Avec les menaces de Bush & Cie, le pire est toujours probable : le cas du nucléaire iranien

Pourquoi les Iraniens envisagent-ils de fabriquer, ou bien ont déjà lancé la fabrication d’une arme nucléaire? Paul Pillar, analyste de la CIA, chargé de la rédaction du rapport annuel général d’estimation (NIE pour National Intelligence Estimates) sur l’Iran de 2002 à 2005, rapporte que la crainte d’attaques de la part des USA et d’Israël constitue un facteur important. Pillar: « Iranian perceptions of threat, especially from the United States and Israel, were not the only factor but were in our judgment part of what drove whatever effort they were making to build nuclear weapons. »

Diverses appréciations dans ce sens sont recueillies dans un article de Gareth Porter, sur IPS News le 7 février. « Ellen Laipson, now president of the Henry L. Stimson Centre in Washington, managed three or four NIEs on Iran as national intelligence officer for the Near East from 1990 to 1993, and closely followed others as vice chair of the National Intelligence Council from 1997 to 2002. In an interview with IPS, she said the Iranian fear of an attack by the United States has long been “a standard element” in NIEs on Iran. Laipson said she was “virtually certain the estimates linked Iran's threat perceptions to its nuclear programme”. [...]. Laipson said the intelligence analysts had a “fairly consistent understanding” of Iranian perceptions of threat. “We could tell they were afraid of the U.S. both from their behaviour and from their public statements.” »

La politique agressive des USA vis-à-vis de l’Iran, notamment avec des déclarations publiques (le fameux “axe du mal” du discours sur l’état de l’Union de 2002, dans lequel l’Iran était compris), a fortement contribué à fortifier la volonté iranienne de se doter d’armes de destruction massive, dont le nucléaire. « A declassified letter from the CIA to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham on Apr. 8, 2002 [...] stated, “There appears to be broad consensus among Iranians that they live in a highly dangerous region and face serious external threats to their government, prompting us to assess that Tehran will pursue missile and WMD technologies indefinitely as critical means of national security.”

» The letter then suggested that the external threats were focused largely on the United States, adding that “persistent suspicion of U.S. motives will help preserve the broad consensus among Iran's political elite and public for the pursuit of missile and WMD technologies as a matter of critical national security”. »

Enfin, dans cette revue d’analyses d’un bon sens qui semble échapper aux Occidentaux, apparaît l’idée que l’absence de menaces et l’absence de contraintes sont évidemment les meilleurs moyens d’arrêter l’évolution d’un pays, et de l’Iran en l’occurrence, vers le développement du nucléaire. « Joseph Cirincione, a non-proliferation specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, told IPS that an analysis that links Iran's security concerns about the United States have driven its quest for nuclear weapons would be consistent with the history of other nations' policies toward acquiring nuclear weapons. “No nation has ever been coerced into giving up a nuclear programme,” he said, “but many have been convinced to do so by the disappearance of the threat.” »

Mis en ligne le 11 février 2006 à 15H41