Contrastes, USA...

Il est difficile de trouver coïncidence (?) plus appropriée, qu’entre le discours d’un Cheney quasiment hallucinée, dimanche, et l’interview du président du comité des chefs d’état-major (Joint Chief of Staff), l’amiral Mullen qui vient de prendre ses fonctions. Cheney, qu’on pourrait décrire avec des éclairs dans les yeux, semble effectivement sur le bord de l’apoplexie à l’idée de pouvoir attaquer l’Iran. Mullen, lui, freine comme font tous les gens au Pentagone, du secrétaire à la défense Gates aux divers amiraux et généraux.

Jim Lobe rapporte et décrit, aujourd’hui, l’intervention de Cheney, qui représente un sommet de l’offensive rhétorique de l’administration (“It’s rhetoric, stupid”, selon GW).

«In the harshest speech against Iran given by a top Bush administration official to date, Vice President Dick Cheney Sunday warned the Islamic Republic of “serious consequences” if it did not freeze its nuclear program and accused it of “direct involvement in the killings of Americans.”

»“Given the nature of Iran's rulers, the declarations of the Iranian president, and the trouble the regime is causing throughout the region – including the direct involvement in the killing of Americans – our country and the entire international community cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its most aggressive ambitions,'' Cheney warned in a major policy address to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP).

»“The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences,” he added. “The United States joins other nations in sending a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

»In his nearly 30-minute speech, an uncompromising defense of the Bush administration's record in the Middle East, Cheney also claimed that, with Washington's “surge” strategy working well against al-Qaeda in Iraq, the “greatest strategic threat that Iraq's Shi'ites face today in consolidating their rightful role in Iraq's new democracy is the subversive activities of the Iranian regime.”»

L’amiral Mullen était interviewé par le New York , dans les éditions d’aujourd’hui du quotidien. Mullen vient d’effectuer une tournée d’inspection dans les grands théâtres d’opération, pour marquer son entrée en fonction à la présidence du JCS. Ses intervention sur l’Iran, sur la possibilité d’une attaque, etc., sont faites sur un ton radicalement différent de celui de Cheney. On trouve, marquée comme elle le fut rarement au travers de proximités de dates, l’opposition entre militaires et civils. Subsiste et ne cesse de s’accentuer, bien sûr, ce fait extraordinaire des officiers généraux interférant directement par leurs commentaires sur la politique de la direction civile.

Ci-dessous les extraits de l’interview où l’amiral Mullen parle de l’Iran.

«[Mullen] rejected the counsel of those who might urge immediate attacks inside Iran to destroy nuclear installations or to stop the flow of explosives that end up as powerful roadside bombs in Iraq or Afghanistan, killing American troops.

»With America at war in two Muslim countries, he said, attacking a third Islamic nation in the region “has extraordinary challenges and risks associated with it.” The military option, he said, should be a last resort.

»But Admiral Mullen warned any nation, including Iran, not to “mistake restraint for lack of commitment or lack of concern or lack of capability.” He described the Air Force and Navy as America’s “strategic reserve,” ready to carry out a full range of combat operations beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.

(…)

»He pushed back against those who are calling for military action against Iran’s nuclear program, saying that diplomatic and economic pressure must take precedence.

»The threat to American and allied troops from high-powered explosives from Iran, he said, should be countered by halting their flow into Iraq or Afghanistan across the borders, and with attacks on those bomb-making and bomb-planting cells inside Iraq or Afghanistan.

»“That said, that doesn’t get at the source of it,” he acknowledged. Asked whether the American military should aim at sites inside Iran if intelligence indicated that such interdiction could halt the flow of those bombs, he said “the risks could be very, very high.”

»“We’re in a conflict in two countries out there right now,” he added. “We have to be incredibly thoughtful about the potential of in fact getting into a conflict with a third country in that part of the world.”»

Mis en ligne le 22 octobre 2007 à 18H37