Anatomie de la “victoire” en Irak

Aujourd’hui, on ne parle plus guère de l’Irak. Pour nombre de politiciens washingtoniens, l’Irak est une affaire classée. Une “victoire”, naturellement. Leurs serviteurs extérieurs les confortent dans ce sens, comme fait Gerald Baker le 23 novembre dans le Times. Sa chronique est consacrée au dollar dont il juge le sort si favorable aux USA («The dollar's in decline. Great news!»), et dont il pense qu’on en dit peu de bien parce qu’il faut trouver un nouveau sujet de vindicte contre les USA puisque l’Irak ne fait plus l’affaire. Car tout va bien en Irak. Une phrase suffit pour Baker, qui semble peindre l’Irak comme une station balnéaire où les Irakiens, enfin comblés par les congés payés institués par les néo-conservateurs, peuvent jouir en paix du beau temps institué par le général Petraeus et des joies des sables de la Mésopotamie passés au tamis des bulldozers de l’U.S. Army: «The pundits have finally run out of bad news to report from Iraq, where, unmolested by the morbid fascination of misery-seeking reporters, the locals actually seem to be belatedly enjoying the first fruits of their liberation.»

Jonathan Freeland, dans le Guardian aujourd’hui, est d’accord quant à l’effet du “surge” à Washington (et sur Baker), où les démocrates ne disent plus un mot plus haut que l’autre pour ce qui concerne l’Irak: «Whatever effect Bush's “surge” of extra troops has had in Iraq, it has clearly worked in Washington.» Pour ce qui est de la situation en Irak même, Freeland, qui en revient, a une toute autre appréciation, c'est-à-dire une appréciation exactement inverse.

«The Democrats' new softness flows in part from the reduction in US combat deaths. The so-called Awakening movement by some Sunni tribal leaders to take arms and money from the Americans to turn against al-Qaida in Iraq has reduced the difficulties for US troops. There is also a perception, carefully nurtured in General David Petraeus's statistical charts and testimony to Congress in September, that the back of the Iraqi resistance has been broken. Now the Iraqi government is trumpeting the fact that thousands of Iraqi refugees are coming home as further proof of a turning security tide.

»But none of these indicators is firm. The figures for returning refugees are contested, with the Iraqi government counting anyone who crosses into Iraq even though many had only gone abroad on short visits and were never refugees. Many genuine refugees leave Syria in desperation because their money or visas have run out, not because they feel safe in going back.

»When I talked to families in a muddy bus station on the outskirts of Damascus last week as they set off home, I found only Shias. “Of course Sunnis are afraid to go. The buses are provided by the Shia-led Iraqi government and Iraqi police will check them at the border,” an Iraqi Sunni told me later. His comment underlined the continuing depth of sectarian suspicions. Sunnis assume the Iraqi police, who are mainly Shias, are either in league with Shia militias and death squads or will behave just as badly. They fear being abducted or slaughtered on the way.

»Sunni concerns over Shia militias also explain the Awakening movement. Although Sunni tribal leaders are taking US arms and cash, ostensibly to confront al-Qaida, they see value in getting organised to protect their suburbs from Shia raids. The Americans may be temporarily helping to reduce violence, but their tactics help to build up Sunni militias for possible attacks on Shias in the future. Once again the Americans are looking for a military solution to what is essentially a political problem. Without national reconciliation and dialogue between Sunni and Shia community leaders – a process which neither the government of Nuri al-Maliki nor General Petraeus seems able or willing to broker – the underlying issues remain unresolved.

»The Iraqi resistance is also undimmed. The nationalist Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, has called a unilateral ceasefire, which is largely holding while the US troop “surge” is under way. The Sunni resistance is doing much the same, though without formally declaring it. As I was told by a senior resistance spokesman in Damascus, many nationalist groups have reduced their attacks in western Baghdad and parts of Anbar province while regrouping and retraining.

»A few weeks earlier I spoke to one of the spiritual fathers of the Sunni insurgency, Sheikh Harith al-Dhari, now in exile in Amman. The head of the Association of Muslim Scholars, he argued that the Awakening movement only represented a small proportion of Sunni tribal leaders. “The situation in Anbar is very bad, and many are out of work and impoverished. Some will work with anyone who pays them, whether it is al-Qaida or the US army. I agree the attacks on US forces in Anbar have gone down, but in a few months they may go up again. The US is building its hopes on a small trend. It doesn't follow it will continue,” he said.»

Mis en ligne le 7 décembre 2007 à 04H16