program to Brazil. He obviously had suggested it on the assumption that Iran would never accept it, and then there would be another propaganda point. Well, Iran did accept it, so therefore Brazil had to be and Turkey had to be partially condemned, and threatened, in fact, for implementing the policy that Obama had suggested. That could be reinstituted, maybe—maybe some modification of that. That would be one way to approach it.

There’s a much broader way. For years, since 1974—

AMY GOODMAN: Noam, we have two minutes.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah. There has been a proposal since 1974 to establish a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region. That would be the best way to mitigate, maybe end, whatever threat Iran is alleged to pose. And that has enormous international support, such enormous support that the U.S. has been compelled to formally agree, but to add that it just can’t be done. That is a very live issue right now. Last December, there was to be a conference in Helsinki, Finland, an international conference to carry this proposal forward. Israel announced it would not attend. Iran announced early November that it would attend the conference, with no conditions. At that point, Obama called off the conference. No Helsinki conference. The reason that the U.S. gave was, verbatim almost, the Israeli reason: We cannot have a nuclear weapons agreement until there is a general regional peace settlement. And that’s not going to happen as long as the U.S. continues to block a diplomatic settlement in Israel-Palestine, as it’s been doing for 35 years. So that’s where we stand.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam, we want to thank you so much for spending this time with us on this very important day, today, September 11th. There have been a number of September 11ths—the horror of September 11, 2001, of course, 12 years ago, and September 11, 1973, in Chile, as Noam Chomsky pointed, as we have been broadcasting about over the last few days and years. And you can go to our website for our special page on this 40th anniversary of the coup against the democratically elected President Salvador Allende.

GUEST
Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author. He is Institute Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught for more than 50 years.

Noam Chomsky: U.S. Has Been "Torturing" Iran for 60 Years, Since 1953 CIA-Led Coup | Democracy Now!

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[anonymus]

1. Noam Chomsky is an extreme leftist/marxist. Most of the things he say is a propaganda.

2. No country supply nuclear weapon technology to another country, not even to it's bosom buddies.Having a monopoly in Nuclear weapons is strategically good for any country. This is the reason why India is against Iran going nuclear even though we have nothing to lose from such prospect.

Nuclear weapons in case of a third country could set up a chain reaction which may be harmful for you own being.

+ Even in best of times, Iraq was not a buddy country for US.

3.Iran itself is not a holy cow in Iranian-American situation. You people have taken over their embassy and held their diplomatic staff hostage. They have a right to be pissed off. And you people have aggravated the situation by ranting constantly.

So both sides are at fault here.

4.US never assisted Indian nuclear program. Infact NPT came into existence solely for curtailing India's nuclear program after India conducted it's first nuclear test in 1974.

US at that point of time was so anti-India that they sent their Aircraft carrier ( eisenhower) against us.

5.Even though Israel has been partially responsible for Israel-Palestine conflict,it is intellectually dishonest to play down culpability if Arabs in this conflict.

Before 1967, Palestine did not existed and Israel borders was justly settles according to division which was carries out by UN, give and take some territory because of 1948 Israel-Arab war.West bank was part of Jordan and Gaza was part of Egypt.

1967 aggression ( Israel struck first but everyone knew that Arabs were mobilizing against Israel.Final straw was Nassar's demand for UN peacekeeper's withdrawl from Egypt-Israel border ) by Arabs was solely driven by religious motive of throwing Jews into the Ocean.

What Palestinians are demanding is return to pre 1967 situation, a just demand but only in case when they recognize Israel's right to exist which a lot of Arabs including Hamas steadfastly refuse to do.

6. This is not an interview but a rant. The fact that anchor has to cut him short after he started his tirade is a proof of that.

7. Mullahs are poison for Iran. They are severely downgrading your civilization value.

 

[Serpentine]

1. Noam Chomsky is an extreme leftist/marxist. Most of the things he say is a propaganda.

2. No country supply nuclear weapon technology to another country, not even to it's bosom buddies.Having a monopoly in Nuclear weapons is strategically good for any country. This is the reason why India is against Iran going nuclear even though we have nothing to lose from such prospect.

Nuclear weapons in case of a third country could set up a chain reaction which may be harmful for you own being.

+ Even in best of times, Iraq was not a buddy country for US.

