just consider how, on Wednesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad termed the release of the NIE a declaration of victory for Iran’s nuclear program. And he has reason to crow. After all, as the headline of the latest Robert Scheer column at Truthdig.org indicates, when it came to the latest stare-down at the nuclear OK Corral between the President of the planetary hyperpower and the president of a relatively weak regional power: It Turns Out Ahmadinejad Was the Truthful One.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tLe cas iranien est bien diff\u00e9rent du cas irakien. En Irak, l’attaque US a r\u00e9ussi presque aussit\u00f4t \u00e0 faire tomber le gouvernement (Saddam). C’est ensuite que les ennuis ont commenc\u00e9. Le prestige de Washington est engag\u00e9 dans une forme de guerre o\u00f9 l’adversaire ne repr\u00e9sente pas une l\u00e9gitimit\u00e9 ou une autorit\u00e9 d’Etat. En Irak, quoiqu’on pense par ailleurs des conditions, et l’on sait qu’il y a beaucoup \u00e0 penser, il ne s’agit pas d’une confrontation d’Etat \u00e0 Etat (de gouvernement \u00e0 gouvernement, puisque le terme d’Etat reste tr\u00e8s douteux pour les USA). Le r\u00e9sultat ne peut \u00eatre compl\u00e8tement la mise en cause de l’autorit\u00e9 et de la l\u00e9gitimit\u00e9 de la puissance du gouvernement (en tant qu’autorit\u00e9 d’une nation) des USA dans le monde. (Dans le cas irakien, effectivement, c’est la puissance US qui est mise en cause.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tAvec l’Iran, c’est compl\u00e8tement diff\u00e9rent. Il s’agit bien d’une confrontation de gouvernement \u00e0 gouvernement, o\u00f9 autorit\u00e9 et l\u00e9gitimit\u00e9 de l’un et de l’autre dans les relations internationales sont engag\u00e9es. L’enjeu est infiniment diff\u00e9rent et il se trouve que Washington n’est certainement pas sur la voie de gagner cette confrontation. La NIE 2007 est, de ce point de vue, un coup terrible qui affecte le cr\u00e9dit et le statut d’autorit\u00e9 du gouvernement US et des USA.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tVoici quelques mots de Hiro, dans un texte titr\u00e9 \u00abThe Zero-Sum Fiasco<\/em>\u00bb. L’expression Zero-Sum<\/em> concerne un affrontement, un antagonisme exclusif aux deux parties, o\u00f9 ce que l’autre perd est n\u00e9cessairement un gain pour vous et o\u00f9 ce que vous perdez est n\u00e9cessairement un gain pour l’autre, ce qui est l’exacte repr\u00e9sentation de la reconnaissance d’une \u00e9galit\u00e9 de statut, voire de puissance. C’est une bien \u00e9trange destin\u00e9e pour la plus grande puissance que le monde ait jamais connue<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00abBush’s woefully misguided invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, carried out under false pretences, has not only drained the United States treasury, but reduced Washington’s standing in the Middle East in a way not yet fully grasped by most commentators. Whereas Washington once played off Tehran against Baghdad, while involved in a superpower zero-sum game with the Soviet Union, the Bush administration is now engaged in a zero-sum game, as a virtual equal, with Iran. That is, America’s loss has become Iran’s automatic gain, and vice-versa.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbTo grasp the steepness of Washington’s recent fall, recall that until Saddam Hussein’s disastrous invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the zero-sum doctrine in the region applied only to Iraq and Iran, two minor powers on the world stage.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbHaving emerged in a self-congratulatory mode as the sole superpower after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. now finds itself competing with a secondary power in the Middle East. This humbling realization seems to have finally penetrated the minds of top policy makers in the Bush administration, causing concern.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbMore than anything else, that explains the sudden spurt of presidential interest in healing the long-running Israeli-Palestinian sore by holding a Middle East conference in Annapolis, Maryland. The real objective of the Bush team had more to do with mollifying Arab leaders in order to hold them together in its ongoing confrontation with Tehran than realizing a genuine urge to create a viable, independent Palestine within a year.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tMis en ligne le 7 d\u00e9cembre 2007 \u00e0 04H57<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tom Engelhardt a invitit\u00e9 l’auteur Dilip Hiro \u00e0 analyser les positions respectives de Washington et de T\u00e9h\u00e9ran, \u00e0 l’occasion des remous caus\u00e9s par la publication de la NIE 2007. (Dans la chronique d’hier d’Engelhardt, sur TomDispatch.com.) L’id\u00e9e de Hiro est que Washington, en s’engageant dans l’enjeu de l’affrontement avec T\u00e9h\u00e9ran de cette mati\u00e8re unilat\u00e9rale et… <\/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":[7287,7286,3555,2779,5201,3248,7285],"class_list":["post-69481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-autorite","tag-game","tag-legitimite","tag-puissance","tag-teheran","tag-washington","tag-zero-sum"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69481","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=69481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}