\tPatrick Cockburn, qui publie dans une vaste palette de journaux, de revues et de sites, de The Independent<\/em> \u00e0 CounterPunch<\/em>, est \u00e9videmment connu comme sp\u00e9cialiste des guerres et divers troubles du Moyen-Orient. Un article de lui dans la London Review of Books<\/em> du 23 mai 2013<\/a>, sous la forme d’une analyse de r\u00e9flexion \u00e0 partir de ses reportages plut\u00f4t que d’un simple reportage, pr\u00e9sente un int\u00e9r\u00eat certain… On pourrait le prendre, cet article, comme une tentative d’identification de la guerre syrienne (avec les guillemets que nous prenons toujours la pr\u00e9caution de mettre, comme devant une sorte d’objet guerrier non identifi\u00e9).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tCertes, l’article de Cockburn redresse nombre d’insanit\u00e9s et de grossi\u00e8ret\u00e9s des esprits les plus z\u00e9l\u00e9s des \u00e9lites-Syst\u00e8me du bloc BAO. Mais cela, c’est l’examen quotidien de l’infamie et du d\u00e9sordre du bloc am\u00e9ricaniste-occidentaliste, dont la particularit\u00e9 est une constante acc\u00e9l\u00e9ration de la subversion et de l’inversion des fonctions de perception et de nuanciation des r\u00e9alit\u00e9s rencontr\u00e9es. On retrouve le d\u00e9sordre extraordinaire de la perception qui s’accompagne de cette \u00e9trange atonie intellectuelle semblant interdire toute \u00e9volution du jugement. Cockburn met indirectement cela en \u00e9vidence, par quelques rappels historiques et par la simple confrontation de son exp\u00e9rience et des r\u00e9actions que cette exp\u00e9rience suscite. Mais il y a autre chose, de beaucoup plus passionnant, qui se d\u00e9gage indirectement et plus profond\u00e9ment du texte de Cockburn, sans que lui-m\u00eame identifie pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment cette question. Il s’agit d’une sorte d’impuissance, d’incapacit\u00e9 intellectuelle objective \u00e0 saisir l’essence m\u00eame<\/strong> de cette guerre, sa signification, son identit\u00e9, et cette fois, cela m\u00eame pour ceux qui per\u00e7oivent sans entrave et observent lucidement, et surtout sinon exclusivement pour ceux-l\u00e0 puisque les autres en restent docilement \u00e0 la narrative<\/em> conformiste qui leur tient lieu de plat du jour.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tNous avons choisi deux extraits de cet article. Le premier, le plus important, est l’entr\u00e9e de l’article. Il d\u00e9crit la situation et pourrait \u00eatre finalement r\u00e9sum\u00e9 par le constat que personne ne sait vraiment ce qui se passe, pour ajouter tout de m\u00eame que toutes les pr\u00e9visions occidentales, particuli\u00e8rement sur la rapidit\u00e9 du conflit, sur l’issue \u00e9vidente (la chute d’Assad en quelques semaines) se sont r\u00e9v\u00e9l\u00e9es d’une fausset\u00e9 telle qu’on atteint ici \u00e0 un ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne objectif o\u00f9 la propagande, y compris l’auto-persuasion, ne suffisent plus \u00e0 expliquer l’aveuglement. C’est alors (imm\u00e9diatement \u00e0 la suite de l’extrait) que Cockburn poursuit, accentuant cette impression d’insaisissabilit\u00e9 op\u00e9rationnelle : \u00abThe reality is that no one is<\/em> [winning the war…<\/em>]\u00bb Il encha\u00eene en repoussant les comparaisons avec les autres interventions, r\u00e9voltes ou conflits du printemps arabe ayant abouti (Tunisie, \u00c9gypte, Libye) pour en revenir \u00e0 des r\u00e9f\u00e9rences plus insaisissables (guerre civile de 15 ans au Liban, guerre civile toujours en cours en Irak), mais qui rest\u00e8rent \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s contenues dans leurs cadres respectifs, qui rest\u00e8rent des guerres limit\u00e9es, des conflits referm\u00e9s sur leur aire g\u00e9ographique. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t… Et puis, les deux paragraphes formant le second extrait (et la conclusion de l’article), exposent au contraire le second th\u00e8me, compl\u00e8tement contradictoire, de l’extraordinaire ouverture de cette guerre, qui semble destin\u00e9e \u00e0 s’\u00e9tendre, \u00e0 enflammer toute la r\u00e9gion (\u00bbThere is virtually no state in the region that hasn’t got some stake in the conflict<\/em>\u00bb), en une infinit\u00e9 de conflits, jusqu’\u00e0 la r\u00e9surrection d’une r\u00e9miniscence de la guerre froide. On se rappelle brusquement que la guerre enferm\u00e9e, contenue, outrageusement grossie dans la pr\u00e9vision d’\u00e9v\u00e9nements pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9s, o\u00f9 personne ne sait vraiment ce qui se passe, est \u00e9galement ce conflit qui est le cadre de grandes manuvres entre la Russie et Isra\u00ebl \u00e0 propos d’une simple livraison de missiles (les S-300<\/a>), que l’Iran et le Hezbollah se battent sur le territoire syrien, qu’Isra\u00ebl s’affirme pr\u00eat \u00e0 lancer une guerre-\u00e9clair (\u00e9ventuellement si Assad est