3.Iran itself is not a holy cow in Iranian-American situation. You people have taken over their embassy and held their diplomatic staff hostage. They have a right to be pissed off. And you people have aggravated the situation by ranting constantly.

So both sides are at fault here.

4.US never assisted Indian nuclear program. Infact NPT came into existence solely for curtailing India's nuclear program after India conducted it's first nuclear test in 1974.

US at that point of time was so anti-India that they sent their Aircraft carrier ( eisenhower) against us.

5.Even though Israel has been partially responsible for Israel-Palestine conflict,it is intellectually dishonest to play down culpability if Arabs in this conflict.

Before 1967, Palestine did not existed and Israel borders was justly settles according to division which was carries out by UN, give and take some territory because of 1948 Israel-Arab war.West bank was part of Jordan and Gaza was part of Egypt.

1967 aggression ( Israel struck first but everyone knew that Arabs were mobilizing against Israel.Final straw was Nassar's demand for UN peacekeeper's withdrawl from Egypt-Israel border ) by Arabs was solely driven by religious motive of throwing Jews into the Ocean.

What Palestinians are demanding is return to pre 1967 situation, a just demand but only in case when they recognize Israel's right to exist which a lot of Arabs including Hamas steadfastly refuse to do.

6. This is not an interview but a rant. The fact that anchor has to cut him short after he started his tirade is a proof of that.

7. Mullahs are poison for Iran. They are severely downgrading your civilization value.

Only because you or U.S government don't like him, doesn't mean he is a Marxist. He is one of the greatest living scholars of the world and a genius.

Before U.S government has a right to be pissed off at us, we should be pissed off at them first. The 1979 revolution and taking the U.S embassy was an outcome of 26 years of constant interfering in Iranian affairs from 1953 to 1979, installing a puppet dictator and helping him to oppress his own people and forcing Iran to play the Police role of Middle East. Maybe taking the embassy itself was not the best choice at that time, but it was a natural reaction to years of U.S meddling in our country.


India or any other nuclear country can not dictate us about nuclear weapons, because they have illegal weapons themselves. After you got rid of your weapons, then you can come here and give us a moral speech regarding how bad and dangerous nuclear weapons are.
Our nuclear program is completely peaceful and we don't need a nuclear weapon to defend ourselves, maybe cowards make bombs to bully other countries, but we are not after it, no matter how much U.S and its allies rant about it. A nuclear country is the last one who can tell other countries if they can make a bomb or not.

If Palestine didn't exist before 1967, then Israel didn't exist either before 1948. That land has been historically called Palestine. So if we follow your logic, neither Israel nor Palestine have a right to exist since none of them existed as a country before 1948.

 

[anonymus]

Only because you or U.S government don't like him, doesn't mean he is a Marxist. He is one of the greatest living scholars of the world and a genius.

Before U.S government has a right to be pissed off at us, we should be pissed of at them first. The 1979 revolution and taking the U.S embassy was an outcome of 26 years of constant interfering in Iranian affairs from 1953 to 1979, installing a puppet dictator and helping him to oppress his own people and forcing Iran to play the Police role of Middle East. Maybe taking the embassy itself was not the best choice at that time, but it was a natural reaction to years of U.S meddling in our country.


India or any other nuclear country can not dictate us about nuclear weapons, because they have illegal weapons themselves. After you got rid of your weapons, then you can come here and give us a moral speech regarding how bad and dangerous nuclear weapons are.
Our nuclear program is completely peaceful and we don't need a nuclear weapon to defend ourselves, maybe cowards make bombs to bully other countries, but we are not after it, no matter how much U.S and its allies rant about it. A nuclear country is the last one who can tell other countries if they can make a bomb or not.

If Palestine didn't exist before 1967, then Israel didn't exist either before 1948. That land has been historically called Palestine. So if we follow your logic, neither Israel nor Palestine have a right to exist since none of them existed as a country before 1948.

1. Noam chomsky has expertise in field of linguistics and has given the nativist view on language acquisition in form of transformative generative grammar but that does not mean that he is a neutral and balanced person.

He is not much different from a two bit propagandist who launches himself into a tirade at any available opportunity.


2. India was quoted as an example.

3. India's nuclear program is perfectly ethical.We never signed NPT and let go of benefits that we would have incurred by signing it.We are not bound by it's obligation to remain non-nuclear.


