Chomsky blames US for Iran crisis

Iran would be "crazy" if it did not develop nuclear weapons, the controversial US academic Noam Chomsky told an audience in Dublin last night.

While he said "no sane person wants Iran to have nuclear weapons", the country would be mad not to develop them, given the manner in which it had been threatened by the United States and Israel, two nuclear powers - the latter of which Chomsky described as an "off-shoot" of America.

More than 1,000 people crammed into O'Reilly Hall on the UCD campus for last night's lecture. It was the first in a series of speaking engagements by the anti-war lobbyist during a visit to Ireland this week.

The 77-year-old, who took to the podium in his trademark spectacles and pullover, covered political territory ranging from Palestine to Latin America. Only once in the two-hour session did he stumble over the subject matter, temporarily mixing up the presidents of Egypt and Pakistan.

The linguistics professor opened the event by thanking the Department of Foreign Affairs for allowing him into the country despite having an out-of-date passport, as revealed by The Irish Times on Tuesday.

From there on in, however, there were few words of praise for any government, with Chomsky's ire turning in particular against the British and American administrations which had proved to be "among the most brazen liars in history".

He had little good to say about the media either, other than Al Jazeera, the "most important independent media" in Iraq.

The expulsion of the Arabic satellite network from the war-torn country had proven that "no media can be tolerated that are not under US control".

On the Iranian question, Chomsky said if the US was serious about stopping the spread of nuclear weapons it should "stop compelling" Iran to have them.

The US should also start taking the nuclear non-proliferation treaty seriously, he added, claiming that the Bush administration was currently the chief abuser of that pact.

There were no protests at the venue, and few signs of dissent from the audience.

A significant portion of the attendance gave Chomsky a standing ovation at the end of his address.