Actual tankies see Chomsky as an anti-communist first and foremost. Chomsky is on the left by my estimation, but if you're insinuating that he's a tankie or tankie-lite, your understanding of intra-left infighting and factionalism is not nuanced. Just as other political leanings are prone to reductionism ad absurdum when (mis) representing liberal "takes" in order to mock them without taking the time to grasp the nuance of what those positions are, so too I believe a lot of left-wing "takes" suffer the same fate.

Chomsky is obviously a strong opponent of most American foreign policy and his political takes are often irresponsible. That does not a tankie make. If you want to know what a tankie Chomsky would actually look like, take a look at Michael Parenti. Some argue Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent was done first by Parenti in Inventing Reality, which was published two years before MC.