There is no illegality in either India's, Pakistan's or Israeli nuclear weapons.

4. Read my post again:

I stated that Palestine has a right to exist as a country as long as they are ready to recognize right of Israel to exist as a country.

Recognition could not be a one way street where your opponent recognizes your territorial right while you wish death to your opponent population.

5.Iran is the only country which has held diplomat's hostage since the dawn of 20[SUP]th[/SUP] century.

Non aggression against diplomats is a basic diplomatic nicety without which diplomatic relations would break down and even rank retarded dictators like North Korean parasitic family respect that.

US had a genuine reason to be pissed off against you and you have no locus standee to complain.

You should blame your mullahs for not having even basic common sense.

 

[[Bregs]]

Iran has all the guts and many countries supporting it too some clandestinely to withstand the US sponsored restrictions

 

[Serpentine]

1. Noam chomsky has expertise in field of linguistics and has given the nativist view on language acquisition in form of transformative generative grammar but that does not mean that he is a neutral and balanced person.

He is not much different from a two bit propagandist who launches himself into a tirade at any available opportunity.


2. India was quoted as an example.

3. India's nuclear program is perfectly ethical.We never signed NPT and let go of benefits that we would have incurred by signing it.We are not bound by it's obligation to remain non-nuclear.


There is no illegality in either India's, Pakistan's or Israeli nuclear weapons.

4. Read my post again:

I stated that Palestine has a right to exist as a country as long as they are ready to recognize right of Israel to exist as a country.

Recognition could not be a one way street where your opponent recognizes your territorial right while you wish death to your opponent population.

5.Iran is the only country which has held diplomat's hostage since the dawn of 20[SUP]th[/SUP] century.

Non aggression against diplomats is a basic diplomatic nicety without which diplomatic relations would break down and even rank retarded dictators like North Korean parasitic family respect that.

US had a genuine reason to be pissed off against you and you have no locus standee to complain.

You should blame your mullahs for not having even basic common sense.

Noam Chomsky considers himself a 'libertarian anarchist' and his views regarding Marxism doesn't implicate that he is a hardcore Marxist/Leninist. He is a serious critic of U.S government, that's why some of the Mainstream media doesn't lose any opportunity to alienate him. Even if he was a Marxist, I would still respect him for many of his ideas. I am yet to see anything illogical or deviated from truth in his speeches, interviews. Here's one of his interviews regarding Marxism:

RBR: Specifically, Leninism refers to a form of marxism that developed with V.I. Lenin. Are you implicitly distinguishing the works of Marx from the particular criticism you have of Lenin when you use the term 'Leninism'? Do you see a continuity between Marx's views and Lenin's later practices?

CHOMSKY: Bakunin's warnings about the Red bureaucracy that would institute the worst of all despotic governments were long before Lenin, and were directed against the followers of Mr. Marx. There were, in fact, followers of many different kinds; Pannekoek, Luxembourg, Mattick and others are very far from Lenin, and their views often converge with elements of anarcho-syndicalism. Korsch and others wrote sympathetically of the anarchist revolution in Spain, in fact. There are continuities from Marx to Lenin, but there are also continuities to Marxists who were harshly critical of Lenin and Bolshevism. Teodor Shanin's work in the past years on Marx's later attitudes towards peasant revolution is also relevant here. I'm far from being a Marx scholar, and wouldn't venture any serious judgement on which of these continuities reflects the 'real Marx,' if there even can be an answer to that question.

RBR: Recently, we obtained a copy of your own Notes on Anarchism (re-published last year by Discussion Bulletin in the USA). In this you mention the views of the early Marx, in particular his development of the idea of alienation under capitalism. Do you generally agree with this division in Marx's life and work - a young, more libertarian socialist but, in later years, a firm authoritarian?

CHOMSKY: The early Marx draws extensively from the milieu in which he lived, and one finds many similarities to the thinking that animated classical liberalism, aspects of the Enlightenment and French and German Romanticism. Again, I'm not enough of a Marx scholar to pretend to an authoritative judgement. My impression, for what it is worth, is that the early Marx was very much a figure of the late Enlightenment, and the later Marx was a highly authoritarian activist, and a critical analyst of capitalism, who had little to say about socialist alternatives. But those are impressions.