renvers\u00e9, ce qui en fait un alli\u00e9 objectif d’Assad), que les Russes font de la Syrie un enjeu majeur contre les USA, que la Turquie voudrait profiter de cette guerre pour faire un Grand Califat dans lequel viendrait s’ins\u00e9rer une nation kurde, que les pays du Golfe, sauf l’incompr\u00e9hensible Qatar, sont affol\u00e9s par la tournure des \u00e9v\u00e9nements et pr\u00e9voient une confrontation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale o\u00f9 ils craignent d’\u00eatre laiss\u00e9s \u00e0 eux-m\u00eames, et ainsi de suite… A ce point, on se trouve exp\u00e9di\u00e9 dans un autre univers de tensions crisiques insupportables, d’enjeux presque plan\u00e9taires. L\u00e0-dessus, s’ajoutent les aspects sp\u00e9cifiques, \u00e9tonnants et incongrus, de cette guerre, qui font qu’on peut sans aucun doute parler d’un conflit de quatri\u00e8me g\u00e9n\u00e9ration (G4G) d’une forme particuli\u00e8rement sp\u00e9cifique (voir le 25 mai 2013<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tCela nous conduits \u00e0 la conclusion que la guerre syrienne, guillemets compris, est quelque chose d’\u00e0 la fois insaisissable et non-identifiable. Il s’agit certainement, aujourd’hui, d’un \u00e9v\u00e9nement qui est devenu le plus r\u00e9silient, le plus durable, \u00e0 la fois chaotique et apparemment explosif mais dont l’explosion finale est sans cesse repouss\u00e9e, qui a rel\u00e9gu\u00e9 les autres au second rang, notamment cette crise iranienne qui dominait la r\u00e9gion avant l’affaire syrienne et qui est d\u00e9sormais en train de se modifier rapidement elle-m\u00eame. La Syrie est l’\u00e9v\u00e9nement le plus actif de cette fameuse crise<\/a> haute<\/a> dont nul ne sait exactement quelles perspectives en attendre, et qui semble se cr\u00e9er et se d\u00e9finir comme quelque chose de diff\u00e9rent et d’unique \u00e0 mesure qu’elle progresse.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t Le d\u00e9but de l’article de Patrick Cockburn… \u00abFor the first two years of the Syrian civil war foreign leaders regularly predicted that Bashar al-Assad’s government would fall any day. In November 2011, King Abdullah of Jordan said that the chances of Assad’s surviving were so slim he ought to step down. In December last year, Anders Rasmussen, the Nato secretary general, said: I think the regime in Damascus is approaching collapse.’ Even the Russian Foreign Ministry which generally defends Assad has at times made similar claims. Some of these statements were designed to demoralise Assad’s supporters by making his overthrow seem inevitable. But in many cases outsiders genuinely believed that the end was just round the corner. The rebels kept claiming successes, and the claims were undiscriminatingly accepted.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThat Assad’s government is on its last legs has always been something of a myth. YouTube videos of victorious rebel fighters capturing military outposts and seizing government munitions distract attention from the fact that the war is entering its third year and the insurgents have succeeded in capturing just one of the 14 provincial capitals. (In Libya the insurgents held Benghazi and the whole of the east as well as Misrata and smaller towns in the west from the beginning of the revolt.) The Syrian rebels were never as strong militarily as the outside world supposes. But they have always been way ahead of the government in their access to the international media. Whatever the uprising has since become it began in March 2011 as a mass revolt against a cruel and corrupt police state. The regime at first refused to say much in response, then sounded aggrieved and befuddled as it saw the vacuum it had created being filled with information put out by its enemies. Defecting Syrian soldiers were on television denouncing their former masters while government units that had stayed loyal remained unreported and invisible. And so it has largely continued. The ubiquitous YouTube videos of minor, and in some cases illusory, victories by the rebels are put about in large part to persuade the world that, given more money and arms, they can quickly win a decisive victory and end the war.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThere is a striking divergence between the way the Syrian war is seen in Beirut just a few hours’ drive from Damascus, even now and what actually appears to be happening on the ground inside Syria. On recent trips I would drive to Damascus, having listened to Syrians and non-Syrians in Beirut who sincerely believed that rebel victory was close, only to find the government still very much in control. Around the capital, the rebels held some suburbs and nearby towns, but in December I was able to travel the ninety miles between Damascus and Homs, Syria’s third largest city, without any guards and with ordinary heavy traffic on the road. Friends back in Beirut would shake their heads in disbelief when I spoke about this and politely suggest that I’d been hoodwinked by the regime.