Décembre 2010, dernière chance de BHO ?

Décembre 2010, dernière chance de BHO ?

Un des commentaires les plus en vogue aujourd’hui est de mesurer le temps qu’il reste à Obama pour éviter que sa présidence s’achève en déroute, et dans quelles conditions. Andrew J. Bacevich, excellent commentateur des affaires militaires et stratégiques, se livre à ce jeu dans The New Republic du 4 octobre 2010.

C’est l’Afghanistan qui importe à Bacevich. S’appuyant notamment sur le livre de Bob Woodward (Obama’s Wars), Bacevich constate que Obama n'a pas la force ni la volonté de résister à ses généraux. Le plus grave dans ce constat est bien qu’Obama n’ignore pas qu’il est l’objet d’un verrouillage bureaucratique de la part des militaires, qu’il s’en plaint, et que, pourtant, il ne fait rien pour faire sauter ce verrou. En d’autres mots, selon Bacevich, Obama est un faible…

«…In other words, the implications of weakness extend beyond the who’s up, who’s down preoccupations of garden-variety politics. This confusion describes where we find ourselves today. There is no doubting that President Obama is smart, talented, well intentioned, and smooth as they come. Yet whether he possesses the temperament to govern is fast becoming an open question. Put simply, the question is this: Does Obama have sufficient backbone?

»The release of Bob Woodward's new book Obama’s Wars has raised this question to new heights. It depicts a president who not only gets rolled but who knows when he is getting rolled and still allows it to happen. With regard to how to proceed on Afghanistan—the most important foreign policy decision to cross Obama’s desk thus far—the president last year demanded that the Pentagon present him with distinctive policy options. The king didn’t want to be handed the solution; he wanted to choose.

»In fact, however, the members of his court offered him three variations of a single course of action, the one that the Pentagon itself preferred—a textbook example of how the theory of “civilian control” differs from actual practice.

»Particularly disturbing is the fact that our very smart president understood exactly what was happening. Woodward shows Obama complaining loudly. Having registered that complaint, the president more or less meekly rubber-stamped the policy that the Pentagon was foisting on him. In effect, on Afghanistan he thereby forfeited to others the power to decide. Once Obama endorsed choices made by unelected subordinates, the office of commander-in-chief had acquired additional tenants.»

Bacevich parle bien entendu des affrontements qui ont eu lieu en septembre-décembre 2009 alors qu'on décidait à Washington d'une stratégie pour l’Afghanistan. Il avertit son président : il reste une chance à Obama, c’est d’arriver à imposer sa volonté et à affirmer son autorité lors de la revue stratégique des résultats de la guerre en Afghanistan, en décembre 2010. S’il n’y parvient pas, il a perdu et il deviendra un roi sans importance et avec fort peu de divertissement…

«Yet perhaps all is not lost—at least not entirely so. The president may yet have one last chance to retrieve the situation and to reverse the impression that he is less than fully in control of his administration. The next Afghanistan “milestone” is a strategic assessment promised for this coming December, one full year after Obama announced his (or the Pentagon's) Afghan surge. The military—General David Petraeus in the vanguard—will exert itself to minimize the importance of this mid-course review. So too will members of the Petraeus Lobby, currently challenging AIPAC, the trial lawyers, the pharmaceutical industry and all the rest of the powerful interest groups vying for preeminence in Washington.

»You can take it to the bank: The military backed by militarists in mufti will press for more time. They will argue for postponing any serious decisions until July 2011, intending in the mean time to chip away at the president's vaguely stated promise to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan next summer. If Obama wishes to salvage his presidency and demonstrate his capacity to lead and to govern, he will reject that effort. He will instead seize the opportunity presented by the mid-course review.

»December is the time to render a verdict on the Afghanistan war. If the Afghan surge is still not showing clear signs of success by year's end, waiting another seven months won’t make a difference.

»December also presents Obama with an opportunity—perhaps his last one—to reverse the impression that he is not fully in control of his own administration. Decisive action just might enable the president to reassure Americans and the rest of the world that he is, after all, up to the job.

»Should he squander this last opportunity, however, the king is likely to find himself soon thereafter seeking new employment.»

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