Clearly, America would not be facing a debacle in the Middle East today had it not been for the misguided policies of these hawks. But as responsible as they are for the current situation and as dangerous as it is to underestimate their influence, there are several flaws with the assumption that the odds for confrontation with Iran will automatically diminish once the Bush presidency is over.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tParsi place le conflit actuel dans une perspective historique, en remontant jusqu’au Shah. C’est sous la direction du Shah, dans les ann\u00e9es 1970, que l’Iran a affirm\u00e9 sa volont\u00e9 d’une certaine h\u00e9g\u00e9monie r\u00e9gionale. Les Am\u00e9ricains ont accept\u00e9 cette ambition du Shah, mais plut\u00f4t contraints et forc\u00e9s, parce qu’ils \u00e9taient engag\u00e9s au Vietnam et parce que l’Iran jouait un r\u00f4le important dans la strat\u00e9gie anti-sovi\u00e9tique des USA. Le changement de r\u00e9gime en Iran n’a pas modifi\u00e9 la politique iranienne. Mais les freins \u00e0 la r\u00e9action US du temps du Shah (l’alliance avec le Shah, la strat\u00e9gie anti-sovi\u00e9tique) ont disparu depuis. Pour Parsi, c’est un point fondamental qui, dans les circonstances de tension actuelles, fait penser que la crise survivra au d\u00e9part de GW. Les conditions de la comp\u00e9tition pour l’h\u00e9g\u00e9monie sur la r\u00e9gion sont plus fortes que jamais, surtout avec les USA en plein d\u00e9clin et qui tentent de freiner ce mouvement. Parsi est tr\u00e8s pessimiste sur les perspectives parce qu’il estime qu’il existe les conditions d’un encha\u00eenement presque automatique vers l’affrontement. Dans tous les cas, il estime que les conditions de cet affrontement seront r\u00e9unies dans les 12 mois qui viennent.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\u00abThis competition is bound to climax as America’s position continues to decline and Iran continues to present itself as Washington’s chief contender. If the two countries continue on their current trajectories, particularly in the nuclear field, the face-off may occur within the next 12 months. The question is not so much if and when it will happenbut how. Historically, these shifts in power have rarely been peaceful, at least not when diplomatic activity has been virtually non-existent.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbUnless a significant shift is made toward robust diplomacyin which the two states negotiate an agreement for co-existence and a new order for the regionthe clash is likely to be violent. In short, as geopolitical forces push the two toward a climax, there will either be comprehensive talks or a confrontation. Washington would be mistaken to think that containment and economic pressure can serve as a middle ground, evading both a costly military showdown and a potentially painful compromise with the mullahs.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbThese illusionary alternatives could potentially be pursued if the U.S.-Iranian clash was solely centered around the nuclear issue or Iranian involvement in Iraq. But in this larger strategic battle over pre-eminence in the Middle East, these policies are untenable, largely because time isn’t on America’s side. Sanctions can’t cripple Iran’s economy faster than Tehran marches toward nuclear capability, and perhaps more importantly, Washington can’t weaken Iran faster than it is being weakened in Iraq. As time passes, Iran’s position relative to the United States will likely strengthen. Indeed, Iranian leaders already refer to the U.S. as a sunset state and describe themselves as a sunrise power. Sooner or later, the containment policy will deteriorate into either talks or military action. More likely than not, the sanctions approach will increase the risk for a confrontation precisely because it renders a diplomatic opening less probable.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbThe recent U.S. move to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps as a global terrorist organization is a case in point. The decision has been presented as a step to ratchet up pressure on Iran, even though experts point out that the classification will at most have a marginal effect on the organization. The real impact of the terrorist listingwhich is a tricky thing to undowill be political, for further entrenching U.S.-Iran relations in an antagonistic framework will negatively impact future U.S. presidents’ ability to pursue diplomacy.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbThe U.S. and Iran face a situation not too different from the one European powers found themselves in right before the outbreak of World War I. Robust diplomacy has been all but discarded, just as it had been in 1914. Strategists subscribed to the view that the initiator of a conflict would be at such an advantage due to modern technology that mere mobilization should be considered an act of war. Historians have argued that this strategic outlook created an inherent mechanism for self-escalation toward armed conflict. By adhering to these doctrines, decision makers simply abdicated foreign policy to military strategy. Today, the U.S. has put the idea of pre-emption at the center of its National Security Directive to guide both its military decisions and its statecraft.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbAdd an already poisonous political atmosphere hovering over the two countries, and the dangers of accidentally slipping into war are palpable. But whereas the simplest mistakeor even inactioncan spark a conflict, diplomacy can only be achieved if deliberately and persistently pursued. Sadly, in spite of much rhetoric to the contrary, real diplomacy between the U.S. and Iran has not even been attempted yet.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tUn dernier mot est de constater que, pour les Europ\u00e9ens, cette perspective est \u00e9videmment \u00e0 consid\u00e9rer avec s\u00e9rieux et gravit\u00e9. Leur engagement avec les USA sur la question nucl\u00e9aire iranienne n’implique nullement la question de l’h\u00e9g\u00e9monie dans la r\u00e9gion. Clairement, les USA ont, dans cette crise, une autre vison et d’autres int\u00e9r\u00eats que les Europ\u00e9ens. Est-ce beaucoup demander aux Europ\u00e9ens d’envisager la crise sous cet angle? Oui, c’est sans doute beaucoup leur demander.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\tMis en ligne le 14 septembre 2007 \u00e0 09H22<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
En g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, par r\u00e9flexe finalement du \u00e0 l’\u00e9pouvantable r\u00e9putation de GW, nous jouons inconsciemment la montre dans nos raisonnements \u00e0 propos de la crise iranienne. L’attaque \u00e9ventuelle de l’Iran par les USA n’est per\u00e7ue comme possible que d’ici \u00e0 novembre 2008-janvier 2009 (d\u00e9part de GW). Est-ce bien le cas? L’historien et chroniqueur d’origine iranienne Trita… <\/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":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7030,2899,3650,2773,6990,4460,2804],"class_list":["post-69221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-confrontation","tag-declin","tag-hegemonie","tag-iran","tag-parsi","tag-shah","tag-usa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69221","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=69221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}