{"id":65407,"date":"2002-12-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2002-12-31T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2002\/12\/31\/sur-la-defensive\/"},"modified":"2002-12-31T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2002-12-31T00:00:00","slug":"sur-la-defensive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2002\/12\/31\/sur-la-defensive\/","title":{"rendered":"Sur la d\u00e9fensive<\/em><\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sur la d\u00e9fensive<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t31 d\u00e9cembre 2002 Nous passons dans une nouvelle phase de la pr\u00e9sentation dialectique (virtualiste serait mieux) de la politique ext\u00e9rieure des \u00c9tats-Unis. A l’explication muscl\u00e9e du printemps dernier d’un imp\u00e9rialisme h\u00e9g\u00e9monique qui entend mener le monde en le dominant (Kagan et compagnie) succ\u00e8de (ou revient) l’imp\u00e9rialisme contraint, l’imp\u00e9rialisme-malgr\u00e9-nous, ou dit encore, en un titre qui m\u00e9riterait d’\u00eatre inoubliable (titre initial de l’article, dans le Washington Post<\/em>) : \u00ab Accidental imperialist<\/em> \u00bb. C’est le c\u00f4t\u00e9 geignard et r\u00e9ticent de l’habillage virtualiste de la politique ext\u00e9rieure des \u00c9tats-Unis, par la machine virtualiste de l’am\u00e9ricanisme.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tApr\u00e8s tout…, nous dit Jackson Diehl, dans le Post et le IHT du 31 d\u00e9cembre<\/a>, apr\u00e8s tout, l’Am\u00e9rique n’avait rien voulu de tout cela. L’argumentation suit, serr\u00e9e et, bien entendu, artistiquement tronqu\u00e9e pour ne pas g\u00e2cher la perspective. Selon Diehl, il y avait une situation des ann\u00e9es 1990, o\u00f9 l’Am\u00e9rique n’intervenait gu\u00e8re, vivait heureuse et quasi-modestement, jouant \u00e0 la Bourse et suivant les frasques de Clinton ; et il y a une Am\u00e9rique d’aujourd’hui, agress\u00e9e par le monde ext\u00e9rieur, forc\u00e9e par lui \u00e0 jouer un r\u00f4le h\u00e9g\u00e9monique auquel elle n’a jamais vraiment pr\u00e9tendu, mais elle se sacrifiera puisque seule elle a la puissance de la faire, seule elle a la vertu de le faire. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBien s\u00fbr, il y a des aspects involontairement plaisants dans cet argumentaire, qu’on destine pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment aux m\u00e9moires courtes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t• Il y a donc la politique des ann\u00e9es 1990, quand l’Am\u00e9rique ne songeait aucunement \u00e0 jouer ce r\u00f4le auquel les circonstances et les sombres desseins de l’ext\u00e9rieur la contraignent aujourd’hui :<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t\u00ab This was a policy for the 1990s, when the minority of Americans who cared about international affairs debated the indiscernible shape of the \u00a0\u00bbpost-Cold War era,\u00a0\u00bb when a booming United States felt free to nurse along, or simply neglect, threats from the likes of Iraq. There was the luxury to debate whether it was worthwhile to intervene to stop a war of aggression, even if it were in Europe, or one of history’s worst episodes of genocide, if it happened in Africa.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tOn est admiratif de la souplesse presque chatoyante du souvenir. Cette Am\u00e9rique des ann\u00e9es 1990, peu int\u00e9ress\u00e9e par l’ext\u00e9rieur, d\u00e9battant joyeusement d’interventions ext\u00e9rieures qu’elle ne fait pas, c’est tout de m\u00eame celle qui lance la globalisation en 1991-92, celle qui se d\u00e9signe comme \u00ab the indispensable nation<\/em> \u00bb (Albright) ; qui intervient au Panama (1989), dans le Golfe (1990-91), en Somalie (1992), en Ha\u00efti (1993) ; qui confisque en 1993-94 le processus de paix du Moyen-Orient lanc\u00e9 par l’obscure petite Norv\u00e8ge, pour satisfaire le go\u00fbt des c\u00e9r\u00e9monies de Clinton ; qui intervient en Bosnie en ao\u00fbt 1995 et force tous les protagonistes \u00e0 se r\u00e9unir \u00e0 Dayton, qui les enferme dans une base de l’USAF sous la direction de Holbrooke jusqu’\u00e0 la signature d’un trait\u00e9 ; qui force le reste de l’OTAN \u00e0 accepter un \u00e9largissement de l’Alliance pour satisfaire son \u00e9lectorat polonais, comme GW veut sa guerre en Irak pour verrouiller sa r\u00e9\u00e9lection ; qui impose Kofi Annan comme secr\u00e9taire g\u00e9n\u00e9ral de l’ONU parce que ni Albright ni le s\u00e9nateur Helms ne supportent Boutros Ghali qui est candidat pour un deuxi\u00e8me mandat, soutenu par la majorit\u00e9 du Conseil ; qui intervient brusquement au milieu de n\u00e9gociations avec la Yougoslavie en f\u00e9vrier 1999 (Albright), impose des clauses inacceptables aux Serbes et conduit l’affaire jusqu’\u00e0 l’intervention de l’OTAN au Kosovo.