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>> Professor Noam Chomsky: The United States
and its Western allies are assured to do whatever they can
to prevent authentic democracy in the Arab world,
and the very simple reasons for that, to understand why,
it's only necessary to look at the studies of Arab opinion,
which are conducted by the most prestigious U.S. polling
agencies, released by major institutions
like the Booking Institution.
They reveal that by overwhelming majorities,
Arabs regard the U.S. and Israel as the major threats they face.
The United, in Egypt, the United States is regarded
as the major threat by 90 percent of Egyptians,
and the region generally not much less than that.
Some regard Iran as a threat, ten percent.
Opposition to U.S. policy is so strong that a majority believe
that the region would be, that security would be improved
for the region if Iran had nuclear weapons.
In Egypt, that's 80 percent.
Other figures are similar.
If public opinion were to influence policy,
the United States would not only not control the region,
but it would be expelled from it.
Britain as well along with its allies.
Now that would undermine fundamental principles
of global domination that have been operative
in their current form since the Second World War,
and as far as Britain's concerned,
back long before then.
In general, support for democracy is the province
of ideologists and propagandas.
In the real world as the more serious scholarship has
conceded, the U.S. and its allies support democracy if
and only if it corresponds to strategic
and economic objectives.
Actually, Stalin would have said the same thing.
Elite contempt for democracy was revealed very dramatically
in the reaction to the recent Wiki leaks exposures.
The ones that received the most attention
with euphoric commentary were the cables that reported
that Arabs support the U.S. stand on Iran.
Really important.
Now the reference was reflectively
to the ruling dictators.
Now the attitudes of the public were unmentioned.
The guiding principle behind this apart
from the obvious contempt for democracy on the part
of the general intellectual community,
the guiding principle was articulated quite clearly
by a Carnegie endowment Middle East specialist, Marwan Muasher.
He's formerly a high official of the Jordanian dictatorship.
The principle is there's nothing wrong.
Everything is under control.
In short, as long as the dictators support us,
what else could matter.
The Muasher doctrine is rationale and venerable.
To mention just one case that's highly relevant today,
and my opinion ought to be in the front pages, in 1958,
President Eisenhower expressed an internal discussion
since declassified, he expressed a concern
about what he called the campaign of hatred
against us in the Arab world.
Not by governments but by the people.
The National Security Council explained
at the same time the reasons for it.
It's the highest planning body.
Well, they said there's a perception in the Arab world
that the United States supports dictatorships
and blocks democracy and development, and that we do
that so as to ensure control
over the resources of the region.
And, furthermore, they went on to say
that the perception is basically accurate,
and that that's exactly what we should be doing.
The relying on the Muasher doctrine.
As long as people are quiet, everything's under control.
It's fine.
The, after 9/11, there were internal government studies,
U.S. government studies which confirmed that the same is true.
They responded to George W. Bush's plaintive plea
that they hate our freedoms.
They concluded that no, they don't hate our freedoms.
No, they hate our policies and with good reason.
Same reason they did in the 1950's.
Actually, 1958 was a particularly interesting moment
because that was just two years
after Eisenhower had expelled Britain, France,
and Israel from Egyptian territory, and not incidentally
because he disapproved of the invasion.
He thought that was OK, but the timing was bad.
It interfered with a U.S. planned coup in Syria,
and he didn't like the disobedience.
That Britain, France, and Israel were supposed
to understand who's boss, and not to carry out operations
like this without informing the master.
So they were summarily expelled, and you might have guessed
that Arabic public opinion would be favourable to the U.S.
after this, but they perceive things a little more deeply
than Western ideologists.
So, yes, there was a campaign of hatred for the reasons
that the NSC, National Security Council articulated.
The current polls, which I mentioned,
indicate that how little anything has changed
in this regard.
Not at all, in fact.
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