Foreign Policy as Mob Hit?

Foreign Policy as Mob Hit?



Noam Chomsky tops himself with this wonderful analogy:

International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn't pay his protection money. You have to have obedience otherwise the idea can spread that you don't have to listen to the orders and it can spread to important places.

If you look back at the record, what was the main reason for the U.S. attack on Vietnam? Independent development can be a virus that can infect others. That's the way it's been put, Kissinger in this case, referring to Allende in Chile. And with Cuba it's explicit... internal documents charged Cuba with successful defiance of U.S. policies going back 150 years -- to the Monroe Doctrine -- and that can't be tolerated. So there's kind of a state commitment to ensuring obedience.

Going back to Iran, it's not only that it has substantial resources and that it's part of the world's major energy system but it also defied the United States. The United States, as we know, overthrew the parliamentary government, installed a brutal tyrant, was helping him develop nuclear power, in fact the very same programs that are now considered a threat were being sponsored by the U.S. government, by Cheney, Wolfowitz, Kissinger, and others, in the 1970s, as long as the Shah was in power. But then the Iranians overthrew him, and they kept U.S. hostages for several hundred days. And the United States immediately turned to supporting Saddam Hussein and his war against Iran as a way of punishing Iran. The United States is going to continue to punish Iran because of its defiance.

And bcause a certain foreign country and its domestic lobby wants it:

"An American Strike on Iran is Essential for Our Existence"

The American Israel Political Affairs Committee is the main political force urging---indeed, demanding---U.S. action on Iran. That's the AIPAC already under scrutiny for receiving classified information about Iran.

Meanwhile, in the land some call Palestine:

While principally 75% of Palestinians do not think that Israel has the right to exist, 70% support a one-state solution in historic Palestine where Muslims, Christians and Jews live together with equal rights and responsibilities.