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t• La pr\u00e9sentation du brave GW en isolationniste frileux et provincial, \u00e9cras\u00e9 par sa charge, timide, maladroit, qu’on voit presque se cognant dans les meubles de la Maison-Blanche avant le 11 septembre, a aussi de quoi laisser penser : \u00ab [A]n initially cautious, uncertain and quasi-isolationist president reacting to the crystallization of a new global era<\/em> […] Bush’s foreign policy mostly consisted of trying to retreat from international treaties and foreign military deployments. His signature initiative was missile defense, which implied a strategy of ignoring rogue states until their missiles reached the territory of the United States.<\/em> \u00bb On rappellera tout de m\u00eame que cette retraite des trait\u00e9s internationaux a \u00e9t\u00e9 ordonn\u00e9e pour permettre aux USA d’agir comme ils l’entendent, notamment pour d\u00e9velopper des syst\u00e8mes d’armes prohib\u00e9s (accord ABM et d’autres ensuite) ; on rappellera que ces retraits (Kyoto) ont pour but de permettre \u00e0 l’\u00e9conomie am\u00e9ricaine, et notamment au corporate system<\/em> (avec l’industrie p\u00e9troli\u00e8re en pointe), de mieux investir les march\u00e9s ext\u00e9rieurs ; on rappellera que la mission des architectes du syst\u00e8mes anti-missiles a \u00e9t\u00e9 tr\u00e8s vite, d’annoncer son \u00e9largissement au monde occidental (type-OTAN) dans son ensemble, et d’aller tenter d’enr\u00f4ler le plus possible d’alli\u00e9s dans l’aventure ; on rappellera qu’avec l’enr\u00f4lement de 5 pays europ\u00e9ens dans le programme d’avion de combat JSF, l’industrie US et le Pentagone sont en position, s’ils arrivent \u00e0 d\u00e9velopper ce programme, de liquider l’industrie strat\u00e9gique d’armement de l’Europe. On ne se lassera pas de rappeller…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t• M\u00eame les r\u00e9f\u00e9rences historiques valent le d\u00e9tour : comparer l’actuelle obligation pour les USA d’intervenir dans le reste du monde \u00e0 celle de 1941, \u00ab like it was America standing between Nazi Germany and a takeover of all of Europe<\/em> \u00bb, c’est montrer un sens excessif de la libert\u00e9 par rapport aux r\u00e9f\u00e9rences de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9, ou bien leur ignorance c’est selon. L’Am\u00e9rique est intervenue dans la Deuxi\u00e8me guerre mondiale, forc\u00e9e par une attaque japonaise, 2 ans et demi apr\u00e8s le d\u00e9but de la guerre, 28 mois apr\u00e8s la chute de la Pologne, 16 mois apr\u00e8s la chute de la France, 6 mois apr\u00e8s l’attaque de l’URSS, alors que toute l’Europe sauf le Royaume-Uni et la Suisse \u00e9tait entre les mains de Hitler. Son entr\u00e9e effective dans la guerre, comme nation dirigeant les op\u00e9rations militaires, date du 6 juin 1944 (premi\u00e8re occasion o\u00f9 les USA d\u00e9tiennent un poste de commandement interalli\u00e9 de th\u00e9\u00e2tre) ; depuis les batailles d’El Alamein (1942), Koursk et Stalingrad (1943), la machine de guerre allemande \u00e9tait stopp\u00e9e et irr\u00e9m\u00e9diablement affaiblie face aux Britanniques et aux Sovi\u00e9tiques, c’est-\u00e0-dire que l’Allemagne avait perdu la guerre. Les opposants \u00e0 Hitler aurait sans doute r\u00e9ussi \u00e0 le renverser et ils auraient demand\u00e9 l’armistice aux alli\u00e9s courant 1943 si Roosevelt n’avait pas impos\u00e9 la condition de capitulation sans condition en janvier 1943.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t• Dans le d\u00e9sordre, on mentionnera la confusion des arguments, dont certains doivent causer une certaine peine \u00e0 ceux qui gardent du respect pour les vertus du journalisme professionnel. Nous annoncer que ces deux dictateurs (Saddam et le Nord-Cor\u00e9en) sont \u00ab capable of defending themselves with weapons of mass destruction, who could have been managed or left to stew on back burners<\/em> \u00bb n’a rien de s\u00e9rieux ; non plus que de citer, parmi les nouveaux armements de Saddam ces banalit\u00e9s approximatives d\u00e9j\u00e0 entendues dans les discours officiels (\u00ab drone aircraft and longer-range missiles<\/em> \u00bb), comme