{"id":65705,"date":"2003-08-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-08-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2003\/08\/09\/tony-blair-est-il-a-jeter-apres-quon-sen-soit-servi\/"},"modified":"2003-08-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2003-08-09T00:00:00","slug":"tony-blair-est-il-a-jeter-apres-quon-sen-soit-servi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2003\/08\/09\/tony-blair-est-il-a-jeter-apres-quon-sen-soit-servi\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Blair est-il \u00e0 jeter apr\u00e8s qu’on s’en soit servi?<\/em><\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tony Blair est-il \u00e0 jeter apr\u00e8s qu’on s’en soit servi?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

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\t9 ao\u00fbt 2003 Voici deux textes que nous jugerons significatifs d’un climat qui s’installe \u00e0 Washington, qui peut \u00eatre r\u00e9sum\u00e9 par ceci : Tony Blair, avec ses scandales, son impopularit\u00e9, commence \u00e0 faire d\u00e9sordre, et \u00e0 co\u00fbter plus qu’il ne rapporte aux amis US. D’o\u00f9 la question qui flotte \u00e0 Washington, dont on retrouve la trace in fine<\/em> dans ces deux articles : Blair nous est-il encore utile ?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t• L’article (un \u00e9dito) du New York Times<\/a> est un monument gracieusement cisel\u00e9 d’une certaine tartufferie n\u00e9o-lib\u00e9rale, new-yorkaise et \u00e9l\u00e9gante (et, notamment, l’art de rejeter sur les Britanniques l’essentiel de la responsabilit\u00e9 pour les preuves bidons pour justifier la guerre contre l’Irak.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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\t\u00ab The White House therefore has every reason to be concerned about the British prime minister’s growing credibility problems at home. Blair’s grip on office doesn’t seem threatened. But his once legendary ability to sway public opinion has taken a large, and largely self-inflicted, hit. The next time Washington needs to borrow some of his credibility to broaden domestic support for its international policies, he may have little to spare. We credit the sincerity of Blair’s beliefs, but are troubled by the unworthy, and ultimately counterproductive, ways he advances them.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Blair is still admired in America. But polls show that most British voters no longer trust him to level with them. Some of his government’s prewar intelligence claims about Iraq have been exposed as unsubstantiated. None of the unconventional weapons cited by the government have yet been found. Postwar problems have been worse than predicted.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Most damaging has been a nasty scrap with the BBC over a story claiming that Blair’s spokesman \u00a0\u00bbsexed up\u00a0\u00bb intelligence findings about how quickly Iraq could start firing its chemical and biological weapons. The underlying facts remain in dispute, but the crisis deepened after the suicide last month of David Kelly, a Defense Ministry weapons expert the Blair government identified as the BBC’s likely source. A judicial inquiry is now under way into the circumstances behind Kelly’s suicide.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Depending on the inquiry’s outcome and future developments in Iraq, Blair’s credit could begin to rebound. He can make that more likely by distancing himself from American-style spin operations. He could also more openly challenge Washington on a number of important issues on which his views are known to diverge from Bush’s. These include the need for a wider United Nations role in Iraq, the urgency of international action on global warming and the moral imperative of curbing the American and European farm subsidies that condemn developing countries to poverty.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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\t• On trouve une approche similaire dans le texte de commentaire de Clive Crook, du National Journal<\/em>, publiant sur le site de The Atlantic Monthly<\/a>. Le titre est assez significatif, retrouvant la m\u00eame id\u00e9e m\u00eame si celle-ci n’est pas pouss\u00e9e \u00e0 son terme aussi explicitement que dans le cas pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent : \u00ab The Crisis Facing Tony Blair Is Bad News for Bush, The discrediting of Blair adds to suspicions that America’s government was dishonest, too<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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\t\u00ab …Blair, unlike America’s president, rested the case for war almost entirely on Iraq’s failure to abide by U.N. resolutions and disarm. The prime minister needed evidence of actual weapons. The government therefore decided to make the most of the intelligence it had. Its case for war appears to have been based on a tendentious selection of genuine intelligencethe 45 minutes claim is a case in pointnot on outright lies. But the effect, nonetheless, was to mislead. (And the government did stoop to plain fraud in at least one instance: It compiled a notorious second dossier of \u00a0\u00bbintelligence,\u00a0\u00bb plagiarized from an out-of-date academic thesis downloaded from the Internet.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t(…)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb …Geoff Hoon, the defense minister, may have to resign. Campbell, too, is under pressure to go.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Campbell’s departure would be an enormous blow to Blair. He has been at the prime minister’s elbow for a decade. Blair’s government is five parts spin to one part substance, so spin-master Campbell may be as important to the \u00a0\u00bbNew Labor\u00a0\u00bb project as Blair himself. The Kelly affair has damaged the government so badly precisely because it encapsulates for British voters the way the demands of propaganda have shaped the character of this government. The opposition leader, Iain Duncan Smith, talks of a culture of dishonesty and deceitand he is right. When Blair was re-elected in 2001, 56 percent thought that the government has, on balance, been honest and trustworthy. That figure now stands at 24 percent.