RBR: From my understanding, the core part of your overall view is informed by your concept of human nature. In the past the idea of human nature was seen, perhaps, as something regressive, even limiting. For instance, the unchanging aspect of human nature is often used as an argument for why things can't be changed fundamentally in the direction of anarchism. You take a different view? Why?

CHOMSKY: The core part of anyone's point of view is some concept of human nature, however it may be remote from awareness or lack articulation. At least, that is true of people who consider themselves moral agents, not monsters. Monsters aside, whether a person who advocates reform or revolution, or stability or return to earlier stages, or simply cultivating one's own garden, takes stand on the grounds that it is 'good for people.' But that judgement is based on some conception of human nature, which a reasonable person will try to make as clear as possible, if only so that it can be evaluated. So in this respect I'm no different from anyone else.

-------------------------

Which one is worse? Holding diplomats as hostages and setting all of them free after 1.5 year or burning 290 civilians alive by shooting an airliner in the sky? Or closing your eyes and supporting a lunatic madman like Saddam Hussein to use chemical weapons against civilians and soldiers? Or overthrowing a democratically elected government and putting in power an oppressive dictator for 26 years? Imposing illegal unilateral sanctions against your country for that old ridiculous excuse of nuclear weapons, without having one single evidence? Constant threatening for use of force against a sovereign nation? Spare us of these moral speeches please. If we have done 10 mistakes, they have done 100 mistakes towards us.

Let's assume India's nuclear weapons are legal, that still doesn't give you a right to tell us what we can do about our nuclear program.It's like holding a gun in your hand and telling others to put down their guns. It's ridiculous. Countries who posses nuclear weapons should be the last countries who talk about this issue.

 

[anonymus]

Which one is worse? Holding diplomats as hostages and setting all of them free after 1.5 year or burning 290 civilians alive by shooting an airliner in the sky? Or closing your eyes and supporting a lunatic madman like Saddam Hussein to use chemical weapons against civilians and soldiers? Or overthrowing a democratically elected government and putting in power an oppressive dictator for 26 years? Imposing illegal unilateral sanctions against your country for that old ridiculous excuse of nuclear weapons, without having one single evidence? Constant threatening for use of force against a sovereign nation? Spare us of these moral speeches please. If we have done 10 mistakes, they have done 100 mistakes towards us.

Let's assume India's nuclear weapons are legal, that still doesn't give you a right to tell us what we can do about our nuclear program.It's like holding a gun in your hand and telling others to put down their guns. It's ridiculous. Countries who posses nuclear weapons should be the last countries who talk about this issue.

1. My point was not about competitive morality.

It was a answer to question as to whether US was justified in it's tantrums or not.

It is basically that since you people have aggressed upon USA, US is justified in Aggressing upon your country. They have not acted like a madman and struck your country out of blue.

2. As i have stated earlier, i gave India as an example.

No nuclear country wants another country to go nuclear. It is how politics work. Iran going nuclear would confound situaton for us as we run a risk of catching some nukes as part of chain reaction if you people ever go to nuclear war with some other country.

 

[Serpentine]

1. My point was not about competitive morality.

It was a answer to question as to whether US was justified in it's tantrums or not.

It is basically that since you people have aggressed upon USA, US is justified in Aggressing upon your country. They have not acted like a madman and struck your country out of blue.

2. As i have stated earlier, i gave India as an example.

No nuclear country wants another country to go nuclear. It is how politics work. Iran going nuclear would confound situaton for us as we run a risk of catching some nukes as part of chain reaction if you people ever go to nuclear war with some other country.

Since it seems our argument will probably go nowhere, I just want to fix something in your post:

It was U.S who first aggressed against us and we answered by aggressing against them. THEY started first. So we are justified to do it. I would like better relations for my country and U.S any day, but still history can not be changed.facts are facts.

 

[SarthakGanguly]

Yes. And Noam Chomsky has been 'Torturing' the USA since his birth.

In this web-only exclusive, MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky talks about the past 60 years of U.S.-Iranian relations since the 1953 coup organized by the CIA. "The crucial fact about Iran, which we should begin with, is that for the past 60 years not a day has passed in which the U.S. has not been torturing Iranians," Chomsky says. "It began with a military coup which overthrew the parliamentary regime in 1953."

