Bloc BAO : retour sur clichés

Bloc BAO : retour sur clichés

L’un des reporteurs-vedette de The Independent, Robert Fisk, grand spécialiste des affaires moyennes-orientales, a publié en cette fin d’année 2012 quelques textes qui reprennent la somme de ces expériences de l’année, sur les divers terrains de la région, en y ajoutant quelques prévisions diverses. Cela forme un ensemble rafraîchissant, notamment pour ce qui concerne les déclarations officielles des pays du bloc BAO et les stocks de clichés que la presse-Système a utilisé comme autant de munitions interventionnistes et absolument morales, comme autant de marques d’indépendance de l’esprit…

• Dans The Independent du 24 décembre 2012.

«… So, too, in Syria. By the spring of last year, the Western commentariat was writing off Bashar al-Assad. He did not deserve “to live on this earth”, according to French Foreign Secretary Laurent Fabius. He must “step down”, “step aside”. His regime had only weeks to go, perhaps only days. This was the “tipping point”. Then by summer, when the “tipping point” had come and gone, we were told that Assad was about to use gas “against his own people”. Or that his supplies of chemical weapons might “fall into the wrong hands” (the “right hands” still presumably being Assad’s).

»Syria’s rebels were always “closing in” – on Homs, then Damascus, then Aleppo, then Damascus again. The West supported the rebels. Money and guns aplenty came from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, moral support from Obama, Clinton, the pathetic Hague, Hollande, the whole factory of goodness – until, inevitably, it turned out that the rebels contained rather a lot of Salafists, executioners, sectarian killers and, in one case, a teenage head-chopper who behaved rather like the ruthless regime they were fighting. The factory had to put some of its machinery into reverse. The US still supported the good, secular rebels but now regarded the horrible Salafist rebels as a “terrorist organisation”… […]

»Obama might not bomb Iran, he didn’t really want to, but – wait for it – “all options” were “on the table”. And so, of course, with Israel, which wanted to bomb Iran because it might, or could, manufacture nuclear weapons or was in the process of doing so, or might have them in six months, or a year, or several years’ time but – again – “all options” were “on the table”. Netanyahu’s “window of opportunity” would last, we were told, until the US presidential election. And so this nonsense continued until... well, until the US presidential election, by which time we were warned again that Iran was producing, or might, or could produce a nuclear weapon…[…]

»In Libya, of course, the US turned out to have more enemies than it thought; the ambassador was murdered by – and the jury must remain out on this despite the obfuscations of Clinton – an al-Qa’ida-type militia. Indeed, al-Qa’ida itself – politically bankrupt by the time of Osama bin Laden’s murder by a US military assassination squad in 2011 – was virtually written off by the White House in advance of the Obama re-election. But the ghostly desperadoes of Wahabism acquired that habit so beloved of movie monsters; they began to recreate themselves in different form in different lands. Mali replaced Afghanistan, just as Libya replaced Yemen and just as Syria replaced Iraq.

»A word of advice, therefore, for Middle East potentates, dictators, Western poseurs, television presenters and journos. Do not use the following words or expressions in 2013: moderate, democracy, step down, step aside, tipping point, falling into the wrong hands, closing in, spilling over, options on the table or – terror, terror, terror, terror. Too much to hope for? You bet. We’ll even get another load of cliches from the goodness factory to replace those that have already served their purpose.»

• Dans The Independent du 31 décembre 2012.

«Iran? Well, the Iranians understand the West much better than we understand the Iranians – a lot of them, remember, were educated in the United States. And they’ve an intriguing way of coming out on top whatever they do. George Bush (and Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara) invaded Afghanistan and rid the Shia Iranians of their Sunni enemy, whom they always called the “Black Taliban”. Then Bush-Blair invaded Iraq and got rid of the Islamic Republic’s most loathsome enemy, Saddam Hussein. Thus did Iran win both the Afghan and the Iraqi war – without firing a shot.

»There’s no doubt that Iran would fire a shot or two if Israel/America – the two are interchangeable in Iran as in many other Middle East countries – were to attack its nuclear facilities. But Israel has no stomach for an all-out war against Iran – it would lose – and the US, having lost two Middle East wars, has no enthusiasm for losing a third. Sanctions – and here is Iran’s real potential nemesis – are causing far more misery than Israel’s F-18s. And why is America threatening Iran in the first place? It didn’t threaten India when it went nuclear. And when that most unstable and extremist state called Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons, no US threat was made to bomb its facilities. True, we’ve heard that more recently – in case the nukes “fell into the wrong hands”, as in gas which might “fall into the wrong hands” in Syria; or in Gaza, for that matter, where democracy “fell into the wrong hands” the moment Hamas won elections there in 2006. […]

»So what’s left for 2013? Assad, of course. He’s already trying to win back some rebel forces to his own ruthless side – an intelligent though dangerous tactic – and the West is getting up to its knees in rebel cruelty. Yes, Assad will go. One day. He says as much. But don’t expect it to happen in the immediate future. Or Gaddafi-style. The old mantra still applies. Egypt was not Tunisia and Yemen was not Egypt and Libya was not Yemen and Syria is not Libya. […]

»And the Gulf? Arabia, where the first Arab awakening began? Where, indeed, the first Arab revolution – the advent of Islam – burst forth upon the world. There are those who say that the Gulf kingdoms will remain secure for years to come. Don’t count on it. Watch Saudi Arabia. Remember what that British diplomat wrote 130 years ago. “Even in Mecca...”»

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