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbSome of the difficulties in reporting the war in Syria aren’t new. Television has a great appetite for the drama of war, for pictures of missiles exploding over Middle Eastern cities amid the sparkle of anti-aircraft fire. Print journalism can’t compete with these images, but they are rarely typical of what is happening. Despite the iconic images Baghdad wasn’t, in fact, heavily bombarded in either 1991 or 2003. The problem is much worse in Syria than it used to be in Iraq or Afghanistan (in 2001) because the most arresting pictures out of Syria appear first on YouTube and are, for the most part, provided by political activists. They are then run on TV news with health warnings to the effect that the station can’t vouch for their veracity, but viewers assume that the station wouldn’t be running the film if it didn’t believe it was real. Actual eyewitnesses are becoming hard to find, since even people living a few streets from the fighting in Damascus now get most of their information from the internet or TV.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbNot all YouTube evidence is suspect. Though easily fabricated, it performs certain tasks well. It can show that atrocities have taken place, and even authenticate them: in the case of a pro-government militia massacring rebel villagers, for instance, or rebel commanders mutilating and executing government soldiers. Without a video of him doing so, who would have believed that a rebel commander had cut open a dead government soldier and eaten his heart? Pictures of physical destruction are less reliable because they focus on the worst damage, giving the impression which may or may not be true that a whole district is in ruins. What YouTube can’t tell you is who is winning the war…<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t Les deux paragraphes qui concluent l’article… \u00ab There is virtually no state in the region that hasn’t got some stake in the conflict. Jordan, though nervous of a jihadi victory in Syria, is allowing arms shipments from Saudi Arabia to reach rebels in southern Syria by road. Qatar has reportedly spent $3 billion on supporting the rebels over the last two years and has offered $50,000 to every Syrian army defector and his family. In c0-ordination with the CIA it has sent seventy military flights to Turkey with arms and equipment for the insurgents. The Tunisian government says that eight hundred Tunisians are fighting on the rebel side but security sources are quoted as saying the real figure is closer to two thousand. Moaz al-Khatib, the outgoing president of the Syrian National Coalition, which supposedly represents the opposition, recently resigned, declaring as he did so that the group was controlled by outside powers i.e. Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The people inside Syria,’ he said, have lost the ability to decide their own fate. I have become only a means to sign some papers while hands from different parties want to decide on behalf of the Syrians.’ He claimed that on one occasion a rebel unit failed to go to the rescue of villagers being massacred by government forces because they hadn’t received instructions from their paymasters.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbFear of widespread disorder and instability is pushing the US, Russia, Iran and others to talk of a diplomatic solution to the conflict. Some sort of peace conference may take place in Geneva over the next month, with the aim at least of stopping things getting worse. But while there is an appetite for diplomacy, nobody knows what a solution would look like. It’s hard to imagine a real agreement being reached when there are so many players with conflicting interests. Five distinct conflicts have become tangled together in Syria: a popular uprising against a dictatorship which is also a sectarian battle between Sunnis and the Alawite sect; a regional struggle between Shia and Sunni which is also a decades-old conflict between an Iranian-led grouping and Iran’s traditional enemies, notably the US and Saudi Arabia. Finally, at another level, there is a reborn Cold War confrontation: Russia and China v. the West. The conflict is full of unexpected and absurd contradictions, such as a purportedly democratic and secular Syrian opposition being funded by the absolute monarchies of the Gulf who are also fundamentalist Sunnis…<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n dedefensa.org<\/em><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Syrie, guerre insaisissable Patrick Cockburn, qui publie dans une vaste palette de journaux, de revues et de sites, de The Independent \u00e0 CounterPunch, est \u00e9videmment connu comme sp\u00e9cialiste des guerres et divers troubles du Moyen-Orient. 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