See the full interview with Chomsky today:

Chomsky: Instead of 'Illegal' Threat to Syria, U.S. Should Back Chemical Weapons Ban in All Nations

Chomsky on 9/11, Syria’s 'Bloody Partition' and Why U.S. Role Ensures Failure of Mideast Talks

AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Our guest is Noam Chomsky. Noam, if you could talk about Iran now and what the conflict in Syria means for Iran and what the U.S. could do to, overall, change the dynamics of the Middle East?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, what’s the crucial fact about Iran, which we should begin with, is that for the past 60 years, not a day has passed in which the U.S. has not been torturing Iranians. That’s 60 years, right now. Began with a military coup, which overthrew the parliamentary regime in 1953, installed the Shah, a brutal dictator. Amnesty International described him as one of the worst, most extreme torturers in the world, year after year. When he was overthrown in 1979, the U.S. almost immediately turned to supporting Saddam Hussein in an assault against Iran, which killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians, used extensive use of chemical weapons. Of course, at the same time, Saddam attacked his Kurdish population with horrible chemical weapons attacks. The U.S. supported all of that. The Reagan administration even tried to—succeeded in preventing a censure of Iraq. The United States essentially won the war against Iran by its support for Iraq. It immediately—Saddam Hussein was a favorite of the Reagan and first Bush administration, to such an extent that George H.W. Bush, the first Bush, right after the war, 1989, invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the United States for advanced training in nuclear weapons production. That’s the country that had devastated Iran, horrifying attack and war. Right after that, Iran was subjected to harsh sanctions. And it continues right until the moment. So we now have a 60-year record of torturing Iranians. We don’t pay attention to it, but you can be sure that they do, with good reason. That’s point number one.

Why the assault against Iran? We’re back to the Mafia principle. In 1979, Iranians carried out an illegitimate act: They overthrew a tyrant that the United States had imposed and supported, and moved on an independent path, not following U.S. orders. That conflicts with the Mafia doctrine, by which the world is pretty much ruled. Credibility must be maintained. The godfather cannot permit independence and successful defiances, in the case of Cuba. So, Iran has to be punished for that.

The current pretext is that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Well, as The New York Times reports that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, U.S. intelligence, on the other hand, doesn’t know. They say maybe they are. If—and according to U.S. intelligence, its regular reports to Congress, if Iran is developing nuclear weapons, it would be part of their deterrence strategy—that is, part of their strategy to defend themselves from external attack. As U.S. intelligence points out, Iran has very little ability to deploy force. It’s low military expenditures even by regional standards, but it does have a deterrence strategy—and with good reason. It’s surrounded by nuclear powers, which are backed by the United States and have refused to sign the Nonproliferation Treaty, the three of them. Israel, India and Pakistan all developed nuclear weapons with U.S. assistance. India and Israel continue to maintain—have a substantial U.S. support for their nuclear weapons programs and other programs, such as the occupation of part of Syria in violation of Security Council orders. And Iran is constantly threatened. The United States and Israel, two major nuclear powers—I mean, one a superpower, the other a regional superpower—are constantly threatening Iran with attack, threatening Iran with attack every day. Again, that’s a violation of the U.N. Charter, which bans the threat or use of force, but the U.S. is self-immunized from international law, and its clients inherit that right. So Iran is under constant threat. It’s surrounded by hostile nuclear states. It—and maybe is developing a deterrent capacity. We don’t know. New York Times knows, but intelligence doesn’t. That’s the pretext.

Is there anything you can do? And we might ask ourselves who—the United States regards Iran as what’s called "the gravest threat to world peace." That was the press report after the presidential debate, the final presidential debate on foreign policy, and pretty accurately describing the consensus, the agreement between Obama and Romney on the threats in the Middle East: Iran’s is the greatest threat to world peace, greatest threat in the region, because of its nuclear programs. That’s the U.S. position. What is the position of the world? Well, it’s easy to find out. Most of the countries of the world belong to the Non-Aligned Movement, which had in fact just had its regular meeting in Tehran, in Iran. And once again, it vigorously supported—vigorously supported—Iran’s right to enrich uranium as a signer of the Nonproliferation Treaty, unlike Israel and India. That’s the Non-Aligned Movement.

