All superpowers feel exceptional, inflate security myth for ‘frightened population’ — RT Op-Edge
The United States is not the first superpower to act as if it’s exceptional and will likely not be the last, although US leaders could be squandering a fruitful opportunity for improved international relations, Noam Chomsky said in an interview with RT.
RT: I’d like to begin with Iran. The new president, Rouhani, has appeared to be much softer than his predecessor. On his recent trip to the US it was hailed as progress and the first time two presidents spoke in over 30 years. Do you see US policy towards Iran changing?
Noam Chomsky: The real issue is what will happen in the United States. The way the issue is presented in the United States, and most of the West, the problem is Iran’s intransigence and its rejection of the demands of the international community. There is plenty to criticize in Iran but the real issue is quite different. It’s the refusal of the West, primarily of the United States, to enter into serious diplomacy with Iran. And as far as Iran violating the will of the international community, that depends on a very special definition of international community which is standard in the West where the term means the United States and anybody who goes along with it. So if the international community includes the world then the story is quite different. For example the non-aligned countries, which is most of the world’s population, have vigorously supported Iran’s right to enrich uranium – still do.
The nearby region, in the Arab world, Arab’s don’t like Iran it’s quite unpopular there are hostilities that go back very far. But they do not regard Iran as a threat, a very small percentage regard Iran as a threat. The threats they perceive are the United States and Israel, so they are not part of the world as far as “international community” is concerned but it’s a western obsession. Are there ways to deal with it, whatever one takes a threat to be? Sure, there are ways.
So for example in 2010 there was a very positive advance that could have mitigated whatever the threat is supposed to be. Turkey and Brazil reached a deal with Iran in which Iran would ship out its low-enriched uranium in exchange for storage in Turkey, and in return the west would provide isotopes for Iran’s medical reactors. As soon as that was announced Brazil and Turkey were bitterly condemned by Washington and by the media, which more or less reflexively follow what Washington says. The Brazilian government was pretty upset by this, so much so that the Brazilian Foreign Minister released a letter from President Obama to the president of Brazil in which Obama had proposed this assuming that Iran would turn it down. When Iran accepted, of course he had to denounce it and Obama went right to the Security Council to try to get harsher sanctions. Well that’s one case. More
