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(抱歉：不会转贴mp.4视频. 不知万维诸位大侠对这位教授的看法有什么见解？）
（视频原址：http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2013/9/11/noam_chomsky_us_has_been_torturing_iran_for_60_years_since_1953_coup）
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
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.
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