si Saddam avait des UAV Predator<\/em> arm\u00e9s de missiles Hellfire<\/em> ou des ICBM Minuteman<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t• Conclusion : c’\u00e9tait \u00e9crit, conclusion aujourd’hui fort en vogue, o\u00f9 l’on nous dit que la guerre est in\u00e9vitable \u00e0 cause de la mobilisation, comme en 1914, o\u00f9 l’on nous dit, comme ici, qu’elle est in\u00e9vitable comme la Guerre froide fut in\u00e9vitable, disons par la force des agressions ext\u00e9rieures (\u00ab the conflicts that will shape this difficult winter of 2003 were mostly inevitable. It’s just that, as half a century ago, Americans were slow to understand the threat, and reluctant to take it on until inaction seemed the worst choice<\/em> \u00bb) <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tMais redevenons s\u00e9rieux. Ce type d’articles devrait se multiplier. Il indique que, d\u00e9sormais, la politique ext\u00e9rieure expansionniste US rencontre de s\u00e9rieuses difficult\u00e9s (Irak, Cor\u00e9e du Nord, d’une fa\u00e7on g\u00e9n\u00e9rale les capacit\u00e9s militaires US en crise<\/a>). Il faut trouver une explication. L’argument devient implicitement que ces difficult\u00e9s sont caus\u00e9es par les pressions impos\u00e9es sur les USA par les \u00e9v\u00e9nements ext\u00e9rieurs du monde, et par cette obligation calamiteuse que l’instabilit\u00e9 du reste du monde impose \u00e0 cet \u00eelot de stabilit\u00e9 et de vertu qu’est l’Am\u00e9rique, de prendre en charge la mission historique que les autres peuples lui assignent. On peut toujours essayer de proposer cette th\u00e8se.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t[Ci-dessous, l’article de Jackson Diehl faisant l’objet de ce commentaire. Notre recommandation est bien entendu que ce texte doit \u00eatre lu avec la mention classique \u00e0 l’esprit, Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only..]<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00ab The United States has to lead \u00bb<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

\t(Accidental imperialist)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBy Jackson Diehl, Tuesday, December 31, 2002, International Herald Tribune<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tWASHINGTON As the United States enters the new year facing crises and the potential for war in Iraq and North Korea simultaneously, an obvious question presents itself: Did the Bush administration bring all this trouble on itself?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tMost Europeans would say it did. So would several of the emerging Democratic presidential candidates. This, they would say, is the natural consequence of George W. Bush’s aggressive unilateralism, his militaristic new doctrine of preemption, his insistence on expanding a justified war against Al Qaeda to a misconstrued \u00a0\u00bbaxis of evil.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tWhen Bush took office two years ago, this argument goes, neither Iraq nor North Korea looked very worrisome. Didn’t Colin Powell himself, at his first press conference with the president-elect, dismiss Saddam Hussein as a \u00a0\u00bbweak\u00a0\u00bb dictator \u00a0\u00bbsitting on a failed regime that is not going to be around in a few years’ time\u00a0\u00bb? As for North Korea, the outgoing Clinton team seemingly had come to within inches of striking a comprehensive deal that would have ended the threat of weapons of mass destruction from Pyongyang. Dictator Kim Jong Il was engaging with the South and appeared ready to open his hermit state to the outside world.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tHad the Bush administration stuck with Powell’s initial strategy of patching up the \u00a0\u00bbbox\u00a0\u00bb in which Iraq had been contained during the previous decade and embraced his impulse to continue the negotiations with North Korea, the United States might be entering 2003 fully focused on winning the still formidable fight with Al Qaeda and stabilizing a still volatile Afghanistan – a pretty full plate.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tInstead it is mobilizing tens of thousands of troops and juggling UN Security Council debates to deal with two dictators, both capable of defending themselves with weapons of mass destruction, who could have been managed or left to stew on back burners.