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Does it matter to America? It does. The discrediting of Blair discredits George W. Bush by association. It adds to suspicions that America’s government was dishonest, too. And it means that when the United States next needs Britain as an ally in the war against terrorism, Britain may not be there. That next fight may be justified, just as the attack on Iraq was justified. But unless Britain is attacked first, the public will unlikely ever again trust Blair to lead it to war.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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\tLa logique de ces deux textes est palpable : Tony Blair a des ennuis et Tony Blair est devenu encombrant. Du point de vue des int\u00e9r\u00eats am\u00e9ricains, il ne vaut plus tripette, encore moins que tripette si Alastair Campbell s’en va (sympathique description du gouvernement Blair : \u00ab Blair’s government is five parts spin to one part substance, so spin-master Campbell may be as important to the \u00a0\u00bbNew Labor\u00a0\u00bb project as Blair himself.<\/em> \u00bb). Les probl\u00e8mes de Tony Blair sont ennuyeux, non pour Tony Blair mais pour le discr\u00e9dit qu’ils jettent, par association, sur GW Bush. Il faut que Tony Blair prenne des mesures, jusqu’\u00e0 prendre des distances d’avec les USA, comme le sugg\u00e8re le New York Times<\/em>, pour qu’on puisse s\u00e9parer GW de Tony Blair. Ce jugement implicite coupe le souffle, lorsqu’on songe qu’il s’agit d’un homme qui, il y a trois semaines, \u00e9tait acclam\u00e9 par le Congr\u00e8s comme une sorte de nouveau Churchill. Il est bien possible qu’on oublie \u00e0 Washington la m\u00e9daille d’honneur que le Congr\u00e8s lui avait promise et dont la remise, qui devait se faire le jour du discours, avait \u00e9t\u00e9 sur l’instant myst\u00e9rieusement report\u00e9e.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCes journaux ne font pas le printemps, ils n’annoncent pas une politique officielle, par ailleurs impossible \u00e0 exprimer officiellement, par quelque voie que ce soit. Mais ils devraient suffire pour commencer \u00e0 faire comprendre \u00e0 Blair qu’\u00e0 la rentr\u00e9e, il sera plus seul qu’il n’a jamais \u00e9t\u00e9. Seul, c’est-\u00e0-dire sans soutien am\u00e9ricain alors qu’il sera en butte \u00e0 une opposition int\u00e9rieure consid\u00e9rable. Cela est d’autant plus probable que GW aura, de son c\u00f4t\u00e9, des ennuis assez similaires, et l’on comprend \u00e9galement, \u00e0 la lecture de ces deux textes, que la tactique am\u00e9ricaine sera de rejeter l’essentiel des divers mensonges factuels pour l’entr\u00e9e en guerre (les armes de destruction massive, l’uranium nig\u00e9rien, etc) sur les Britanniques.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tIl n’est pas impossible que le Premier ministre britannique finisse par choisir comme \u00e9chappatoire, et surtout pour rester en place, la voie sugg\u00e9r\u00e9e par le New York Times<\/em> : prendre ses distances avec Washington, retrouver une vertu nationale, \u00e9ventuellement dans la perspective d’une vertu europ\u00e9enne. (Blair a toujours tent\u00e9 de continuer \u00e0 affirmer ses convictions europ\u00e9ennes, m\u00eame au plus fort de son engagement pro-US ; les Britanniques ont d’ailleurs, selon un comportement qui leur est habituel, l’habitude de prendre des pr\u00e9cautions de ce c\u00f4t\u00e9 : les Fran\u00e7ais qui conduisent l’op\u00e9ration Artemis au Congo pour le compte de l’UE, une op\u00e9ration d\u00e9test\u00e9e par Washington parce que totalement ind\u00e9pendante de l’OTAN, notent la parfaite coop\u00e9ration des Britanniques qui assurent un soutien de transport a\u00e9rien).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBlair peut effectivement attaquer Washington sur quelques grands dossiers hors contexte transatlantique (en apparence, tout au moins). Par exemple, il ne serait pas n\u00e9cessairement \u00e9tonnant de voir les Britanniques prendre la t\u00eate d’une attaque g\u00e9n\u00e9rale contre Washington sur l’\u00e9norme dossier du r\u00e9chauffement climatique (Protocole de Kyoto), d’autant que les \u00e9v\u00e9nements y pressent, et particuli\u00e8rement au Royaume-Uni o\u00f9 la d\u00e9nonciation de l’immobilisme face au r\u00e9chauffement climatique est tr\u00e8s forte, cette d\u00e9nonciation conduisant \u00e0 mettre Washington en accusation. A ce compte, Blair serait applaudi en Europe et il pourrait refaire, chez lui, une certaine unit\u00e9 \u00e0 son profit. Mais, sur ce dernier point de sa situation int\u00e9rieure, il devrait sans doute passer par certaines r\u00e9visions d\u00e9chirantes qui lui seraient r\u00e9clam\u00e9es, notamment sur l’Irak. En m\u00eame temps, cette \u00e9volution pourrait nourrir une r\u00e9action anti-am\u00e9ricaine s\u00e9v\u00e8re, qui ne demande qu’\u00e0 s’exprimer politiquement \u00e0 Londres. Dans tous les cas, Blair semble condamner \u00e0 poursuivre sa danse sur le fil, pour continuer \u00e0 survivre dans la situation extraordinairement complexe qu’il a cr\u00e9\u00e9e.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tony Blair est-il \u00e0 jeter apr\u00e8s qu’on s’en soit servi? 9 ao\u00fbt 2003 Voici deux textes que nous jugerons significatifs d’un climat qui s’installe \u00e0 Washington, qui peut \u00eatre r\u00e9sum\u00e9 par ceci : Tony Blair, avec ses scandales, son impopularit\u00e9, commence \u00e0 faire d\u00e9sordre, et \u00e0 co\u00fbter plus qu’il ne rapporte aux amis US. D’o\u00f9… <\/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":[],"class_list":["post-65705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faits-et-commentaires"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65705","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=65705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}