Oh My Dear, ces gens-là ont vraiment très peur

D’accord, virez TB (notre Très Grand Premier Ministre), mettez n’importe qui à la place, Hugh Grant si vous voulez, mais surtout, surtout, ne quittez pas la grande Amérique, — parce que, voyez-vous, je vous le dis les yeux dans les yeux croix de bois croix de fer, « America represents still, as it has for the past 60 years, the last best hope of freedom ».

En d’autres mots, c’est bien la peur qui s’exprime là.

L’article de Gerard Baker, dans le Times londonien d’hier aurait pu être signé par le patron, Rupert Murdoch lui-même. Il signale une crainte considérable des américanistes, de leurs relais divers, des agents d’influence et des agents divers, des sentimentaux churchilliens (il y en a), que le départ de Tony Blair signifie une rupture de la complète politique d’alignement du Royaume-Uni sur les USA. Cet article nous donne l’exacte température de la crainte paranoïaque de perdre l’“allié fidèle” qui apparaît aujourd’hui à Washington, de la Maison-Blanche au Weekly Standard, alors que Tony Blair a annoncé son départ dans l’année qui vient (alors que tout le monde savait ce départ inéluctable : mais la réalité est plus violente que les certitudes intellectuelles).

Alors lisez cet article en vous disant tout de même qu’avec TB sur le départ, TB tel qu’il était devenu, la suite ne pourra pas être pire.

Lisez d’abord ceci, pour comprendre combien leur peur est intense, de voir même le jeune David Cameron, du parti conservateur, verser dans l’antiaméricanisme primitif pour plaire à la populace…

« The country seems to be in a mood to seize the moment of Mr Blair’s impending departure to choose a radical new turn: end the ruinous special relationship with America and construct a new foreign policy that pragmatically chooses ad hoc between go-it-alone bulldog independence and alignment with our European “partners”. There’s a hope that Gordon Brown, heaven help us, will have a Love Actually moment, seizing the opportunity to declare his independence from the US yoke. A poll in The Times this week suggests that would be popular: a majority now favour much looser ties with the US.

» That is no doubt why David Cameron, the Conservative leader, moistened finger lifted permanently into the winds of public opinion, will, we are told, use the anniversary of September 11 to declare that he will not be the American President’s poodle.

» This adolescent chatter about Hugh Grant characters and pliant pooches underscores the lack of seriousness with which this most grave of policy challenges is invested in Britain. It is long past time to fill that fluffy void with some real thought, some genuine initiative and some serious resolve. »

Lisez encore ceci, pour vous convaincre qu’ils ont vraiment très peur…

« If the next prime minister is a real leader, and not a mere implementer of the latest public opinion trends, he will take a firm stand against the seductive anti-Americanism that has Britain and much of Europe in its grip.

» He should state, categorically, that whatever our reservations, whatever our irritations, Britain will stand with America. Not because Britain is a weaker power that has little choice, or in the hope of some quid pro quo, but because it is the right thing to do.

» There is no need for this to sound craven or submissive. It can be a balanced and candid assessment of the world and its problems in the five years since 9/11. It should acknowledge the disquiet and alarm in Britain at what has gone wrong. It should offer a reasoned critique of the way the war in Iraq has been handled, of the overreach by the US in its handling of matters such as detention of suspected terrorists. It can distance Britain from all those hints of religiosity and that slightly cloying idealism that Americans of all political persuasions go in for.

» But it should be sure to put these in their place: to insert into the fevered debate of foreign policy in Britain a sense of proportion and history. It should say that, whatever we think about the Iraq war, we are in no doubt where right lies in that struggle now. The insurgency in Iraq is not some heroic struggle by the oppressed against neocolonialism but murderous terrorism by competing groups of thugs. Over Afghanistan too, despite our tragic losses there in the last few weeks, it should recommit Britain to resisting the attempts of a small minority of Afghans and their foreign friends to turn that country back to the medievalist nightmare from which it has only recently escaped.

» This new statement of our foreign policy interests should say that, while Britain will reserve the right to criticise Israel’s policies, it will have no truck with the spreading assumption that Israel is the principal author of the Middle East’s problems, and that that nation’s security against terrorists and states who would destroy it is an essential objective of British policy. It is time, in other words, to identify the enemy and stop identifying with him.

» The post-Blair foreign policy should above all seek to elevate the British public’s vision above the trials and errors of the past five years. It should remind the people that America represents still, as it has for the past 60 years, the last best hope of freedom. »

Mis en ligne le 9 septembre à 06H49