Now, what about the Arab world? Well, in the Arab world, Iran is disliked, very severely disliked. Tensions go back many centuries. But it’s not regarded as a threat. They don’t like it, but they don’t regard it as a threat. A very small percentage in the Arab world regard Iran as a threat, let alone the gravest threat to world peace. In the Arab world, they do recognize threats, serious threats: the United States and Israel. That’s shown by poll after poll, polls taken by the leading Western polling agencies. Here, the reporting is that the Arabs support the United States on Iran. But the reference is not to the Arab populations, which are considered irrelevant, but to the dictators. One of the most extreme dictatorships, and the most important one from the U.S. point of view, is Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the most extreme fundamentalist state in the world. It’s also a missionary state. It’s expending huge efforts—has been for many years—to disseminate its extremist Wahhabi-Salafi version of Islam, all with U.S. backing. It’s a dictatorship, no Arab Spring there. And the dictators, there and in other Arab emirates, probably do support U.S. policy on Iran. And for the U.S. and U.S. media and U.S. commentary, it’s enough for the dictators to support us. It doesn’t matter what the population thinks. Well, that’s the Arab world. And the same is true in the rest of the world. The obsession with Iran is a U.S. obsession, maybe draws in some of its allies.

Final question about Iran is: What can you do about the alleged threat? Well, there are things that can be done. So, for example, in 2010, there was a solution reached to the problem of Iranian nuclear programs. There was an agreement between Iran, Turkey and Brazil for Iran to ship its—all of its uranium resources to another country, to Turkey, for storage. It wouldn’t develop—enrich uranium further. And in return, the West would provide Iran with the isotopes it needs for its nuclear—for its medical reactors. OK, that was the deal. As soon as that deal was announced, it was bitterly condemned by President Obama, by the press, by Congress—harsh condemnations of Brazil, particularly, and Turkey for agreeing to this. And Obama quickly rushed through harsher sanctions. The Brazilian foreign minister was rather irritated by this, and he released to the press a letter from President Obama in which Obama had suggested exactly this program to Brazil. He obviously had suggested it on the assumption that Iran would never accept it, and then there would be another propaganda point. Well, Iran did accept it, so therefore Brazil had to be and Turkey had to be partially condemned, and threatened, in fact, for implementing the policy that Obama had suggested. That could be reinstituted, maybe—maybe some modification of that. That would be one way to approach it.

There’s a much broader way. For years, since 1974—

AMY GOODMAN: Noam, we have two minutes.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah. There has been a proposal since 1974 to establish a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region. That would be the best way to mitigate, maybe end, whatever threat Iran is alleged to pose. And that has enormous international support, such enormous support that the U.S. has been compelled to formally agree, but to add that it just can’t be done. That is a very live issue right now. Last December, there was to be a conference in Helsinki, Finland, an international conference to carry this proposal forward. Israel announced it would not attend. Iran announced early November that it would attend the conference, with no conditions. At that point, Obama called off the conference. No Helsinki conference. The reason that the U.S. gave was, verbatim almost, the Israeli reason: We cannot have a nuclear weapons agreement until there is a general regional peace settlement. And that’s not going to happen as long as the U.S. continues to block a diplomatic settlement in Israel-Palestine, as it’s been doing for 35 years. So that’s where we stand.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam, we want to thank you so much for spending this time with us on this very important day, today, September 11th. There have been a number of September 11ths—the horror of September 11, 2001, of course, 12 years ago, and September 11, 1973, in Chile, as Noam Chomsky pointed, as we have been broadcasting about over the last few days and years. And you can go to our website for our special page on this 40th anniversary of the coup against the democratically elected President Salvador Allende.

GUEST
Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author. He is Institute Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught for more than 50 years.

Noam Chomsky: U.S. Has Been "Torturing" Iran for 60 Years, Since 1953 CIA-Led Coup | Democracy Now!

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5.Iran is the only country which has held diplomat's hostage since the dawn of 20[SUP]th[/SUP] century.

Non aggression against diplomats is a basic diplomatic nicety without which diplomatic relations would break down and even rank retarded dictators like North Korean parasitic family respect that.

List of attacks on diplomatic missions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

sorry if the list has not covered all attacks since the dawn of 20[SUP]th[/SUP] century.