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Turkey and the US War on Iraq

An Interview

by Noam Chomsky

April 03, 2003

1.Turkey is being bitterly criticized in the US for failing to allow us combat

troops to use Turkey as a launching pad to open a second front in northern Iraq.

There are indeed some who say US and British soldiers are dying in higher

numbers because of Turkey. How would you respond to such claims and how would

you evaluate Turkey's stand so far. Was it an accidental no in the parliament or

did it reflect a coming of age of Turkish democracy.

The criticism of Turkey in the US is indeed bitter, and extremely revealing. The

Turkish government took the position of over 90 percent of the population. That

reveals that the government lacks "democratic credentials," according to former

Ambassador Morris Abramowitz, now a distinguished elder statesman. The

government is "following the people," he wrote, instead of following orders from

Washington and Crawford Texas. That is plainly unacceptable. The view he

articulates is standard.

Turkey taught the US a lesson in democracy. That is regarded as criminal. One

can debate the reasons and the background, but the facts are glaringly obvious,

underscored even more dramatically by the reaction in the US to similar crimes

elsewhere. Germany and France are bitterly condemned for the same reason, while

Italy, Spain, Hungary and others are praised as the "New Europe," because their

leaders agreed to follow US orders in opposition to the vast majority of the

population, almost as much as in Turkey.

I do not recall ever having seen such demonstration of intense hatred for

democracy on the part of elite opinion in the US (and to some extent Britain).

2. You have long argued that it was the basic decency of the American people and

not body bags that helped end the war in Vietnam. What will it take to end this

war ? What is driving continued support for President Bush ?

Public mood is in the US is complicated. It's important to bear in mind that

last September a huge government-media propaganda campaign was put into

operation, which left the US population on another planet as far as Iraq is

concerned. Iraq's neighbors, and most of the rest of the world, rightly despise

Saddam Hussein. But they do not fear him. In the US, and the US alone, the

majority of the population -- since September 2002 -- regards Iraq as an

imminent threat to US security. That was basically the wording of the October

2002 congressional resolution authorizing the US of force. After the September

11 attacks, virtually no one regarded Iraq as responsible. By December 2002 the

figure had risen to almost half the population. By now it seems that a

considerable majority not only attribute the terrorist attacks to Iraq andbelieve that Iraqis were on the planes that destroyed the World Trade Center,

but also believe that Saddam Hussein will soon carry out more such attacks

unless he is stopped now. Evidence for all of this is zero, and the claims have

been refuted by intelligence agencies and the leading specialists on the topic.

It is a truly spectacular achievement of propaganda -- an achievement,

incidentally, which is second nature to those running Washington today. They are

mostly recycled from the Reagan-Bush administrations of the 1980s. They were

able to retain political power even though the public was strongly opposed to

their policies, which were quite harmful to the majority. They did so by

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regularly pushing the panic button, with claims even more absurd than their

current ones: Nicaragua is a threat to US security, the Russians will bomb from

an air base in Grenada, etc.

Take away the fear factor, and the US is probably much like the rest of the

world with regard to the war in Iraq: overwhelming opposition.

In the case of Vietnam, it took years before the public turned against the war -

- on principled grounds, unlike educated elites and the business world, who

finally came to oppose the war too but on "pragmatic grounds": it was becoming

too costly to the US. The situation is far better now, because of the civilizing

effect of the popular movements of the past 40 years. But it remains difficult.

3. Is this war truly the turning point in the way international relations are

conducted ? Are the Bushies really trying to reshape the world and what impact

will its outcome, whatever you predict it to be, have on Israell and the

Palestinian question.

They have proclaimed very explicitly, in the National Security Strategy of

September 2002, that they intend to control the world by force and to preventany potential challenge to their domination. It is reasonable to assume that

part of the motivation for the attack on Iraq is to establish the principle of

"preventive war," enunciated in the Security Strategy, as a norm that can be

followed elsewhere. The plans have aroused enormous fear and opposition

worldwide, and among the foreign policy elite at home. True, some approve it.

Among them are the ultra-right and large sectors of Christian fundamentalist

movements in the US, and others as well. Osama bin Laden, if he is still alive,

must be delighted: the outcome surpasses his wildest dreams. Within a year, Bush

and his associates have succeeded in becoming the most feared and hated

political leadership in the world, as international opinion studies reveal very

clearly. If they are allowed to persist in their plans, the future looks

ominous.

For the Palestinians, the results are an unmitigated disaster. Bush and Powell

speak of their "vision," but are careful never to describe what it is. That we

can ascertain from their actions in support of their most favored client, the

official "man of peace," Ariel Sharon. Bush and Powell are now even on record as

stating that Israel can continue to expand settlements in the occupied

territories until some unspecified future when the US government will decide

that the Palestinians are making "progress."

Two-thirds of the US population support the long-standing international

consensus in favor of a two-state settlement on the internationally-recognized

(pre-June 1967) borders, with minor and mutual adjustments. The US government

has barred that outcome for 25 years, and still does. The facts, though

uncontroversial, are scarcely known in the US. The Bush administration has gone

even beyond its predecessors in this regard. Apart from vague talk about"visions" and "dreams," there is nothing to indicate that these commitments have

changed, unfortunately. Again, there is a lot of work to do.