Le 25 f\u00e9vrier, Robert Gates faisait un discours \u00e0 West Point, o\u00f9 sont form\u00e9s les futurs officiers de l’U.S. Army. Un paragraphe de son discours a attir\u00e9 grandement l’attention.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\u00abBut in my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined, as General MacArthur so delicately put it.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tPhrase qui fut imm\u00e9diatement interpr\u00e9t\u00e9e pour ce qu’elle \u00e9tait dans la bouche m\u00eame de MacArthur : une affirmation d’isolationnisme, ou de n\u00e9o-isolationnisme. Le premier moment de surprise pass\u00e9e, c’est en effet dans cette voie que se sont orient\u00e9s les commentaires. En deux jours, le site \t Le 3 mars 2011<\/a>, un texte de Ray McGovern, ancien analyste de la CIA devenu chroniqueur extr\u00eamement critique de la politique ext\u00e9rieure belliciste des USA. McGoverne ne nie pas une seconde qu’il s’agisse d’un changement consid\u00e9rable dans le chef du secr\u00e9taire \u00e0 la d\u00e9fense, par rapport \u00e0 la politique ext\u00e9rieure US, et \u00e0 la politique que lui-m\u00eame conduit. Mais, ayant travaill\u00e9 plusieurs ann\u00e9es avec Gates \u00e0 la CIA et ne le portant pas dans son cur, McGovern soup\u00e7onne dans sa d\u00e9marche des motifs assez bas<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abI’ll acknowledge that Gates may have come to his newfound skepticism about these ground wars honestly, sincerely distraught by the continued loss of life as the bloody conflicts grind on with no real end in sight. Yet, I would venture to suggest that more likely the timing of Gates’s conversion can be pinned on two other factors, a typically windsock reaction to recent polling on Afghanistan and an attempt to burnish his future wise-man reputation:<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bb U.S. public opinion has swung dramatically against the war in Afghanistan, with some polls showing that as many as 86 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of Republicans want a speedier U.S. pullout from the war.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bb Gates has announced he will retire in the coming months. By abandoning his post on the bridge of the sinking pro-war ship now, Gates will let the next secretary of defense take the blame when the U.S. does not prevail in Afghanistan. Gates can point to his echoing of MacArthur’s warning.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tAinsi, conclut McGovern, apr\u00e8s avoir d\u00e9crit la carri\u00e8re d’un bureaucrate ambitieux et opportuniste, et en ayant \u00e0 l’esprit son prochain d\u00e9part du Pentagone, Gates pourra-t-il \u00e9crire dans le deuxi\u00e8me tome de ses m\u00e9moires je vous l’avais bien dit \u00abI can visualize a new chapter in Gates’s second memoir, How I Issued MacArthur-Type Warnings All Along.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t Patrick J. Buchanan, lui, est plus net et plus pratique, dans son texte du 4 mars 2011<\/a> : Gates est devenu n\u00e9o-isolationniste, devant l’\u00e9vidence des choses catastrophiques.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abAmerica would be nuts, Gates is saying, to fight a new land war like the two he inherited. It follows that the neo-isolationists who opposed invading Iraq and a long war in Afghanistan were right, in Gates’ eyes. Quite an admission from a defense secretary who presided over the surge in Iraq and the surge in Afghanistan.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t Le m\u00eame 4 mars 2011<\/a> , Justin Raimondo consacre sa chrtonique \u00e0 cette intervention de Robert Gates, qu’il salue avec enthousiasme, m\u00eame s’il s’agit d’un enthousiasme \u00e0 la mesure de ces temps assez bas. \u00abAmid the intellectual and moral darkness that is Washington, DC, we take our rays of sunlight where we can find them. And this week, the clouds parted albeit only momentarily to let through a couple of illuminating comments from none other than Defense Secretary Robert Gates<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tEncha\u00eenant sur la citation faite plus haut, elle-m\u00eame avec citation de MacArthur, Raimondo notre que Gates se r\u00e9f\u00e8re \u00e0 l’Afrique, comme une de ces zones o\u00f9 les USA feraient bien de ne pas s’engager. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe reference to Africa not a frequent or high visibility venue for American centurions, at least since the disaster at Mogadishu could not have been mere coincidence. And at a congressional hearing the other day, Gates followed up:<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbLet’s just call a spade a spade. A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya. That’s the way you do a no-fly zone. And then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbPressed by one disappointed solon, Gates averred: <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tWell, if it’s ordered, we can do it. But the reality is, there’s a lot of, frankly, loose talk about some of these military options.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n