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tOr so goes the argument. Yet there is another way of looking at the history of the last two years: not as a tale of an arrogant cowboy stirring up the world’s rattlesnakes, but of an initially cautious, uncertain and quasi-isolationist president reacting to the crystallization of a new global era. The Bush administration of pre-Sept. 11 seemed content to string along the old policies on Iraq and North Korea. Iraq hawks inside the administration were a distinct minority, and Powell eventually won the argument about whether to reopen talks with Pyongyang.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBush’s foreign policy mostly consisted of trying to retreat from international treaties and foreign military deployments. His signature initiative was missile defense, which implied a strategy of ignoring rogue states until their missiles reached the territory of the United States.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThis was a policy for the 1990s, when the minority of Americans who cared about international affairs debated the indiscernible shape of the \u00a0\u00bbpost-Cold War era,\u00a0\u00bb when a booming United States felt free to nurse along, or simply neglect, threats from the likes of Iraq. There was the luxury to debate whether it was worthwhile to intervene to stop a war of aggression, even if it were in Europe, or one of history’s worst episodes of genocide, if it happened in Africa.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThen a new era came knocking, and not just in the form of hijacked airliners. As sanctions on Iraq crumbled, it became more and more obvious that Saddam Hussein had not been contained. He had developed new weapons – drone aircraft and longer-range missiles – and was aggressively hunting for nuclear materials. The supposedly peaceable Kim Jong Il was discovered to have launched another secret bomb project even while Madeleine Albright was negotiating with him.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe minimalism with which a contented America engaged the world in the 1990s, and with which the Bush administration began, suddenly looked like a dangerous shirking of responsibility.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tIn a recent meeting at The Washington Post, my colleague David Broder asked a senior administration official why Bush had come to embrace \u00a0\u00bban almost imperial role\u00a0\u00bb for the United States. The answer was long, eloquent and revealing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbA few years ago there were great debates about what would be the threats of the post-Cold War world,\u00a0\u00bb the official said. \u00a0\u00bbWould it be the rise of another great power, would it be humanitarian needs or ethnic conflicts? And I think we now know. The threats are terrorism and national states with weapons of mass destruction and the possible union of those two forces.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbIt’s pretty clear that the United States is the single most powerful country in international relations for a very long time,\u00a0\u00bb the official continued. \u00a0\u00bbIt is the only state capable of dealing with that kind of chaotic environment and providing some kind of order. I think there is an understanding that that is America’s responsibility, just like it was America standing between Nazi Germany and a takeover of all of Europe. No, we don’t have to do it alone. But the United States has to lead that.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBy that account, the conflicts that will shape this difficult winter of 2003 were mostly inevitable. It’s just that, as half a century ago, Americans were slow to understand the threat, and reluctant to take it on – until inaction seemed the worst choice.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sur la d\u00e9fensive 31 d\u00e9cembre 2002 Nous passons dans une nouvelle phase de la pr\u00e9sentation dialectique (virtualiste serait mieux) de la politique ext\u00e9rieure des \u00c9tats-Unis. A l’explication muscl\u00e9e du printemps dernier d’un imp\u00e9rialisme h\u00e9g\u00e9monique qui entend mener le monde en le dominant (Kagan et compagnie) succ\u00e8de (ou revient) l’imp\u00e9rialisme contraint, l’imp\u00e9rialisme-malgr\u00e9-nous, ou dit encore, en… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[868,3198,857],"class_list":["post-65407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faits-et-commentaires","tag-bush","tag-gw","tag-irak"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}