Who Rules the World? (American Empire Project)

by Noam Chomsky

Opposition within the political class is so strong that public opinion has shifted quickly from significant support for the deal to an even split.2 Republicans are almost unanimously opposed to the agreement. The current Republican primaries illustrate the proclaimed reasons. Senator Ted Cruz, considered one of the intellectuals among the crowded field of presidential candidates, warns that Iran may still be able to produce nuclear weapons and could someday use one to set off an electromagnetic pulse that “would take down the electrical grid of the entire eastern seaboard” of the United States, killing “tens of millions of Americans.”3 Two other candidates, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, battled over whether to bomb Iran immediately after being elected or after the first Cabinet meeting.4 The one candidate with some foreign policy experience, Lindsey Graham, describes the deal as “a death sentence for the state of Israel,” which will certainly come as a surprise to Israeli intelligence and strategic analysts—and which Graham knows to be utter nonsense, raising immediate questions about his actual motives for saying so.5