Attention, ce Président est dangereux

L’historien anglais Niall Ferguson, qui enseigne à Harvard et se rend souvent à Washington, rapporte que GW Bush est tenu partout à Washington pour un président fini (“a lame duck”). Lui-même ajoute : “raison de plus de s’en méfier ”.

Sans espoir de se faire réélire par situation constitutionnelle et sans perspective normale intéressante à cause de sa position de faiblesse, GW est un homme qui n’a doublement plus rien à perdre. A cause de cela, tout est possible de sa part, y compris le pire, — c’est-à-dire, selon Ferguson, une attaque contre l’Iran.

Voici ce que nous dit l’historien (dans The Daily Telegraph d’aujourd’hui) :

« Congressmen should beware of underestimating this president as others have done in the past. They should remember that a second-term president is not necessarily a lame duck. He is also a man with nothing to lose.

» So my guess is that Bush is going to bite back. And the obvious way for him to do this is over Iran. Last Tuesday Vice-President Dick Cheney gave a speech in which he bluntly declared: "We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." Remind you of anything? It was Cheney who set the pace four years ago, as the administration prepared to confront Iraq, insisting that Saddam already possessed weapons of mass destruction. And the same sequence of events now looks set to replay itself.

» The United States is going to ask the UN Security Council to impose sanctions if Iran does not halt its programme of uranium enrichment. The other permanent members won't agree. And then… Well, when those missiles slam into the Iranian nuclear facilities, don't say I didn't warn you.

» Harvard's revolution was a reminder that in academic politics the stakes are relatively low. Larry Summers may even find he is happier back in the classroom, teaching the subject he loves. But where the stakes are high - and they don't get any higher than American national security - the presidents are harder to roll over. The next time you hear the word "duck" in Washington, my advice would be to do just that. »

Mis en ligne le 12 mars 2006 à 20H16